FAQ & Help

Honest Recipes is a local-first recipe manager that stores everything on your device. Import recipes from any URL, scan cookbook pages with AI, plan meals, build grocery lists, and cook — all without ads, tracking, or life stories. Just recipes.

No. You can use Honest Recipes without creating an account. Your recipes are stored locally on your device in IndexedDB. An account is only needed if you want to sync recipes across multiple devices.

Yes. Honest Recipes is a Progressive Web App (PWA). Once you've visited the site, it works offline — your recipes, grocery lists, and meal plans are all stored locally on your device.

Search covers everything — recipe titles, ingredients, cooking steps, tags, and personal notes. Type any keyword and Honest Recipes will find matches across all these fields. For example, searching 'garlic' will find recipes with garlic in the title, ingredient list, or steps.

When you import a recipe, Honest Recipes automatically generates tags by analyzing the title and ingredients — proteins (chicken, beef, fish), grains (pasta, rice), dietary attributes (vegetarian, gluten-free), cooking methods (grilled, baked), and cuisine. Tags power search and filtering. You can add, edit, or remove tags on any recipe — they're suggestions, not rules.

Open honest.recipes in your browser, then use 'Add to Home Screen' (or 'Install App'). On iOS, you must use Safari — tap the Share button, then 'Add to Home Screen'. On Android, Chrome will show an install prompt automatically.

Five ways: (1) Paste any recipe URL and we'll extract the recipe automatically. Works with most popular recipe sites. (2) Paste recipe text directly and AI will parse it into a structured recipe. (3) Paste a YouTube video URL — we'll extract the transcript and parse out the recipe. (4) Take a photo of a cookbook page or recipe card — AI reads and structures it for you. (5) Upload a .paprikarecipes or .melarecipes file to import in bulk.

Yes. Go to Import → File and upload your .paprikarecipes or .melarecipes file. Honest Recipes will import all your recipes in one go.

Yes. Paste any YouTube video URL (cooking tutorials, recipe videos) and Honest Recipes will extract the video transcript, then use AI to parse ingredients, steps, and timing into a structured recipe. Works with youtube.com/watch, youtu.be, and /shorts links. The video must have closed captions enabled — not all videos contain extractable recipes.

Recipe Packs are curated collections of recipes you can browse and import in bulk. They're perfect for getting started or discovering new themed recipes. Each pack shows preview details and checks for duplicates before importing.

Most URL imports work instantly. When standard extraction fails, Honest Recipes automatically tries AI-powered extraction as a fallback — so many previously-failing URLs now work. If it still fails, try: (1) Copy the full recipe text and use Text Paste instead. (2) Make sure the URL points directly to a recipe page, not a category or search. (3) Check your internet connection.

Enter ingredients you have on hand, and Honest Recipes finds matching recipes from your library plus top-rated recipes from the web. You can filter by time (quick vs. normal) and dietary preferences (vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy-free). Web recipe search uses Brave Search to find real recipes with ratings and auto-imports them.

Yes! Recipe Chat is available right in Cook Mode. Tap the chat bubble icon in the toolbar to ask questions about ingredients, cooking techniques, or substitutions without leaving your recipe. Get instant AI-powered answers while you cook.

Yes. Open any recipe and tap the Translate (globe) button to translate the title, description, ingredients, steps, and notes into one of 12 languages — Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Czech, Japanese, Korean, Hindi, Arabic, or Russian. Your original recipe is never changed; tap 'Original' to switch back. Translation requires sign-in and an internet connection.

Your recipes are stored locally on your device using IndexedDB — not on any server. They stay private, work offline, and never leave your device unless you enable cloud sync.

Sync is optional. When you sign in, your recipes are synced via Supabase so you can access them on multiple devices. You can enable or disable sync at any time from Settings.

Yes. You can export your entire library as JSON, JSON-LD (schema.org format), or CSV. Go to Settings → Export to download your data anytime.

The app has no ads and no tracking — your recipe data stays on your device unless you opt into sync. Our marketing pages use privacy-friendly analytics (PostHog) to improve the site, as described in our privacy policy.

The free plan gives you up to 100 recipes and these monthly AI quotas — no account required: 5 photo scans, 10 translations, 10 dietary transforms, 50 recipe chat messages, and 20 ingredient substitutions. Pro ($1.99/month or $14.99/year) unlocks unlimited recipes, unlimited AI features, cloud sync, and priority support.

You can cancel anytime from your Stripe customer portal. Go to Settings → Manage Subscription. You'll keep Pro access through the end of your billing period.

iOS only supports PWA installation from Safari — not Chrome or Firefox. Open honest.recipes in Safari, tap the Share button (box with arrow), then 'Add to Home Screen'.

Make sure you're signed in on both devices with the same account. Check Settings → Sync for status. If recipes are missing, try triggering a manual sync. Contact support if the issue persists.

Visit our support page or email us at support@honest.recipes — we typically respond within a few hours. Include what device/browser you're using and what went wrong, and we'll get it sorted.