How to make shopping lists with Google Home

While the Google Home smart speaker still can't create reminders and take voice notes, it can keep track of your shopping list. Just say, "OK, Google , add bread to my shopping list." And lo, bread will indeed be added to your list, which you can later reference in the Google Home app.

Before last month, the shopping list you built using the Home could be found in your Google Keep app, where you could store all your other notes. But with a recent update, that has changed.

Here's everything you need to know about how it works now.

The new Google Home shopping list

As of April 10, the shopping list you build with the Home is no longer stored in Keep. Instead, Google has moved the Assistant shopping list into what it calls a "primary Google Shopping List," which is located in Google Express -- Google's shopping service.

This list will be a unified shopping list between what you tell Google Home to add to it and what you save to it directly from Google Express... if you use it.

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To access your shopping list from a computer, go to google.com/express and click on the list icon to the left of the shopping cart icon. You can also find it on mobile by opening either the Google Home or Google Express apps, tapping the hamburger button in the top left to expand the menu and selecting Shopping List.

All of the items on your previous Google Keep shopping list have since been copied over to the new list, and if you shared your previous list with someone on Keep, the new list will automatically be shared with them, as well.

This change came not quite two months after Google introduced voice shopping with Google Express using Google Home back in February.

It's very clear what Google's intention is here -- it's trying to encourage you to shop with Google Express. This is evident by simply opening the new shopping list, where you find a button at the bottom that says Shop your list, as well as a button to the right of each item, which will launch an Express search for that entry when possible.

In Google Keep, you were able to add labels, duplicate your shopping list, uncheck all items, delete checked items and much more. This new shopping list only allows you to check, delete or edit a line item. You can also hide or show checked items and share the list with new users, but that's roughly the extent of the features. As with many Google products, this is the first iteration of the new shopping list, so it will likely receive updates and new features in the coming months.

This is similar to how Amazon's Alexa handles shopping lists. They're accessed within the Alexa app or alexa.amazon.com, and it includes shortcuts to Amazon or Bing searches, and lets you move items to your to-do list or edit and delete items.

Create your own shopping list

If you want a little more freedom with your shopping list or need a shopping list with more options for managing it, you're not entirely out of luck. There are at least three options for creating your own shopping lists with Google Home.

OurGroceries

OurGroceries is a third-party shopping list service that lets you sync your shopping list across all your devices. It's simple to setup, free to use and it's integrated with Google Home as an Assistant app. Both the Android and iOS apps are free to download and use, but removing ads will set you back $4.99, £4.99 or AU$7.99.

If you don't already have an OurGroceries account, either go to ourgroceries.com or download the Android or iOS app and create a new account. Next, open the Google Home app and go to More settings > Services > OurGroceries and click Link account. Sign into your OurGroceries account. Then, to add new items to your OurGroceries list instead of the Google Express shopping list, say something like, "OK, Google, ask OurGroceries to add milk."

Of course, this means you will need to have yet another app installed on your phone for keeping something as simple as a grocery list. A big advantage to using OurGroceries, however, is that you can manage multiple lists. Create a separate list in the OurGroceries app, then say, "OK, Google, ask OurGroceries to add milk to [list name]," or, "OK, Google, ask OurGroceries to remove milk from [list name]."

Also, you can ask what's on a list by saying, "OK, Google, what's on my shopping list?" or, "OK, Google, what's on [list name]?"

Within the OurGroceries app, you're able to fully manage your shopping lists by starring specific items, adding new items by suggestions, increase the amount of a specific item you need, scan barcodes, categorize list items and more.

Todoist

Todoist is a task manager that has integrated itself with Google Home using third-party Actions (also called services).

To setup the service, you first need a Todoist account. After you've setup an account, open the Google Home app, go to More settings > Services > Todoist and tap Link. Login to your Todoist account and authorize the connection.

To start using the service, say, "OK, Google, let me talk to Todoist," or, "OK, Google, tell Todoist to add 'buy milk' to my tasks."

IFTTT

With IFTTT, you have options for how you can create a shopping list. You can have your list be created in Evernote , iOS Reminders, Kyber, MeisterTask, Todoist, Toodledo, Trello or Wunderlist. To create an IFTTT applet for a Google Home shopping list:

• Go to ifttt.com, click on your username in the upper right corner of the page to access the drop-down menu and select New Applet.
• Click This to begin.
• Under Choose Trigger Channel, search for Google Assistant and select it.
• For the trigger, select Say a phrase with a text ingredient. Type in a phrase like, "Add $ to Evernote shopping list," where $ stands for the thing you want added to the list, and click Create trigger. Optionally, you can create additional wordings of the phrase.
• Click That to continue.
• Search for the channel of your note or task manager of choice and select it. For this example, we chose Evernote.
• For the Action, your options will vary. For Evernote, choose Append a to-do to note. (With a task manager, you'll want to choose something like Create task.)
• Set a title for the note and make sure to add { {TextField} } as the name of the new task or the appended section of the note. This will ensure IFTTT uses the text ingredient of your phrase (like milk, eggs or anything else you would be adding to your shopping list).
• Click Create action.
• Give the applet a name and click Finish.

We created an applet using Evernote and the same trigger phrase as above. With this applet, if you say, "OK, Google, add milk to Evernote shopping list," the text will be parsed and Milk is added as a checkbox task in an Evernote note titled Shopping List.