Receptiq

Receptiq — User Manual

Receptiq turns any recipe link into a clean, cook-ready recipe. Paste a link from Instagram, TikTok, a meal-kit site or any food blog, and Receptiq reads the page, strips the clutter, translates it into your language and adds ingredient icons — usually in a few seconds. From there you can scale portions, cook step by step with the screen kept awake, snap photos of your results, plan your week, build a shopping list, and share everything with the people you cook with.

This manual walks through every feature the way you see it on screen, screen by screen. It applies to both the phone and tablet apps; where the tablet looks different, that is called out.

Table of contents

  1. Getting started
  2. Finding your way around
  3. Adding recipes
  4. Viewing a recipe
  5. Cook mode
  6. Photos
  7. Sharing
  8. Cookbooks
  9. Shopping list
  10. Weekly planner
  11. Subscription
  12. Notifications
  13. Settings
  14. Using Receptiq on a tablet

1. Getting started

1.1 Creating an account

  1. Open Receptiq. On the welcome screen ("Welcome back"), tap Create one next to "New to Receptiq?".
  2. On Create your account, enter your email address and choose a password (at least 8 characters). A strength meter shows Weak, Fair, Good or Strong as you type.
  3. Tap Create account.
  4. Receptiq sends a verification link to your email. On the Verify your e-mail screen you can tap Open mail app to jump to your inbox, or Resend if the message doesn't arrive (a short countdown appears before you can resend again).
  5. Open the link in the email, then return to Receptiq and log in.

Notes you may run into:

1.2 Signing in

  1. On the welcome screen, enter your Email address and Password.
  2. Use the eye icon in the password field to Show password / Hide password if you want to check what you typed.
  3. Tap Log in.

If your email or password is wrong, Receptiq shows "Email or password is incorrect." If you haven't confirmed your email yet, it reminds you to use the verification link first.

1.3 Signing in with Google, Facebook or Apple

Below the email fields you may see buttons such as Continue with Google, Continue with Apple and a Facebook option, depending on what's currently enabled.

Once you've signed in this way, your account is a "social login" account. That changes one thing later: in Settings you won't see a change-password option — instead it shows that you're connected with your provider (see 13.5).

1.4 Setting your first password

If an administrator created your account for you, your first login sends you to Set a new password. Enter and confirm a password (at least 8 characters, and the two entries must match), then tap Set password to continue.

1.5 Forgot your password

  1. On the login screen, tap Forgot password?.
  2. Enter your email address and tap Send reset link.
  3. Receptiq confirms it has sent a link (if an account exists for that address). Open the link, choose a New password, and tap Change password.
  4. You're returned to the login screen to sign in with the new password. If a reset link is too old, you'll be asked to request a new one.

1.6 Notification permission

Right after you log in, your phone asks whether Receptiq may send you notifications. Allowing this lets Receptiq tell you when a recipe you shared to the app has finished importing. You can allow or deny it now, and change your mind any time in your phone's system settings (see Notifications).

1.7 Choosing your language

Receptiq is available in several languages (including Dutch, French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, and more). When you first open the app it follows your phone's language automatically. You can change it any time in Settings → App language (see 13.1).

Two things worth knowing:

1.8 The welcome tour

The first time you're in, a short four-card tour explains the core idea:

  1. Spot a recipe you love — see something delicious in a reel or on a blog and hit share.
  2. Send it straight to Receptiq — choose Receptiq from your phone's share menu.
  3. We turn it into a real recipe — Receptiq reads the page and cleans it up.
  4. Open it and start cooking — it lands in your recipe box, ready for cook mode.

Swipe between cards or tap Next; on the last card tap Start cooking. You can replay this tour later from Settings (see 13.6).

2. Finding your way around

Pull down on Home to refresh your recipes and cookbooks.

3. Adding recipes

Tap Add to open Add a recipe. There are three routes:

  1. Choose Paste a link.
  2. Paste the recipe's web address into the https://… field. This can be a food blog, a recipe site, a meal-kit page, or a social post such as an Instagram reel.
  3. Optionally pick a Cookbook to file it under.
  4. Tap Import.

