Help & Documentation

Creating your account

1. Go to book.recipeapp.io/signup
2. Enter your name, email, and a password (8 characters minimum)
3. Check your inbox — we'll send a verification link from noreply@recipeapp.io
4. Click the link in the email to confirm and sign in

If the verification email doesn't arrive within a minute or two, check your spam folder. You can also request a fresh one from the verify-email screen.

Signing in

Visit book.recipeapp.io/login. Forgot your password? Click "Forgot?" next to the password field — we'll email you a reset link.

Installing on your phone

Recipe App is a Progressive Web App, so it works perfectly on your phone without an App Store download:

• iPhone (Safari): tap the Share button → "Add to Home Screen"
• Android (Chrome): tap the menu (⋮) → "Add to Home screen" or "Install app"

It'll show up like a native app — handy when you're cooking and don't want to dig through tabs.

You have five ways to capture a recipe. Pick whichever is most convenient — they all end up at the same place: a structured recipe ready to save.

1. Manual entry

Type a recipe in directly. Every field is editable, you can add as many ingredients and steps as you need, and you can attach an image, tags, prep time, and notes.

Use this when you're making up your own recipe or transcribing something on paper.

2. Paste text

Copy a recipe from anywhere — a forwarded email, your Notes app, a blog post, a screenshot's OCR'd text — and paste it into the Paste text tab. We'll automatically pull out:

• Title
• Ingredients (preserving exact quantities)
• Steps in order
• Servings, prep/cook times if mentioned
• A category (Breakfast, Dinner, Dessert, etc.)
• A few useful tags

You can review and tweak everything before saving.

3. Photo

Snap a photo of a cookbook page, a handwritten recipe card, or even a finished dish. Drag it in (or click to upload) under the Photo tab.

We use Anthropic's vision model — not OCR — so it handles handwriting, weird fonts, and photographed text on curved pages. Works on JPEG, PNG, WebP, and GIF up to 10 MB.

The photo you upload gets attached as the recipe's image by default. If it's a handwritten card or cookbook page (not the actual dish), use the image controls to Remove or Replace with a different image.

4. Link (web pages and YouTube)

Paste any recipe URL into the Link tab. Two pipelines:

• Recipe blog or food site: we fetch the page, prefer the structured recipe data when available (most major sites embed it), fall back to scraping the visible text.
• YouTube videos (full videos, Shorts, youtu.be/... shortlinks): we pull the video's title, channel, full description, and auto-generated transcript via the same API the YouTube app uses. The recipe usually lives in the description; the transcript fills in any gaps.

If the channel name was on the page, we auto-fill the From / Attribution field for you (e.g. from Joshua Weissman).

5. Voice dictation

Hands messy? Open the Dictate tab, tap Start, and just talk through the recipe — ingredients, steps, anything. Hit Stop when you're done, then Turn into recipe and we'll structure your transcript.

Supported in Chrome and Safari. Firefox doesn't expose speech recognition; use Paste text instead.

Reviewing the AI's draft

After any AI-assisted ingestion (paste, photo, link, dictate), you' land on a pre-filled form. Always review before saving — AI parsing is good but not perfect. Common things to double-check:

• Quantities (especially fractions like ¾)
• Serving size
• Whether ingredients accidentally got merged or split

Image controls

Hover over the recipe image to see Replace and Remove buttons. The empty state shows a drop zone where you can upload a different image. Files are stored privately and served via Vercel's CDN.

Categories and tags

• Category (single, required): the main meal slot — Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dessert, Snack, Drink, Side, Sauce, Bread, Soup, Salad, or Other.
• Tags (multiple, optional): free-form labels like vegetarian, quick, weeknight, instant-pot. Comma-separate or hit Enter to add.

Click any tag on a recipe page to filter your collection by that tag.

Attribution

A dedicated free-text field for who or what gave you this recipe — Grandma's recipe box, Aunt Sarah's email, a YouTube creator. Click the attribution on any recipe page to see all the recipes from that source.

Notes

Use the Notes field for anything that doesn't fit the recipe itself: substitutions you've tried, a memory, or a tweak. Notes are searchable.

Search and filters

The search bar uses Postgres full-text search across title, description, ingredients, instructions, tags, and attribution. Try searching for ingredients or sources directly.

Print mode

Open any recipe and click Print in the top-right. The print view strips navigation and decoration — what's left is a clean recipe card ready for paper or PDF.

Every recipe has a Per serving panel showing calories, protein, carbs, and fat.

• After saving a new recipe, macros are estimated automatically using Claude based on your ingredient list and serving count.
• If macros aren't shown yet, click Estimate macros on the recipe page.
• Click re-estimate at any time if you change ingredients.

These are estimates, not lab-measured values. Don't use these numbers for medical or precise dietary decisions.

Free vs Pro

• Free — Up to 20 saved recipes. Every other feature is fully available.
• Pro — $7/month, unlimited recipes. Cancel anytime.

Your usage is shown on your Account page (top-right of the header → "Account").

Upgrading

When you try to save your 21st recipe on the free plan, you'll see an inline upgrade panel with a button. Or visit Account → Upgrade to Pro at any time.

Managing your subscription

On your Account page, click Manage subscription to open the Stripe billing portal. From there you can update payment methods, view invoices, or cancel.

Cancellation and refunds

Cancel anytime via the billing portal. Refunds are issued case-by-case for billing errors — email billing@recipeapp.io.

• Recipes you create are private to you. No one else sees them.
• Photos you upload are stored securely and served via private URLs.
• AI processing sees the content of your inputs only when you trigger an ingestion.
• Your data, on demand: email privacy@recipeapp.io to request a full export or permanent deletion.

See the Privacy Policy for the full picture.

Is there a mobile app?

It's a PWA — installable on iOS Safari and Android Chrome via "Add to Home Screen".

Can I share my recipes with family?

Not yet. Sharing and household accounts are on the roadmap.

Do you train AI on my recipes?

No. Your inputs are sent to Anthropic's API for ingestion and macro estimation only. Per Anthropic's terms, customer API data is not used to train their models.

Why $7/month?

It's the lowest price that covers the AI inference costs plus hosting and email delivery. We'd rather charge a fair price than show ads.