Importing recipes
Every way to get a recipe into A La Carte — a link, a social post, a photo, a PDF, or the share sheet — and what to do when an import fails.
Where the import options live
Tap the Plus button — the floating capybara button on the right of the screen — and choose 'Import/Create'. That opens the import options: Social, Photo, URL, Document, and Create.
The same Plus button also holds 'Update Groceries', 'Manage Pantry', and 'Ask Capy'.
Imports run in the background. You can leave the screen, or close the app, and you'll get a notification when the recipe is ready. Recipes always land in your Cookbook.
Pasting a recipe URL
Plus → Import/Create → URL. Paste a recipe link — a food blog, a large recipe site, a newspaper's cooking section — and tap Import. A La Carte pulls out the title, ingredients, instructions and image, and leaves the ads and the life story behind.
Some sites block automated requests. A La Carte tries several routes before giving up, so most blocked pages still come through. If one genuinely fails, copy the recipe text from the page and use the paste-text option instead — that always works.
Importing from Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, or Pinterest
Two ways. The fastest is the share sheet: in the other app, tap Share and choose A La Carte. The import runs in the background and you never have to open A La Carte first. Otherwise use Plus → Import/Create → Social and paste the link.
A recipe in a video post can be in the caption, in the creator's own comment, in the narration, or shown on screen and never spoken. A La Carte works down that list in order and stops when it has a complete recipe, which is why silent videos and comment-only recipes still come through.
Some posts can't be imported — private accounts, geo-restricted content, or a platform blocking anonymous requests. You'll get a 'Couldn't import' notification. Copy the recipe text from the post and use the paste-text option.
Roundup posts with several recipes
If a post covers more than one dish — 'five weeknight dinners', 'three ways with chicken' — A La Carte detects that and saves one recipe per dish, rather than mashing them into a single unusable entry.
You'll see each recipe appear in your Cookbook as it finishes.
Importing from a photo
Plus → Import/Create → Photo, then either Import (pick from your library) or Snap (use the camera).
This handles cookbook pages, recipe cards, handwritten notes, clippings and screenshots. It works out what kind of photo it is and either transcribes the recipe on the page or, if you've photographed a finished dish, builds a recipe for that dish.
You can select several photos at once — if a recipe runs across two pages, include both and they are grouped into one recipe.
For the best results: flatten the page, avoid a shadow across the text, fill the frame with just the recipe, and shoot straight on rather than at an angle.
Importing a PDF or a file from another app
Plus → Import/Create → Document imports from a file on your device or in cloud storage.
That covers a PDF someone emailed you, a document you scanned years ago, and exports from other recipe apps. If you have a library stuck somewhere else, this is the way to bring it across — it is faster and more accurate than photographing a screen.
Large files and multi-recipe documents are handled; a file containing several recipes comes in as several recipes.
Creating a recipe from scratch
Plus → Import/Create → Create opens a chat. Describe what you want — 'a one-pan chicken thing with the peppers I need to use up', 'something like carbonara but no pork' — and you get a full recipe back.
Follow-up messages edit the recipe in place rather than starting over, so 'make it spicier' changes only what you asked for. You can attach a photo, and you can refer to your own saved recipes and the assistant will look them up.
A recipe is only saved to your Cookbook when you tap Save.
What gets estimated on an import
If a source doesn't state a time, a temperature, or an amount, A La Carte proposes a sensible value rather than leaving a blank. Which ingredients and steps appear is always faithful to the source — only the missing numbers get filled in.
These are estimates. It's worth a glance on any recipe you care about, especially one from a video where nothing was written down.
Nutrition is calculated for imported recipes where we can work it out from the ingredients.
Using the share sheet from other apps
A La Carte adds itself to the system share sheet, so you can send a link or a photo from any app — Safari, Instagram, Pinterest, your photo library — without opening A La Carte first. Tap Share, choose A La Carte, and the import runs in the background with a notification when it's done.
If A La Carte isn't in the share sheet on iOS, tap the '…' at the end of the app row and toggle it on. If it's still missing, restart the phone — iOS is sometimes slow to register a new share extension.