# How do I share group-owned tools?

If your space owns tools as a group, keep them on one shared account. You can use the multi-account switcher to easily switch between accounts in the user avatar menu dropdown.

This is for tools that are genuinely collectively owned, and not just on loan or otherwise still attached to a single user. Things people own themselves are better off on their own accounts.

1. Sign up for the account with an email the whole group can get into, like a shared inbox. Name it after your space, because that's the name people see when it reveals itself. [Sign up](https://toolpool.garden/users/register)
2. Give the password to the people who look after the equipment, and keep it wherever you keep your other shared passwords.
3. Get a pool admin to invite it by email, like any other member.
4. Sign in as it and list the tools the space owns. 
    For things that never leave the space, like a workbench or a bandsaw on a stand, tick Disable borrow tracking when you list them. Then nobody has to mark one borrowed and returned, and it always reads as available.

    ![The tool form's Disable borrow tracking checkbox, ticked, with the note under it about things that live in a common space.](https://toolpool.garden/images/tutorials/borrow-tracking-b4ea22fe3b27477a7e46558201f6cf62.jpg?vsn=d)

    *It sits under Protectiveness on the tool form. You can also tick it later, on a tool that is already listed.*
5. Add it to your own browser. Click your avatar in the top right, or open the menu if your screen is narrow, and pick Add another account from the section under Log out. Sign in as the shared account there. Both are in that menu afterwards, and you click one to switch. You can have five signed in at once.

## Notes

Chats about a shared tool come to the shared account, so the emails land in the shared inbox instead of one person's. Anyone signed in can reply.

A reveal shows the shared account and its profile. Whoever typed the message stays out of it.

If you want two-factor on it, the email method is easier than the app one, since the code goes to an inbox everyone can already read. Both are in User Settings.

[User Settings](https://toolpool.garden/users/settings/security)
The Terms allow a group to hold an account like this. They don't allow giving out the password to your own personal account, and everyone who has the group password still has to be 18.

[Terms of Service](https://toolpool.garden/terms-of-service)
This tutorial was last updated on August 2026. If this isn't making sense anymore, please let us know at [support@toolpool.garden](mailto:support@toolpool.garden) and we'll try to update things as soon as possible.

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