Using Pattlist offline, and how syncing works

Supermarkets are notorious for bad reception, so Pattlist keeps your lists on your phone. With no connection at all you can still open the app, add and tick off items, add notes and photos, and create, rename or delete lists. Everything updates on your screen straight away.

Pattlist queues what you changed and sends it once you’re back online, to everyone on the list and to your other devices. If the connection drops halfway through, it picks up where it left off, without doubling anything up.

A few things involve someone else, so they need a connection at the time:

• Inviting someone to a list, and removing someone from it.
• Leaving a list.
• Hiding a suggestion with Do not recommend.
• Deleting your account. If you’re offline, Pattlist keeps everything and tells you so.

Pattlist tells you when one of these needs you to reconnect, rather than failing quietly.

• Lists owned by a Plus subscriber update in real time. When someone adds or ticks off an item, everyone with the list open sees it within moments.
• Free lists catch up when you bring Pattlist back to the foreground, and when you open the lists menu.

Either way, nothing is lost: Pattlist also catches up on anything it missed while your phone was asleep.

Pattlist settles clashes without asking you to choose:

• Two people tick or untick the same item, or edit the same note: the later change wins.
• Someone deletes an item while someone else ticks it, or adds a note to it: the item stays deleted, and doesn’t come back.
• Someone adds items to a list its owner has just deleted: the list stays deleted, along with those items.

If the server turns down one change because of a plan limit, for example a third list made on another phone, Pattlist removes it, tells you why, and still syncs everything else you did.

When you log out, Pattlist first sends anything you changed offline, then keeps your lists on the phone for when you sign back in.