What's new

Maps are back — the neighborhood map went blank for everyone on 2026-07-30 after our map provider updated their hosted style overnight. Every map surface — the feed strip, the explore rail, listing pages, and the set-your-area picker — draws again.

Handle changes catch up on their own now — if you pick a new handle at your account host, Gifthood notices within a few minutes and shows it everywhere your name appears. Before, an old handle could linger on listings and raised hands until our next update.

Email, for when you're not looking at Gifthood — turn on email under Notification settings and we'll let you know when someone raises a hand on your listing, when you get a message you haven't seen yet, or with a daily digest of new nearby listings. Connecting an email address is its own step, separate from signing in, and always declinable — most accounts are ready to go right away, and if your address isn't already verified with your account host, we'll send one confirmation link first. Turn any of it (or all of it) off any time from Settings or the unsubscribe link at the bottom of every email we send.

A more beautiful map — the neighborhood map now has crisper streets, calmer colors, and clearer labels, served by Maptoolkit, a community-friendly map service hosted in Europe. Their small logo on the map is part of the deal for the free service.

A clearer permissions screen — connecting your account now shows one plainly-worded Gifthood permission bundle under our own name, instead of a long list of technical identifiers. Switching everyone over meant resetting sign-ins once: on your next visit you'll be asked to sign in again, and everything will be right where you left it.

Sign-in got sturdier behind the scenes — we tightened how sign-in credentials are stored and handled, and laid the groundwork for a clearer permissions screen when you connect your account.

Photos start loading sooner — listing photos and avatars now load straight from the nearby cache network instead of taking a detour through our server first, so images begin appearing the moment a page does.

Browsing is lighter and faster, especially on phones — listing photos and neighbor avatars in feeds and lists now load as right-sized thumbnails instead of full-size photos, so pages appear quicker and use a fraction of the data they used to.

Previews that say "Lending" — Share a lend listing into a chat and the preview card now says so: "Free · Lending" (or "Looking to borrow"), instead of reading like a giveaway.

Some things shouldn't change hands forever — lend them out and get them back.

Already open where you live? No more waiting. Join the list, verify your email, pin your neighborhood — and your invite arrives on the spot. Already on the list? Your personal page now notices when your area goes live and hands you your invite right there.

Invited but haven't jumped in yet? Your page works for you too. Your neighborhood page now keeps your waiting invite and your personal share link side by side — so you can bring neighbors along even before you join.

Help open your neighborhood. Waitlist members now get a personal page showing how close their area is to opening — with a link to share, so neighbors and friends nearby can join the list and count toward the same goal. Signing up through a friend's link connects you to their area, and your page quietly keeps track of how many neighbors you've brought along. When your area opens, the same page is where your invite shows up.

Exactly what's on your device, in plain words. The Privacy Policy now names every cookie we set — what it's for and how long it lasts — and explains the handful of things remembered in your browser, like your preferred maps app. The short version hasn't changed: no ads, no analytics, no tracking, from us or anyone else.

The fine print is now the real print. Our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy are finished — a real effective date, plain answers about what we store and share, and someone at the other end of legal@gifthood.org and privacy@gifthood.org. The draft banner is gone: what you read on the Terms and Privacy pages is what applies.

Browse and share without being visible to the whole web. There's a new Privacy toggle under Profile → Privacy: turn on "Discourage apps from showing my account to logged-out users" and visitors who aren't signed in won't see your profile, listings, raised hands, or notes — they'll be invited to sign in instead. Heads up: this is a request other apps on the open network may not honor, and it doesn't make your account private.

Share what you find. Every listing, every profile, and your nearby feed now has a share button — send it through your phone's share sheet, or copy a link anywhere. Feed links carry your area with them, so whoever opens one sees what you see.

Hear about gifts the moment they land nearby. Turn on "New listings nearby" and Gifthood will nudge you when a neighbor posts something in your area — you pick how far that reaches, from your immediate blocks to a wider ~5 km circle.

New listing category: Office & School Supplies. Desk chairs, binders, backpacks, printer paper — office and school gear now has its own home when you post a listing or filter your feed.

The last stray stripe on the area map is gone. One diagonal band of shading could still cut across the "choose your area" map at certain zoom levels — the map engine was over-simplifying the region outline as it tiled it. We now tell it to draw the outline exactly, so the open area reads clean at every zoom.

Finishing the "choose your area" map cleanup. The last release fixed most of the smudged shading on the area picker; a second, subtler culprit kept a few streaks and doubled patches alive in areas drawn with different brush sizes. That's gone now too — the open neighborhoods read crisp everywhere.

The "choose your area" map no longer smudges. When you post a listing (or set your area), the map shades the places outside our open neighborhoods. On some regions that shading broke into stray streaks and dark patches that spilled over the open area, making it hard to see where you could actually post. The shading now draws cleanly, so the open neighborhoods read crisp and clear.

No more actions that quietly go nowhere. Every so often the app updates in the background while you still have a page open. If you posted a note, raised a hand, or marked something done in that exact moment, it used to fail silently — nothing happened, and no explanation. Now you'll get a clear nudge to refresh and try again, so you're never left wondering whether it went through.

A direct line to your account settings. If your account lives on gifthood.social, the menu under your avatar now has an Account & security link that takes you straight to your account page — where you change your email or password, add app passwords, or download your data. (If your account lives somewhere else, you'll manage it there, so the link stays out of your way.)

You can now delete your account yourself. Profile → Danger zone → Delete account walks you through exactly what gets removed (your listings and conversations — everywhere, not just here) and what we keep (moderation records, invites you gave out). If your account lives on gifthood.social, the whole account goes with it. No email, no waiting period.

The waitlist now understands the places people actually name — type "Brooklyn, NY" or "Woodland Hills, CA" and it finds the spot, even though they're not cities on any map.

Sharper place names across the map — Hawaiʻi and Las Vegas communities show their real names (Honolulu, Kailua, Paradise), Alaska listings get their ", AK" back, and neighborhood boundaries are more precise everywhere.

Rural listings now name their place properly — "Multnomah County, OR" instead of the puzzling "Multnomah, OR" (and "Halifax Regional Municipality" no longer loses its last word).

Signing back in after a permissions update now takes you straight to your login provider — no need to type your handle again.

Leave a friendly note on any listing — say hi, ask a question, or just be kind.

Some gifts don't run out — now your listing doesn't have to either.

A gift now has a full arc — from raised hand to "it happened."

Easier to step away from our emails — every waitlist email now carries a one-click unsubscribe and a quiet link at the bottom. No hard feelings — and re-joining the waitlist always turns them back on.

Photos load faster — listing photos and avatars are now served from a nearby cache instead of being fetched across the network on every view.

Sharing looks right now — send a listing or an area link to a friend and it unfurls into a proper preview card, with photos and the area name, in messages and on social apps.

The door's open for a look around.

See when neighbors follow you, right from your Activity tab.

See who's offering — each listing now shows the neighbor who posted it.

See roughly how far each listing is, and sort by what's closest.

You can bring your neighbors in now — Gifthood grows by invitation, the way a good block does.

Gifthood is here — a warm, no-money way to give what you don't need and find what you do, among the neighbors right around you, on a network you actually own.