Moving from Maple before it closes, step by step

Maple’s website says it will shut down on 31 December 2026, after which all data is permanently deleted and its Google, Apple, Outlook and TeamSnap connections end. Moving well before the end of December gives you time to check everything came across. More on the closure in Maple is closing.

Families moving from another family app can have a month of Equal House Pro on us with code SWITCH, which unlocks the calendar link in step 3. It is 31 days of Pro for the whole household, with no card and nothing to cancel, and it never turns into a subscription. It works once per household, once per person and once per email address, is limited to the first 10,000 households, and closes at 23:59 UK time on 31 March 2027. Every condition is on the switch page.

1. Save what you need from Maple

Maple’s website gives no step-by-step export, so start with what is most at risk:

• Was Maple syncing with Google, Apple or Outlook? Then your Maple events are already in that calendar, and they stay there after Maple closes. Check a few weeks ahead to make sure. To keep a file copy of a Google calendar, open Google Calendar on a computer: Settings → Import & export → Export.
• Not syncing? Check in Maple’s settings for an export option while it is still running. If there isn’t one, screenshot or note the next few months.
• Lists, repeating chores and recipes: screenshot them or write them down. The bin day, the medication, the club that is every other Thursday.
• Anything with a child’s date on it: term dates, club times, kit days.

2. Set up your household

Install the Equal House app, sign in and give your household a name. Bric can ask a few quick questions and set it up with you, or you can do it yourself: see set up your household.

If you are claiming the free month, leave your email on the claim page first and sign in to the app with the same address. The month starts when you sign in.

3. Bring your calendar across

If your Maple events are in a Google, Outlook or Apple calendar, Equal House’s Calendar Sync, part of Pro, can show that calendar in the family calendar:

1. Find the calendar’s secret iCal link — Google, Outlook and Apple each hide it somewhere different, and link your Google, Outlook or Apple calendar shows where.
2. In Equal House: More → Calendar Sync, paste it, give it a name, and choose whose events these are.

It is read-only and one-way: Equal House never changes your Google, Outlook or Apple calendar, and a change there can take a few hours to appear.

Otherwise, or on the free plan, add the events that matter as ordinary Equal House events: birthdays and anniversaries repeat every year by themselves. See add an event.

4. Re-create your lists and chores

• Shopping items go on the shopping list, which sorts them into UK supermarket aisle order — see the shopping list.
• To-dos and chores become tasks, and the ones that come round again become repeating tasks. Ready-made tasks cover most household chores in a couple of taps.
• Household know-how — the boiler, the wifi, the stopcock — goes in House Notes.

If you liked Maple because it tried to share the work out rather than just list it, this is the part Equal House is built for: chores are weighted by effort, and Auto-Balance gives the next one to whoever has room.

5. Recipes

Copy the ones you cook most, or look for them among the 6,031 recipes on equal.house/recipes. The meal planner picks from those, fills the shopping list and shares the cooking out. On the free plan a meal plan covers three days; a full week needs Pro. See plan a week of meals.

6. Invite the family

• Grown-ups get an invite: More → Your Account → Add a family member, then share the invite however you usually talk to them. See invite another adult.
• Children need no email address or password. Add them as children, and they sign in with the family’s six-picture code and an optional PIN, on a device a grown-up has approved. See add a child.

What doesn’t come across

• There is no direct Maple import, from us or anyone else that we know of.
• Calendar events come through a Google, Outlook or Apple calendar, read-only; lists and recipes are re-entered by hand.
• Equal House has no web app, and its free plan plans three days ahead.

If you paid for Maple+, check how Maple is handling your plan: Maple says annual plans won’t renew and monthly plans run to 31 December.