Frequently Asked Questions

MealScribe is a personalized meal planning and recipe management application that helps you discover, create, organize, and plan meals using AI-powered recipe generation and intelligent ingredient management. Build your perfect cookbook with recipes extracted from social media, YouTube videos, images, or generated from text prompts.

MealScribe is available for both iOS and Android devices. You can download it from the Apple App Store for iOS devices and Google Play Store for Android devices. The app is optimized for smartphones and tablets.

MealScribe offers a free tier with basic recipe management and meal planning features. We also provide premium subscription plans that unlock advanced AI-powered features like recipe generation, extraction from URLs and images, recipe remix, ingredient detection, and priority customer support.

MealScribe offers multiple ways to create recipes:

• Manual Entry: Create recipes step-by-step with ingredients, prep work, and cooking steps
• AI Generation: Generate recipes from text prompts using AI, incorporating your dietary preferences
• URL Extraction: Extract recipes from websites, social media platforms (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook), and YouTube videos using AI
• Image Extraction: Extract recipe information from uploaded images using AI vision models
• Recipe Remix: Modify existing recipes using AI to adjust ingredients, cooking methods, or dietary requirements

Absolutely! MealScribe supports a wide range of dietary preferences and restrictions:

• Dietary Preferences: Vegetarian, Vegan, Keto, Paleo, Gluten-Free, Low-Carb, Mediterranean, Pescatarian, Flexitarian, Whole30, DASH, and Anti-Inflammatory
• Restrictions & Exclusions: Nuts, Dairy, Eggs, Soy, Shellfish, Wheat, Gluten, Sesame, Nightshades, Sulfites, and more
• Cuisine Preferences: Italian, Mexican, Asian, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Mediterranean, French, American, Greek, Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese, Middle Eastern, and many others
• Custom Requests: Add custom dietary requirements and preferences

These preferences are used when generating or remixing recipes with AI to ensure they match your dietary needs.

MealScribe offers powerful recipe organization features:

• Recipe Folders: Organize recipes into custom folders for better categorization
• Favorites: Mark recipes as favorites for quick access
• Advanced Search: Fuzzy matching search across recipe titles, ingredients, descriptions, and folder names
• Filtering: Filter recipes by meal type, creation method, favorites status, and pantry ingredient availability
• Weekly Chef's Picks: Receive weekly AI-generated recipe collections

MealScribe offers flexible meal planning options:

• Calendar-based Scheduling: Schedule recipes on specific dates using an interactive calendar view
• Recipe Queuing: Queue recipes for the week without specific date assignments
• Ingredient Availability Checking: Check which ingredients are available in your pantry for scheduled meals
• Automatic Shopping Lists: Automatically generate shopping lists from your meal plans and recipes

MealScribe offers comprehensive pantry management:

• AI-powered Ingredient Detection: Detect ingredients from photos using AI image recognition
• Barcode Scanning: Scan product barcodes using Open Food Facts database integration
• Manual Entry: Add ingredients manually with quantity, unit, and expiration date
• Expiration Tracking: Track ingredient expiration dates with visual indicators
• Ingredient Search: Fuzzy matching search to quickly find ingredients in your pantry
• Bulk Operations: Select and manage multiple ingredients at once

Cooking Mode is a full-screen, hands-free cooking experience that guides you through each recipe step by step. Key features include:

• Recipe Overview: See the recipe image, nutrition info, prep/cook time, and servings at a glance before you start
• Step-by-Step Navigation: Swipe or tap to move between steps at your own pace
• Screen Wake Lock: Your screen stays on while you cook — no need to keep tapping
• Floating Ingredients Overlay: Quickly view the ingredients list without leaving the current step
• Progress Dots: Visual progress indicator so you always know where you are in the recipe

Voice commands let you navigate Cooking Mode completely hands-free. Supported commands include:

• "Next step": Move to the next cooking step
• "Previous step": Go back to the previous step
• "Repeat": Hear the current step again
• "Show/Hide ingredients": Toggle the ingredients overlay
• "Finish cooking": Exit Cooking Mode

Voice commands work in English, German, French, and Spanish. The feature requires microphone permission, and all voice recognition is processed on your device — no audio is stored or sent to our servers.

Yes! MealScribe includes text-to-speech (TTS) that reads each cooking step aloud during Cooking Mode. Key details:

• Multi-language: TTS supports English, German, French, and Spanish
• Toggle On/Off: Enable or disable TTS at any time during Cooking Mode
• Smart Pause: Voice recognition automatically pauses while TTS is speaking to avoid interference
• On-Device: TTS uses your device's built-in speech engine — no data is sent to our servers

Currently, MealScribe stores all data locally on your device for privacy and offline access. You can import recipes from shared URLs via app share intent, which makes it easy to build your cookbook from recipes found online. Recipe sharing features may be available in future updates.

Your data security and privacy are our top priorities. All your data is stored locally on your device for offline access. You can export and import your app data for backup or device migration. For AI-powered features, data is processed securely and we use industry-standard security measures. We never share your personal information with third parties except as necessary for AI processing. You can read our full Privacy Policy for more details.

We offer multiple support channels to help you. You can reach us via email at support@mealscribe.app. Premium users get priority support with faster response times.

You can request deletion of your data stored on our servers by submitting a data deletion request. Visit our Data Deletion Request page, where you'll need to provide your Anonymous User ID (found in the app under Settings > App Settings > Anonymous User ID). Your request will be processed within 30 days in accordance with GDPR requirements. Note that data stored locally on your device is not affected by this request.