Receptiq then works through the recipe live, showing each stage: Fetching, Parsing, Processing, Translating, Ingredients, Saving. Stages that aren't needed for your link are marked "not needed" and skipped. When it's done you'll see Recipe added! with a View recipe button.

If it doesn't work:

3.2 Share straight from another app

You don't have to copy links by hand. While browsing another app (Instagram, a browser, etc.), tap that app's Share button and choose Receptiq from the share menu.

Some pages list ingredients but no method. When that happens, Receptiq stops on a No steps found screen: "This link didn't include any cooking steps. Import it as-is, or open it in the builder to add the steps yourself." You choose:

3.4 Paste text and let AI convert it

Use this when you have a recipe as plain text — a message from a friend, a note, a screenshot you've transcribed.

  1. Choose Paste text → AI. The screen is labelled Recipe from text with an AI import badge.
  2. Paste your text into the box ("Paste your recipe here…").
  3. Tap Convert to recipe.

Receptiq turns your text into tidy ingredients and steps and shows a Check your recipe preview: "AI turned your text into this. Review it and save when it looks right." Review it, then tap Save recipe — or Edit the text to go back and adjust.

If there isn't enough to work with, you'll see A little more detail needed: "We couldn't get a full recipe from this. Add quantities and clear steps, then try again." A tip suggests listing ingredients with quantities (for example "500 g tomatoes") and at least two or three steps. From there you can Edit the text or Write it myself instead to switch to the manual builder.

3.5 Write your own recipe

Choose Write your own to open the builder ("New recipe"):

  1. Cover photo (optional) — add a photo for the top of the recipe.
  2. Recipe title — required; give your recipe a name.
  3. Time (min) and Servings — optional numbers.
  4. Ingredients — add a line at a time. Each has a quantity (for example "1 kg") and an ingredient name. Tap Ingredient to add another line.
  5. Steps — add your method one step at a time. For each step you can type the instruction ("Describe this step…") and optionally attach a Photo for this step. Tap Step to add another.
  6. Tap Save.

Receptiq reminds you if you forget the essentials: "Give your recipe a title." and "Add at least one ingredient or step."

4. Viewing a recipe

4.1 What you see

When you open a recipe it first shows a branded loading placeholder, then fades into the recipe. From top to bottom:

A bar stays pinned at the bottom with a shopping-basket button (Add to shopping list), a calendar button (Add to a day), and the orange Start cook mode button.

4.2 Changing the number of servings

Next to the Ingredients heading is a small stepper with a – and + and the current number of servings in the middle. Tap + or – to scale the whole recipe up or down; the ingredient amounts update immediately. The buttons grey out at the limits (you can go up to 100 servings).

4.3 How amounts are recalculated: the three scaling modes

Receptiq offers three ways to recalculate quantities when you change servings. You pick your preference once in Settings → Scaling mode, and it applies to every recipe.

If you're using one of the two smart modes and you happen to be offline, Receptiq automatically falls back to the fast on-device calculation and shows "offline: exact amounts" so your recipe stays usable.

4.4 How quantities and ingredient names appear

4.6 Recipe actions

On your own recipes:

Recipes shared with you show none of these editing actions — only cook mode and adding photos.

5. Cook mode

Tap Start cook mode to cook hands-free.

If a recipe has no ingredients or steps, cook mode simply says so rather than showing blank pages.

5.1 Setting a timer on a step

Lots of steps involve a wait — simmer for 10 minutes, rest the dough, bake until golden. Receptiq can time any step for you, and the timer keeps running even if you leave the app or your screen goes to sleep.

You can start a timer in two places, and it's always the same timer:

A dial opens set to 3:00 to start with. Spin the hours, minutes and seconds wheels to the time you want, or tap one of the quick presets — 1m, 3m, 5m, 10m — then tap Start. A timer you set on a step from the recipe is already running when you open that step in cook mode, and the other way around.

