Privacy
Last updated: 24 September 2026
No account. No sign-up. No tracking.
The short version
We do not collect personal data. No analytics, no cookies, no tracking and no account. We have no way of knowing who you are or how you use the app.
One feature is different and this page says so plainly. Photo reading, part of Plus, sends the photograph of your recipe page through our server to OpenAI to be read. Our server does not save it. It keeps a small record, described below, so it can count your readings.
Photos and the camera
Recipe Folio AI asks for the camera so you can photograph a recipe. That is the only reason. You can also pick a photo from your library, or share one into the app from Photos, Files, Safari or Messages. Every photo is treated the same way. It is read on your phone unless you use photo reading, which asks you first.
The photo of the page is saved inside the recipe, on your phone, so you can look back at the original.
Where your recipes live
On your phone. Recipes, groups, notes, the cook log, meal plans, events and shopping lists are stored locally. There is no cloud and no sync. Recipe Folio AI keeps no copy of your recipes anywhere else, and our server never receives a saved recipe.
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. Nothing is sent to us.
Your recipe titles, category, ingredient names, tips and photos are added to your phone's own search, so you can find a recipe from the Home Screen. That index stays on the phone. If you send a shopping list to Reminders, it is written into your own Reminders app.
Reading on the phone
Where the phone has Apple Intelligence turned on, the recipe is read and sorted on the device. Nothing is sent to us.
Your own OpenAI key
If you choose to add your own OpenAI key, the app can use OpenAI to sort the recognised text into a recipe. When it does:
- Only the recognised text is sent. Never the photo.
- The request goes straight from your phone to OpenAI using your key.
- We never see, store or touch it. There is nothing in between your phone and OpenAI.
- Your key is kept in your phone's keychain and is sent to nobody but OpenAI.
- OpenAI's privacy policy covers what OpenAI receives.
Photo reading, and what happens to your photo
Photo reading works only with a Plus subscription. The first time it would send a photograph, the app stops and asks you, and you can say no and have the page read on your phone instead.
When you say yes, this is what happens:
- The photograph is sent to our server, and from there to OpenAI, to be read into a recipe.
- Our server holds the photo only while the reading takes place. It is never written to a disk or stored, and it is dropped as soon as the recipe comes back.
- The location, date and camera details are stripped from the photo before it leaves your phone.
- OpenAI's privacy policy covers what OpenAI receives from us and how long OpenAI keeps it.
What our server keeps
Our server keeps no photograph, no recipe text and no answer. It keeps:
- A random number for your copy of the app, and the public half of a key your phone made, so the server can tell a request really came from your phone.
- A scrambled, one-way version of your Apple subscription number. The server cannot turn it back into you.
- How many readings you have used this month, so it knows when you reach fifty, and small counters that stop one phone sending too much too fast.
- A note if Apple tells us a subscription has ended or was refunded, so it stops working. That note is kept.
- One log line for each request: the date, that random number, what was asked for, whether it worked, how long it took, and how large the reading was. No photo, no text and no IP address.
Our own code does not record your IP address. The company that hosts our server may keep ordinary connection logs of its own for a short time. We do not use them.
Subscriptions
Recipe Folio Plus is billed by Apple. Apple takes the payment and gives the app a signed receipt that says which plan you bought and when it ends. We receive no name, no email address and no card detail, and we do not ask for one.
A subscription creates no account. With photo reading, the app shows that receipt to our server so it knows you subscribe, and our server checks with Apple about once a day that the subscription still stands. It never learns who you are. Apple's own privacy policy covers the purchase.
Third parties
No analytics framework, no advertising kit, no crash reporter. Beyond the storage on your phone, the app talks to Apple for purchases, and in the cases you choose: to OpenAI with your own key, to our server and OpenAI with photo reading, to your own Reminders app if you send a shopping list there, and your own printer if you print.
The App Store privacy label
Apple asks every app to declare what it collects, and counts data as collected when it is kept longer than it takes to answer a request. By that rule, photo reading collects four things, and the label says so: the photos you send (OpenAI may keep what it receives for a time under its own policy), the random number for your copy of the app, your scrambled subscription number, and your monthly count of readings.
All four are used only to make photo reading work. None is linked to who you are and none is used for tracking or advertising. Meal plans, events and shopping lists add nothing to the label. If you do not use photo reading, Recipe Folio AI collects nothing.
Children
We collect no personal data from anyone, so we collect none from children. There is no account and no field that asks who you are.
Deleting your data
Delete a recipe in the app and it is gone from the phone. Delete the app and your recipes go with it. Two small items can stay in your phone's keychain: your OpenAI key, if you entered one, and the last count of photo readings. To remove the key, clear it in the app's Settings before you delete the app. Anything you sent to Reminders stays in Reminders.
There is no copy of a recipe for us to delete, because we never kept one. A month's count of readings on our server stops being used when the month ends and is deleted within about six weeks. The random number for your copy of the app stays until we clear it.
Changes
If this policy changes, the new version is posted here with a new date. We cannot notify you directly; we do not have your contact details.