How to save recipes from websites on iPhone

What an import reads: schema.org Recipe data

Schema.org defines a shared vocabulary for describing a recipe. Its Recipe type has properties for the parts you care about when you cook:

• name and image: the title of the dish and its photo
• recipeIngredient: one entry per ingredient line
• recipeInstructions: the steps
• recipeYield and totalTime: how many it serves and how long it takes

Recipe sites add this data so that search engines can show their recipes as rich results. Google's documentation for recipe rich results requires the name and an image, recommends the ingredients and the instructions, and gives its examples as JSON-LD, a block of structured data inside the page. That is why most recipe sites carry it, and why an app that reads it can bring in the ingredients and steps without the life story above them.

Save from Safari with the share sheet

The share sheet is the panel that opens when you tap the Share button. It lists the apps and actions that can take what you are looking at, including apps that add their own share option.

1. Open the recipe page in Safari.
2. Tap the Share button.
3. Tap the recipe app in the row of apps, then open the app to finish the import.

If the app is not in the row, swipe left over the row of buttons, tap More, then tap Edit. Turn the app on, and add it to Favorites to keep it near the front.

The other way in is the link itself: copy the address from Safari and paste it into the app. Either way, look at the preview before you save: it shows the recipe the app found on that page.

When a page has no recipe data

Some pages describe a recipe only in their text, with no schema.org Recipe data for an app to read. A blog post, a forum reply or an older site may work this way. When an import finds nothing:

1. Share the page from Safari. If the link was refused, sharing from Safari can hand the app the page as you see it.
2. Paste the text. Select the ingredients and steps on the page, copy them, and paste them into the app's text import. Headings such as Ingredients and Method, blank lines and numbered steps help it tell ingredients from steps.
3. Type it in. For a family recipe on a card, type it and add a photo.

For a video or social post, save the link with the page title, so you can find it again, and add the ingredients yourself when you cook from it.

Keep the source link

Keep the address of the page with every recipe you save. It tells you where the recipe came from, takes you back to the original for the photos, notes and comments, and lets you credit the author when you share or print it.

Export a copy you can read without the app

Recipes that live only inside one app are only as safe as that app. Two habits keep them yours:

• Back up the iPhone. An iCloud backup includes the information stored on your iPhone that does not already sync to iCloud, so recipes an app keeps on the device are in it. With iCloud Backup on, iPhone backs up daily when it is connected to power, locked and on Wi-Fi; you can also back up to a computer.
• Export now and then. An export in open formats, such as Markdown for reading and JSON for moving to another app, opens on any computer without the app that made it. Keep a copy in Files or on a computer.

Where Recipe Keeper: Save & Cook helps

Paste a link and Recipe Keeper: Save & Cook reads the page's recipe data: you see the photo, title, source and the number of ingredients and steps before you save. It is in the Safari share sheet, and when a page has no recipe data it offers to take the pasted text instead. Video and social links are saved as link cards with the page title.

Every recipe keeps its source link and stays on your iPhone, with no account. Export writes every recipe as a zip of Markdown and JSON files with your photos, readable without the app, and the app imports it back. Saving, link import, search, tags, scaling, cook mode, print and export are free with no limits.

Recipe Keeper: Save & Cook is coming soon to the App Store.