5.2 Seeing what's cooking

While a timer runs, that step's clock turns into a little steaming pot, so you can see at a glance which steps are on the go. The steps heading also shows a small "1 running" badge — it counts up if you've got several going. Tap a steaming pot to jump straight into cook mode at that step.

There's no countdown number in the list on purpose: the steaming pot is the signal, and the full countdown lives in cook mode.

5.3 The countdown while you cook

Open cook mode on a step that has a running timer and you get a big ring that empties as the time counts down, with the minutes and seconds in the middle and the time it will ring just below — easy to read from across the kitchen. Three buttons sit underneath:

5.4 When a timer finishes

Receptiq makes sure you hear it, wherever you are:

The alarm keeps sounding until you stop it.

5.5 More than one timer

You can time several steps of the same recipe at once — a sauce on one step, rice on another. Each step keeps its own timer, and the "running" badge on the steps heading tells you how many are going.

5.6 Choosing the alarm sound and vibration

Open Settings → Cooking timer to choose how the alarm behaves:

6. Photos

Receptiq has two kinds of photos: dish photos (a gallery of the finished dish) and per-step photos (attached to a single step).

6.1 Dish photos

At the bottom of a recipe is Photos of this dish, with a count (for example "3 photos") and a grid of thumbnails.

To add one:

  1. Tap the Add tile in the grid.
  2. On the Add photo sheet choose Take a photo (camera, one shot) or Choose from gallery (you can pick several at once).
  3. Photos are shrunk before uploading to save data — the app notes this. A progress indicator shows "Uploading… 1/3" while they upload.
  4. When done you'll see "2 photos added" (or a note if some couldn't be uploaded).

Good to know:

6.2 Per-step photos

Individual steps can have their own photos, visible both on the recipe's method and in cook mode.

6.3 Who took which photo — cook colours

When more than one person cooks the same recipe, Receptiq helps you tell photos apart:

6.4 Viewing, deleting and reporting photos

Tap any thumbnail to open the full-screen viewer. Swipe left and right to move between photos. A counter at the top shows where you are (for step photos, "Step 2 · photo 1 / 3"), and a label tells you whose photo it is (Your photo, a Shared photo, or a named cook's photo).

You may occasionally see that adding new photos is temporarily disabled; existing photos stay visible.

7. Sharing

Receptiq has two ways to share: sending a single recipe by link, and sharing a whole cookbook with the people you cook with.

On your own recipe, tap the Share button. Receptiq writes a short message for you — the recipe's name, a line saying it was made with Receptiq, and the link underneath — and opens your phone's share sheet so you can send it straight to WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, a message, an email, or any other app on your phone. The link sits at the end on purpose, so apps that show a preview of a link have one to pick up. The message is only ever the name and the link — the ingredients and the steps are never included, so nobody sees the recipe itself until they open it. If the share sheet can't open, the link is copied to your clipboard instead ("Share link copied to clipboard").

When someone opens your link, they see Recipe shared with you and Receptiq imports a copy into their own recipe box (they'll be asked to log in first if needed). A shared link therefore gives the other person their own copy of the recipe — it's not the same live recipe you both edit.

7.2 Sharing a whole cookbook

Open a cookbook and tap Share. The first time, Receptiq offers to Create link & share — "Anyone who joins can view this cookbook and add their own recipes to it." Once a link exists, the same sheet shows it as your Active link, with how many people have joined, and buttons to Share again, get a New link, or Revoke link.

8. Cookbooks

Cookbooks are optional folders for grouping recipes, for example "Weeknight dinners".

9. Shopping list

Open Shopping to see your list, grouped by aisle (Produce, Meat & fish, Dairy, Bakery, Frozen, Drinks, Pantry, Household, My items, Other). A summary at the top shows totals and how many items you've checked.

9.1 Your lists

Everyone starts with one default list — always private, always there, and the only list that can't be renamed, shared or closed. You can create as many extra lists as you like alongside it, and share any of those with the people you shop with.

