How to create your first wishlist
Step by step: create your first wishlist on Wishlist.de, from picking the occasion to sharing the link.
Creating a wishlist takes a couple of minutes. Here’s the whole path, from picking an occasion to sharing the link.
Step 1: Create an account or sign in
If you don’t have an account yet, sign up for free at wishlist.de/signup. All you need is:
- a name
- an email address
- a password
You can also sign in with Google, which is quicker.
Step 2: Pick the occasion
Once you’re signed in, start a new wishlist or go straight to wishlist.de/wishlists/new.
The first thing you choose is the occasion:
| Occasion | What it’s for |
|---|---|
| 🎂 Birthday | Perfect for birthday wishes |
| 💒 Wedding | For a wishlist you share |
| 👶 Baby | For a baby shower or a new arrival |
| 👔 Office & team | Work anniversary, retirement, farewell and more |
| 💎 For creators | Fans give you gifts and support you — with a profile and more |
Ten more sit behind the extended picker, among them Christmas, Easter, Graduation, First day of school and Custom occasion for anything that doesn’t fit. In season, up to two of them move into the main picker — the ones whose season ends soonest, so in March Easter, First Communion and Confirmation compete for the two places.
The occasion decides which fields and options you get, so pick the closest one.
Step 3: Fill in the details
A creator page is set up by its own short wizard — niche, platforms, payment — so the fields and settings below are the ones every other occasion gets.
Only the title is required — something like “Alex’s birthday” or “Anna & Tim’s wedding”.
Everything else is optional:
- Name of the recipient — who the list is for
- Date — when the occasion happens, or tick the box for no end date. A creator page has no date at all
- Description — anything guests should know
- Your own link — a custom address like
wishlist.de/w/max-30
Step 4: Set it up
The form walks you through the rest in sections. These are the choices that matter most.
What guests can do
Decide whether guests reserve gifts, give money, or both. This drives what they see on the list.
How gifts reach you
Say whether people hand the gift over in person, bring it to the event, or something else. Guests find your answer in the How does this work? summary, and see it again right after they reserve.
How you want to receive money
Pick one of PayPal, Stripe or no online payment at all, and set the currency. Stripe only goes live once your account is connected and verified, and on an ordinary list only after you pick it in the settings; until then the list keeps whatever method it has. You can change the method later, but the currency locks as soon as the first money is pledged or received.
Surprise mode
Turn on surprise mode if the list is for you. You won’t see who reserved which gift, so the surprise holds. Your guests still see what is taken, and so does a co-owner — the list is hidden from you alone. A creator page has no such setting: nothing on it is meant to be a surprise for you.
Who can see the list
Three choices: link only (recommended), so only people with the link get in; private, so only you and a co-owner do; or public, so the list can be found.
More about who can see your wishlist →
Co-owners
You can add another person as a co-owner, who can then edit the list alongside you. The field sits in the same place on every occasion except a creator page, which has no co-owner at all — only its wording changes, so a wedding asks about your partner and a team list about a colleague. A co-owner sees who reserved what. With surprise mode on that means they see more than you do — the names stay visible to them and hidden from you, which is exactly what makes the surprise work.
Office and team lists
Team lists get two extras. Set a deadline for reserving and contributing. In the settings after you create the list you can also anonymize the contributions, which hides the individual amounts in your own contributor list. What colleagues see is a separate setting: the progress display, which can show the amounts, only the number of contributions, or nothing.
Step 5: Done
Create the list and it’s live straight away.
From here you can add wishes by pasting a shop link, share the list with your friends, and pick a custom address for it.
Common questions
Can I change the occasion later?
No. The occasion is fixed once the list exists. You can always create a new list with a different one.
Do my friends need an account too?
No. Your friends reserve gifts without signing up. An account is needed to create a list of your own — and to accept an invitation as a co-owner, since that ties the list to a person.
Can I change the settings later?
Yes. Title, date, visibility, surprise mode and the rest stay editable — a creator page has a shorter list, without a date, a co-owner or surprise mode. The one thing that locks is the currency, once the first money is pledged or received.
How many lists can I create?
As many as you want. There’s no cap on the total, though you can start at most 20 new lists an hour.