Everything it does.
The app is free and you can scan as much as you like. This page lists the lot, so there are no surprises after you download it.
Three steps.
Point
Point the camera at the page and pull the corners in around the recipe. A photo or a screenshot works the same way.
Read
The phone reads the words and sorts them out: the name, what you need, and what to do. It does this on the phone, with Apple Intelligence, which needs an iPhone 15 Pro, an iPhone 16 or later, or an iPad with M1 or later. If your phone cannot run Apple Intelligence, you can add your own OpenAI key instead, and then only the words are sent, never the photo. Or use photo reading in Plus, below.
Cook
Fix anything it got wrong, change the serving size, and start cooking. Big type, one step at a time.
IN THE KITCHEN
What happens once the page is in.
- Cook mode. One step at a time, in big type, filling the screen. The screen stays on.
- Mise en place. You start with the ingredients, sorted into groups, in the amounts you need. Tick them off.
- Timers from the step. If a step says 20 minutes, the app spots it and offers you the timer. It keeps running when the screen locks.
- Scaling that behaves. Cooking for six instead of four? Change it and every amount follows. A pinch stays a pinch.
- I cooked this. Give it stars and leave a note. The app shows you that note the next time you cook it.
- Import from anywhere. Send a photo to Recipe Folio AI from anywhere on your phone, and it lands in the app.
- English and Chinese. It reads Chinese as well as English.
THE WEEK AND THE TABLE
Plan the week. Host the table.
All of this is part of Plus.
- The week at a glance. A row of dated squares across the top. Tap a day to see its meals. Skip a week at a time, as far as you like.
- Add a meal. Breakfast, lunch, dinner or anything else, from your own recipes.
- Shop a meal, a day or the week. Each one makes its own list, and you can name it.
- Events. A name, a date and how many are coming. Every event you have made stays in the list, so you can look back at what you cooked.
- A menu by course. Starters, mains, sides, desserts and drinks. Each dish is scaled to your guests, and you can change any one of them.
- Print the event. The date, the guests and the menu on one page, with room for notes.
- Two kinds of list. The Shopping tab keeps planner lists and event lists apart.
- Print, Reminders, share. Any list can be printed, sent to Reminders one item at a time, or shared.
Never paywalled
Everything on this list is free, for as long as the app is around.
- Scanning
- Chinese reading
- Every recipe already saved
- Editing
- Scaling
- Chinese weights to grams
- Printing and sharing recipes
- Cook mode
- Timers
- The cook count
Reading a photo on the phone itself uses Apple Intelligence, which needs an iPhone 15 Pro, an iPhone 16 or later, or an iPad with M1 or later. On another phone, add your own OpenAI key, or use photo reading in Plus.
We do not count your scans and we never will.
RECIPE FOLIO PLUS
Plus adds four things. That is all it adds.
You do not need Plus. It adds four things.
Photo reading
Send the photograph itself, for pages this phone reads badly. It goes through our server to a stronger model, which reads the whole page. Fifty photo readings a month, and one reading can be up to four photos of a recipe. Our server keeps no copy of your photo.
Meal planner
Put recipes on days and see your week as a row of squares. Skip to any week.
Events
Plan a dinner, a birthday or a long lunch. Give it a date and a number of guests, build the menu by course, and print it on one page.
Shopping lists
One list for a week, a day or an event. The same thing lands on one line. Amounts in the same unit are added up. Different units sit side by side, so you never get a wrong total. Print it, send it to your Reminders, or share it.
PRICE
US$2.99 a month
US$19.99 a year
- Prices
- Set by the App Store, so they change country to country.
- Cancel
- Any time, in your Apple settings.
- Free tier
- Stays free. Everything in the list above is yours without paying.
The button in the app says Subscribe. It charges you that day.
Nothing leaves your phone unless you say so.
Your recipes, meal plans, events and shopping lists stay on your phone. We do not have a copy. There is no cloud and no sync.
An event holds a name, a date, a number of guests and your note. It never asks who the guests are. When you print, the page goes from your phone straight to your printer.
Your photos are read on the phone itself. The one exception is photo reading in Plus, which asks you before the first photo is sent. The photo goes through our server to the model that reads it, and our server keeps no copy.
If you add your own OpenAI key, only the words go out, never the photo. They go straight from your phone to OpenAI. We never see any of it.
Cook from the page, not the camera roll.
Free. iPhone. No account.