Exactly one list is active at a time — it's the one Shopping shows you, the one a recipe's ingredients land in, and the one at the top of the tab. The list's name sits where the screen title normally is, with a small arrow next to it; tap it to see every list you have access to and switch. Tapping a list switches to it immediately — there's no separate confirm step. (On a tablet, your lists sit permanently in a column down the left instead of behind a tap — see 14.)

9.2 Creating a new list

From the list switcher, tap New shopping list; from the ⋮ menu, the same action is New list. Give it a name, then choose Just me (private, like your default list) or Shared. Choosing Shared adds a duration — 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month, a date you pick, or Forever — and shows how long it'll stay shared for. Tap Create list, or Create & share for a shared one, which immediately opens your phone's share sheet with the invite link ready to send.

9.3 Adding items

From a recipe: tap Add to shopping list. If you have more than one list, you're asked which one first (your active list is pre-selected, and you can start a new list from here too); with only one list, this step is skipped. Next, set the servings ("quantities scale to match") — the ingredients start all ticked, so untick anything you already have at home, then add the rest. You'll get an Added to your list confirmation with View list and, if you added to your active list, Undo and a way to change the servings after the fact — adding to a different list skips both, since Receptiq can't safely tell which of that list's items were just added by you versus already there by someone else. If an ingredient is already on the list from another recipe, it's merged and shown with a small "2×" pill. Planning a whole week and tapping Make shopping list from the planner works the same way — you're asked which list before your week's ingredients land in it.

Your own items: tap Add an item. Type the item name (you can type several lines to add many at once), optionally a quantity, and pick a group to keep your shop sorted — or leave it under My items. You can add anything, not just food.

9.4 While shopping

Tap an item to check it off (it's struck through). To change an item, press and hold it, or swipe it to the right — either one opens it so you can correct the name, the amount or the group. Swipe an item to the left to remove it. Ingredient names appear as tidy names with their amount and unit in front. On a shared list, an item someone else added shows a small initial next to it so you can see who's been adding things.

9.5 Sharing a list

On a list you own (not the default one), tap the share icon at the top. The first time, Receptiq offers to create a link — once one exists, the same screen shows your active link, how many people have joined, and how long it has left, plus Share again, New link, and Extend.

9.6 Joining a shared list

Opening someone's shopping-list link shows you the list's name and how many items and people it has, and asks "Do you want to join this list?" — tapping Join adds you, Not now declines. If the link has expired or been revoked, you're told the link is no longer valid instead.

Once you've joined, everyone with access sees the same list, the same items, and the same checkmarks — it isn't a personal copy each.

9.7 Renaming, leaving or closing a list

The ⋮ menu on a list you own lets you Rename it and, once it's shared, see Sharing & people or Stop sharing. Stop sharing ends everyone else's access but keeps the list itself, with everything on it, as a private list of yours — it's reversible, and you can share it again later.

Close list is different, and permanent: it deletes the list and every item on it — for you and for everyone else who had access. There's no undo. On a list you shared, the other members are told they've lost access as soon as it happens. Close a list you're sure you're finished with, not one you want to hand back to just yourself — that's what Stop sharing is for.

If you're a member rather than the owner, the menu offers Who's in this list and Leave list instead — leaving only removes your own access; anything you added stays on the list for the others.

9.8 Staying in sync

A shared list updates live: when someone else checks something off, adds an item, or joins or leaves, you see it without needing to refresh. If the owner stops sharing the list or closes it while you're looking at it, you're told what happened and moved back to your own list.

You can turn off shopping-list update notifications — for every list, not one at a time — without leaving Receptiq's other notifications on; see 12.

9.9 Export or clear a list

Open the ⋮ menu and tap Export as text to open your phone's share sheet with the list as plain text — handy for handing it to someone who doesn't use Receptiq. If the share sheet can't open, the list is copied to your clipboard instead ("List copied to clipboard"). Clear items lets you choose Remove completed only (keeps the rest) or Clear everything.

10. Weekly planner

Open Planner to plan meals across the week (Monday to Sunday).

