Support

Any iPhone running iOS 26 or later. Reading a page for free, 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 a phone with Apple Intelligence turned on, and set to a language it supports, the recipe is read on the device. On a phone without it, add your own OpenAI key and the app sends only the recognised text, never the photo. The setup guide walks through it.

Photo reading, in Plus, sends the photo to be read instead, so it does not need Apple Intelligence.

Yes, and no. Version 2.0 reads Traditional and Simplified Chinese as well as English, including ingredient groups and tips as the page wrote them. There is nothing to turn on: each time the app opens, it asks your phone which languages it can read and uses Chinese if the phone offers it. A catty or a tael is converted to grams if your iPhone's region is Taiwan or Hong Kong. Elsewhere it is left as written. A pinch and to taste are kept as written and are not multiplied when you scale. It is not perfect; check the result before you cook.

If a Chinese page comes back in English letters, the phone did not offer Chinese recognition and the app fell back to English. Make sure iOS is up to date and scan the page again. If it still happens, email us.

Recipe Folio AI keeps the recipe in the page's own language and never translates it for you. To read a Chinese recipe in English, use your phone's own Translate feature, with Chinese downloaded on the phone.

There are four reasons, and they need different things from you.

• The iPhone does not support it. Apple Intelligence needs an iPhone 15 Pro, an iPhone 16 or later, or an iPad with M1 or later. Nothing to fix. Scanning still works and is still free: add your own OpenAI key in the app's Settings, under Advanced, just above About, on the row Use your own OpenAI key. The setup guide has the steps.
• It is switched off. Turn it on in the Settings app, under Apple Intelligence & Siri, then come back to Recipe Folio AI.
• It is still downloading. The phone is fetching the model. That needs wi-fi and some battery, and it usually finishes while the phone is on charge. Try again later.
• The iPhone is set to a language it does not cover. Change the iPhone's language, or add your own OpenAI key.

Open Settings in the app. The reason is written under Apple Intelligence, in the Recipe Formatting section. Scanning is free and unlimited either way.

Free, forever: scanning, Chinese reading, every recipe already saved, editing, scaling, Chinese weights to grams, printing and sharing recipes, cook mode, timers and the cook count.

Plus adds four things: photo reading, which sends the photograph itself through our server to a stronger model to be read, fifty photo readings a month; a meal planner; events; and shopping lists. Plus is US$2.99 a month or US$19.99 a year, prices vary by country, and there is no free trial.

Plus includes fifty photo readings a month. A reading can hold up to four photos of one recipe and counts as one. Settings in the app shows how many you have left this month.

When they run out, the app says so and reads the page on your phone instead. The readings come back at the start of the next month. The first time photo reading would send a photo, the app asks you first, and you can always choose to read it on your phone.

Apple manages it. Tap Manage or cancel on the Plus screen in the app, or open the iPhone Settings app, then your name, Subscriptions, Recipe Folio AI. The same screen switches you between the monthly and the yearly price.

Cancelling keeps Plus until the end of the period you paid for. Refunds are handled by Apple.

Plus is tied to your Apple Account, so it follows you when you sign in on the new phone. If it does not appear, open Settings in the app and tap Restore Purchases, under About. Apple will ask for your Apple Account password.

Your recipes do not follow. They live on the old phone and nowhere else, so move them with your phone's own transfer or backup before you wipe it.

If your phone cannot read the page itself, the app can use OpenAI to sort the recognised text into a recipe. You provide your own key and pay OpenAI for what you use. Only the text goes, never the photo. The setup guide has the steps.

Photograph the recipe in parts instead of all at once. Take the ingredients as one photo and the method as another, and add them to the same scan. You can add up to four photos.

This is the fix for a long recipe that runs over a page turn, a two-column page, and a page where the ingredients sit in a box down the side.

Anything still wrong can be fixed by hand on the review screen before you save, or in any saved recipe afterwards.

• Good light.
• Flatten the page. Shadows and curves trip up the reading.
• Crop to the recipe and leave the rest of the page out.
• Printed text reads best.

Yes, all of it. Title, ingredients, groups, steps, tips, servings, prep and cook time, category, notes. Editing is free.

The app offers a timer when it finds a time written in the step, in English or Chinese, with a number it can read. Digits always work, so write 20 minutes rather than twenty minutes. If the step says the time in a way it does not recognise, edit the step to write the number plainly, and the timer will appear.

Open the Events tab and tap the plus. Give the event a name, a date and how many are coming, then add dishes from your recipes by course. Each dish is made for your guests unless you change it.

Past events stay in the list under Past, so you can look back at what you cooked. Events are part of Plus.

Yes. Open an event and tap Print for the date, the guests and the menu on one page. Open any shopping list and tap Print, Reminders or Share.

Reminders makes one reminder for each thing to buy, so you can tick them off in the shop.

In the Shopping tab. Planner holds the Inbox and the lists you made from a day or a week. Events holds one list for each event.

Yes. No account, no cloud, no analytics. Your recipes live on your phone. If you use your own OpenAI key, only the recipe text goes to OpenAI. If you use photo reading in Plus, the photo goes through our server to OpenAI to be read, and our server keeps no copy. Your meal plans, events and shopping lists stay on your phone too. The privacy policy has the full version.

Yes. It runs on iPad, but it is designed for the iPhone screen first.