Zamilist
Personal project · Bilingual web app · Everyday organization
A grocery list ready in seconds, then automatically sorted by aisle.
At home, my wife often texts me the grocery list. It’s handy… until the milk ends up between the toilet paper and the bananas, and a little “Oh, I forgot…” arrives while I’m already at the store. Zamilist was born from that very everyday problem: a quick way to turn a list received by text into a grocery list sorted by aisle. The project then grew to include gift wishlists and travel checklists.
From a simple text to a list ready for the store
The idea behind Zamilist is simple: spend less time preparing your list and more time getting your groceries done.
You copy a list you received by text, paste it into Zamilist, and the items are automatically grouped by aisle: fruits and vegetables, bakery, dairy, household products, and so on.
Once at the store, all that’s left is to check items off as you go. And since the list can be shared, family members can add whatever is missing too.
The goal isn’t to complicate a simple task with a ton of features. It’s to make the grocery list as practical as it always should have been.
The heart of the project: automatic grocery sorting
Here’s what happens with a list that arrived by text, in the order the items were requested. I copy the items into Zamilist; the app groups them by aisle. All that’s left is to check items off as I go.
Milk
Apples
Bread
Yogurt
Bananas
🥕 Fruits & vegetables
☐ Apples ☐ Bananas
🥖 Bakery
☐ Bread
🥛 Dairy
☐ Milk ☐ Yogurt
Paste multiple items
Add a whole list at once instead of typing each item one by one.
Find the right aisles
Items are grouped automatically. You can fix categories and arrange aisles your own way.
Check off and share
A list can be shared with a web link, without making the people who open it install an app.
Gift wishlists to share, without spoiling the surprise
The lists that get passed around in messages don’t stop at groceries. With gifts too, people swap ideas and links, and then comes the big question: “Has anyone already bought it?” So I wanted to bring the same simplicity to gift lists, with one small difference: this time, the surprise has to be kept.
Zamilist’s gift wishlists let you create a wishlist, add ideas with a price or a product link, and then share it. Friends and family can claim a gift, which helps avoid duplicates.
The key detail: reservations stay hidden from the person who created the list, so the surprise is preserved.
🎁 A list for Christmas, a birthday or any other occasion
Gift ideas, product links, sharing with loved ones and reservations: a simple way to coordinate gifts without endless messages.
Travel, preparations and checklists
A list isn’t always a shopping list. When getting ready for a trip, a camping weekend or an event, what you mostly want is to note what to bring or do, then check it off without forgetting anything.
Zamilist also offers these practical checklists, reusable and shareable. The idea stays the same: spend less time managing the list and more time doing what matters.
A web project, not an app to install
I wanted Zamilist to be available right in the browser, on a phone as well as a computer. The interface is available in English and French, with particular care given to simple interactions and fast loading.
On the technical side, the project relies on Cloudflare Workers and D1 for server-side features and data, along with sign-in using a code sent by email. The work covers the user experience as much as list syncing, secure sharing, payments and SEO.
A free version already lets you create and use the main lists. Zamilist Plus adds extra tools, such as access to all your usual items, unlimited recipe imports and shortcuts to redo the week’s groceries.
Zamilist is a personal project that I develop and improve over time. This page on cabana.dev tells the story behind it; up-to-date features are available directly on Zamilist.
