A household is one account holder and up to five members. Members use the account holder's apps and storage, and each of them signs in as themselves. Only the account holder can install or remove apps and decide who's in the household.
Invite someone (account holder)
- Open Settings and find Members.
- Type their email address and press Invite.
- Terrarium shows a link. Copy it and send it to them however you like, by text or email or anything else. We don't email it for you.
The link works only for that email address, and it expires after 7 days. Until they accept, the invite sits under Pending invites, where you can copy the link again or Revoke it.
Join a household (members)
Open the invite link the account holder sent you. It works only for the email address it was sent to.
If you're new to Terrarium, create a password and pick a username. The apps stay at the account holder's addresses, so your username is just how the household tells you apart.
If you already have your own Terrarium account, sign in and join. You keep your own apps, and your dashboard gets a switch between My apps and Household apps. You can leave the household from your Settings page whenever you like.
If your only account is the one you made from the invite, you can't leave on your own. Ask the account holder to remove you.
What members can do
Members can:
- open every app the account holder has installed
- upload music and audiobooks, which go into the same library as everyone else's
- see how much of the household's storage is used
Only the account holder can install, uninstall or restore apps, and only the account holder can invite or remove people.
Who added what
Terrarium records who uploaded each song and audiobook, for everyone in the household, the account holder included.
- Music: Navidrome has a playlist for each person, named Uploaded by and their username, holding the songs they added. Phone apps show these playlists too.
- Audiobooks: each book carries a tag, uploader: followed by the username of whoever added it. You can filter by it in Audiobookshelf.
If an upload can't be added to the library, the person who uploaded it gets the notice, not the account holder.
In the other apps, everyone signs in as themselves, so whatever they create is saved under their own account.
Signing in to apps
Terrarium signs each person in to the household's apps as themselves, so nobody needs anyone else's password. Each person gets their own account inside each app, made the first time they open it. Some apps sign in straight away. Others show a sign-in page with a button to sign in through Terrarium.
Actual Budget makes the first person who signs in its owner, with full control over it. So members can't open it until the account holder has opened it once. Until then, members see "The owner of this app needs to sign in to it first."
Using a phone app
Phone apps for music and audiobooks need a password, because the phone isn't signed in to Terrarium the way a browser is. The first time a member opens Navidrome or Audiobookshelf from the dashboard, Terrarium asks them to Set a password. On the phone, they sign in with their own Terrarium username and that password.
If they chose Skip for now, Terrarium asks again the next time they open the app from the dashboard.
Remove someone (account holder)
In Settings, under Members, press Remove next to their name. They can no longer sign in to your terrarium. Anything they uploaded stays in the library, and only their Uploaded by playlist goes. You can invite them again later.
A person who had their own Terrarium account before joining keeps it, along with their own apps. Only their place in your household goes.