11. Subscription

11.1 What's included

Receptiq is a subscription app. A subscription unlocks everything: unlimited recipe imports, the weekly meal planner, smart shopping lists, and cook mode & sharing with family. Without an active subscription you're shown the subscription screen ("Cook without limits") and can still reach your account settings, language and privacy options.

Some accounts have Free access granted directly by Receptiq; those show "Free access — granted by Receptiq" and don't need to pay.

11.2 Subscribing

There is a single Monthly plan ("Billed monthly · cancel anytime"). Tap Subscribe and complete the purchase in your phone's standard payment sheet. Receptiq then briefly shows "Confirming your subscription…" while it verifies the purchase, and unlocks the app once confirmed. Payment is charged to your App Store or Google Play account and renews monthly until you cancel in that store.

11.3 Restoring a purchase

If you've already paid — after reinstalling, on a new phone, or after signing in again — tap Restore purchase on the subscription screen.

11.4 Managing or cancelling

Your subscription is billed by the app store, so you cancel it there, not inside Receptiq. In Settings, the subscription card shows your plan ("Receptiq Monthly"), that it's Active, when it Renews, and how it's billed. It also explains: your subscription "is cancelled in your App Store / Google Play account — not in Receptiq. You keep access until the period ends," with a button to Open App Store subscriptions / Open Play subscriptions.

11.5 If your subscription ends

If your subscription lapses, Receptiq shows "Your subscription has ended — Resubscribe to get back to your recipes, planner and shopping list. Everything you saved is still here." Your recipes and data are kept; See plans takes you back to subscribe.

12. Notifications

Receptiq can send you push notifications — for example when a recipe you shared to the app has finished importing, or when someone changes a shopping list you're on. You're asked for permission just after you first log in; you can allow or deny it, and change that decision at any time in your phone's system settings for Receptiq.

With notifications on, Settings → Notifications lets you turn individual categories off without switching off the rest — cookbook updates, shared recipes, shopping-list updates, and tips & news each have their own switch.

13. Settings

Open Settings to manage the app and your account.

13.1 Language

Tap App language to open a searchable picker with all supported languages. Existing recipes stay in the language you have them in — only new imports arrive in the language you pick. When you change it, Receptiq confirms "Only new recipes will be translated…". Remember that any not-yet-translated text appears in English.

13.2 Appearance

Choose Auto, Light or Dark. Auto follows your phone's day/night schedule; Light or Dark overrides it for Receptiq only.

13.3 Default servings

Set the Default servings used as the starting point for new imports and when you open a recipe.

13.4 Scaling mode

Choose how amounts are recalculated when you change servings — Smart (keep ratios), Simple (round each), or Fastest, also works offline. See 4.3 for what each one does.

13.5 Change password

Change your password by entering your Current password and a New password. You'll see "Password changed." when it's done.

If you signed in with Google, Facebook or Apple, there's no password to change — this row instead shows that you're connected with your provider (for example "Connected with Google").

13.6 Show the welcome tour again

Tap this to replay the four-card welcome tour from 1.8.

13.7 About and privacy

About Receptiq shows the version, build and credits; tap a row to copy it. The Privacy policy ("How we handle your data") is also linked here.

13.8 Log out

Tap Log out to sign out of Receptiq on this device.

13.9 Deleting your account

At the bottom of Settings, Delete my account permanently removes your account and everything in it. Receptiq explains: "Permanently delete your account and all your recipes, cookbooks and links. This can't be undone."

  1. To confirm, you type DELETE.
  2. Your data is fully erased within 14 days; until then the account is deactivated and unusable, and you're signed out.
  3. If you change your mind before then, you can contact info@receptiq.app to stop the deletion.

Deleting removes your recipes, cookbooks and links, and you won't be able to log in again.

It also permanently deletes every photo you ever uploaded — everywhere, including photos you added to other people's recipes. Those are erased the moment you ask for the deletion, picture and file. They cannot be recovered, not even if you contact us to stop the account deletion within the 14 days.

14. Using Receptiq on a tablet

On a tablet, Receptiq uses the extra width:

Everything works the same way as on the phone — just with more on screen at once.