Why this exists
The things worth putting into beanies almost never start in beanies. A party invitation arrives in a message, a flight confirmation lands in your email, a recipe turns up on a friend’s feed. Until now, getting any of those in meant opening beanies, finding the right reader, and hunting for the file all over again.
Now you can send it straight across from wherever it already is. beanies reads it, works out what it is, and opens the right form with everything filled in for you to check.
How to share something
In whichever app the photo, screenshot, PDF or text is in, tap Share — for text, select the part you want first
Choose beanies.family from the list that appears
The first time, beanies asks your permission to send this one thing to be read — have a look at what it says, then agree
beanies reads it and opens the matching form, already filled in
Check it over and tap Save
Nothing is saved until you press Save. If beanies reads something wrong — or you change your mind — just close the form and nothing is added.
What beanies can read
Photos, screenshots, PDFs, links — and text you have selected. Share a recipe page, an event page or a YouTube video and beanies opens the page, reads it, and fills in the form. Anything else, like a spreadsheet or a zip file, simply will not list beanies as a choice.
beanies decides for itself which of three things it is looking at: an activity (an invitation, a school notice, a flyer), a trip (a flight, a hotel, a booking confirmation), or a recipe. If it genuinely cannot tell, it says so instead of guessing — you can still add the item yourself.
Sharing text you have selected
Sometimes there is no attachment at all — the details are the message. A class-group message with the trip date and the drop-off time, an email confirming a booking, a note a friend sent. Select the part with the details in it, tap Share, and choose beanies.
A whole message is fine — you do not need to trim it down to the useful part. beanies reads what you send and works out for itself whether it is an activity, a trip or a recipe, exactly as it does for a photo. A tighter selection is still read a little more precisely, so it is worth trimming an enormous thread.
The text you select is sent to the private AI reader so it can be understood, in exactly the same way a photo is. It is used to fill in the form and is not kept separately. Nothing is added to your family’s data until you check the form and press Save.
When beanies says no to some text
- Too little to go on. A few words cannot carry a date, a time and a place, so beanies asks for a bit more rather than guessing.
- A very long thread. An ordinary email is fine. Something enormous — a whole thread with every reply — is more than beanies reads in one go: it reads the beginning and tells you it did, so check the form before saving.
- A lot of reading in a short time. There is a limit on how much beanies reads for one family in an hour. It is there to keep costs predictable for everyone, and it tells you when it lifts. Sharing photos and PDFs is not affected.
When what you share has a link in it
Most messages worth sharing have a link somewhere — the school website, a payment page, a signature. beanies looks at how much you actually sent: share a whole message and it reads the message, treating the links in it as part of the text; share a link with a few words around it and it opens the link instead. You do not have to choose.
Sharing a link
Share a link the same way you share a photo — from the browser, from YouTube, from wherever it is. beanies opens the page, reads it, and works out whether it is an activity, a trip or a recipe.
- Recipe pages often carry their recipe in a form beanies can read exactly — when they do, you get the real quantities and times, with nothing guessed at all.
- YouTube videos are read from the description, not the video. If the cook put a link to their recipe in the description, beanies follows it — which is usually where the exact quantities live.
- Pages behind a login or a paywall cannot be read. beanies will say so rather than guessing.
Sharing a photo with a caption? beanies reads the photo and ignores the caption — one share is always one item.
Sharing several photos at once
If one thing spreads across several photos — a two-page invitation, a recipe photographed from both sides of the card — select them all and share them together. beanies reads them as the pages of one item and gives you a single form, not one form per photo.
beanies reads up to five pages at a time. Share more than that and it will tell you it only read the first few — it never drops pages quietly. The first photo is the one kept and attached to the saved item.
If nothing happens
- “Sign in first” — beanies needs you signed in before it can put anything in your pod. Open beanies, sign in, then share it again.
- “Almost ready” — beanies was still opening your family’s data. Give it a moment and share it again.
- “Still reading” — one document is already being read. Wait for that one to finish, then share the next.
- “Reader unavailable” — beanies worked out what it was, but that reader is switched off for your family, or your role does not include editing that part of the pod. An owner can check this in Settings.
What happens to what you share
The same thing that happens with the readers inside the app: the document is sent to be read, and nothing else about your family goes with it. You are asked for permission the first time, and the details are in the note that appears — there is more in How beanies AI handles your photos.