outdoor.gift › Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions
Short, honest answers to the questions we hear most — from cost and offline use to packing as a pair.
What is outdoor.gift?
outdoor.gift is a free packing-list app for trekking: manage gear with real weights, plan trips as packing lists, keep every gram in view. The special part: food weighs itself — dehydrator recipes drop their dry weight straight into the packing list. The app works offline in the browser and installs on any device.
How much does outdoor.gift cost?
Nothing. The app is completely free — no list limit, no subscription, no premium tier. The project is funded through clearly labelled partner links and voucher codes in the gear catalog: if you buy through them, you pay the normal shop price — the commission is covered by the retailer.
Does the app work offline?
Yes. outdoor.gift is built offline-first: once opened, recipes, gear and packing lists work without a connection — on the trail too. The app installs to your home screen like a native app.
Do I need an account?
No. The app works entirely without signing up; all data stays on your device. An account (passwordless, via email code) is only needed to sync multiple devices or to share a gear pool with your partner.
How is outdoor.gift different from LighterPack?
LighterPack is the classic, but has no offline access, cannot be installed as an app, and offers no persistent gear library across lists and no collaboration. outdoor.gift has a permanent gear library, works offline, speaks German and English, calculates food weight from recipes and supports packing as a pair. An existing LighterPack list imports via CSV export in about a minute.
How does packing as a pair work?
You create a shared pool in your account and invite your partner via link. Shared gear (tent, stove, pot) is maintained once, together; in a shared trip you decide per item who carries it. Everyone sees their own pack weight against their own target — and the app warns while items are unassigned. Free, with no limit.
What does "worn" mean?
Worn items do not count toward pack weight: boots on your feet, jacket on your body, sunglasses on your nose. In outdoor.gift you mark such items as worn — they stay on the checklist but are excluded from pack weight. This follows the common ultralight convention.
What is base weight?
Base weight is the weight of your packed backpack without consumables. outdoor.gift excludes food and drinks — fuel currently still counts if you keep the gas canister with your cook set. It is the stable number to compare between trips; outdoor.gift shows base weight and food separately.
Where do the food weights come from?
From the app's dehydrator recipes: every recipe stores a dry weight per serving (e.g. 85 g instead of 400 g wet weight), multiplied automatically by the number of servings when added to a trip. If you don't dehydrate, you enter your own food with grams per serving — instant soup, bars, nuts.
Can I share a trip journal with photos after the tour?
Yes. Every trip has a journal (dated entries) and a photo gallery. "Share journal" creates its own public link — independent of the packing-list share, optionally with the packing list attached. That way the plain packing list can go to a forum while the journal with photos goes only to family and friends. Both links stay stable, are kept up to date automatically and can be revoked at any time.
How does outdoor.gift handle privacy?
No personal tracking, no cookies, no ad profiles, no external services — app and website are self-hosted in Germany and GDPR-compliant. The app itself counts nothing; the website counts only aggregated, anonymous page views and clicks — no IP addresses, no cookies. Your data lives on your device; with an account it is additionally transferred encrypted to our server, exportable and deletable at any time. Affiliate links are labelled.