Help
Importing recipes
Every way to get a recipe into A La Carte — a link, a social post, a photo, a PDF, the share sheet, or typing it in yourself — 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, on every tab except Profile — and choose 'Import/Create'. That opens the import options: Social, Photo, URL, Document, and Create. Create lets you generate a recipe with AI or type one in yourself.
The same Plus button also holds 'Update Groceries', 'Manage Pantry', and 'Need Help?', which opens Ask Capy (A La Carte Plus).
Imports run in the background. You can leave the screen, or close the app, and the phone you imported on gets a notification when the recipe is ready. Recipes always land in your Cookbook.
While a recipe imports, a card beside the capybara button at the bottom of the screen shows how it's going, with the recipe's picture as soon as we have it, and it follows you to the other tabs. When it's done, Capy places the new recipe card at the top of your Cookbook. If recipes land while you're on another tab, a card says how many; tap it to open your Cookbook, or tap its X to hide it until the import finishes. A recipe you import on another phone or tablet signed in to your account just appears in your Cookbook here, without the card or Capy's placing.
To cancel an import that's still loading, tap that card and tap Cancel import. Nothing from it is saved; one that had just finished saving goes to Recently Deleted instead.
Until your Cookbook holds its first recipe, a speech bubble above the capybara button suggests where to start — see 'Getting set up: sharing and import guides'.
At very busy times a new import may wait in line for a few minutes — its card says Cooking that up… and you'll get a notification when it's ready.
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. After your first website import, the 'Import URL directly in browser' row above the paste box folds away under Import steps; tap it to see it again, or fold it yourself before then.
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 copy the post's link and paste it under Plus → Import/Create → URL.
Plus → Import/Create → Social shows you how the share sheet route works. Pick the app — Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube or Facebook — to see step-by-step pictures made for your phone, iPhone or Android: swipe or tap through them. An 'Open Instagram to find a recipe' button (named for the app you picked) takes you straight there. Under the pictures, 'First time? Find A La Carte' switches to the steps for putting A La Carte at the front of your share sheet, starting in the app you picked, and 'Back to the import steps' returns. See 'A La Carte isn't in the share sheet'. Profile → Get started → Import guides has the same pictures for every app in one place.
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.
Facebook posts work from public pages, public groups and reels. When the recipe is in the poster's own comment rather than the post, A La Carte reads that comment too. A post in a private group or on a private profile can't be imported — share it from a public post, or paste the recipe text.
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.
When they're all saved, Capy places them in your Cookbook together.
On the free plan, a post holding more recipes than you have imports left for the week brings in as many as your allowance covers and leaves the rest out. The cards for the ones left out disappear rather than showing an error, and a single message tells you how many there were — '2 more needed A La Carte Plus'. The same happens with a document or a set of photos holding several recipes. Nothing is held over: import the post or file again after the count resets on Monday, or upgrade — see 'Your plan, and what A La Carte Plus adds'.
Importing from a photo
Plus → Import/Create → Photo, then either Import (pick from your library) or Snap (use the camera). Import shows how to share a photo in from your phone's photo app, and its Choose from library button opens your photo library.
To share from the photo app: open the photo in Photos (iPhone) or Google Photos (Android), tap the share button, then A La Carte. After your first photo import, the pictures fold away under Import steps; tap it to see them again, or fold them yourself before then.
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. A photo with no food or recipe in it (a room, a laptop, a pet) isn't imported: you'll see 'No recipe found', and it doesn't use up one of your imports.
You can select several photos at once — if a recipe runs across two pages, include both and they are grouped into one recipe. Picking two or more photos shows the same panel while they upload and are sorted into dishes; it then stays at its Import step, counting the dishes in as a card appears for each one. On the free plan, if your photos hold more recipes than you have imports left this week, a checklist lets you choose which ones to import. Its Upgrade button opens A La Carte Plus: once the upgrade goes through, every recipe in the photos imports by itself, and backing out brings the checklist back as you left it. Each row shows the recipe's title as read from the photo, or 'Recipe from photo 3' when none is printed. Like the one a multi-recipe document opens, that checklist is good for one go and expires if you leave it (see 'Importing a PDF or a file from another app').
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.
Tapping Document first shows 'Import from Files': pictures made for your phone, iPhone or Android, of sharing a file from the Files app straight to A La Carte — swipe or tap through them. 'First time? Find A La Carte' under them switches to the steps for putting A La Carte at the front of your share sheet, as on the Social cards. The 'Choose a file' button opens the file picker inside A La Carte: pick a file to import it, or close the picker to land back where you were. Profile → Get started → Import guides → Files has the same pictures. After your first file import, the pictures fold away under Import steps; tap it to see them again, or fold them yourself before then.
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. When one is detected you get a checklist first, so you can pick which of them to keep. Each row carries the recipe's title as read from the page, even from a scanned PDF with no text in it; when no title is printed the row reads 'Recipe on page 3' instead. A title printed in capitals is shown, and saved, in ordinary title case.
While the file is uploaded and read, a panel at the bottom of the screen shows where it is up to: Upload, Read, Choose, Import. Nothing appears in your Cookbook yet. Keep the app open until it has been read. Swipe the panel down, or tap Hide, and it shrinks to a small card beside the capybara button showing the same steps; tap the card to bring the panel back. Reading carries on, and the checklist still opens by itself. Cancel import stops it and nothing is imported. A file holding one recipe skips the checklist and goes straight to Import. With several, the checklist comes first; when you tap Import, the small card beside the capybara button counts the recipes in ('1 of 3') while Capy places each one in your Cookbook as it finishes. A library's recipes import one at a time, and the card counts them in the same way. Tap the card to open the panel at its Import step; while it is open, Capy waits and places the new recipes once you hide it. When the last one has landed, the panel or the card slips into the capybara button and Capy places the recipes in your Cookbook. From the Import step on you can leave the app; your recipes keep importing. Stop importing stops the recipes that haven't arrived yet and keeps the ones that have; one that is already being saved still finishes and lands a few seconds later. The small card shows on the Cookbook, Pantry, Meal Plan and Groceries tabs and inside a collection. A library exported from another recipe app, a Google Docs or Sheets link pasted into URL, and a note shared into A La Carte work the same way.
A checklist is good for one go. Once you tap Import, or close it with the ✕, it is finished — tapping an older notification won't reopen it, and the ones you didn't pick are not kept. It doesn't wait around either: leave it sitting for about an hour and it expires, and coming back to it says 'That import expired. Please share or upload the file again.' Importing the same file again gives you a fresh checklist and costs the same as the first one would have.
On the free plan a library export is checked against what you have left before it is read: with none left you get the upgrade screen instead of a checklist, so a whole library is never uploaded and unpacked for a list you couldn't import from. Each recipe you then tick spends one import.
On the free plan, ticking more recipes than you have imports left this week opens a box showing this week's free imports as a row of produce stickers, with two ways on. 'All 5 · Plus' brings in everything you ticked with A La Carte Plus: once the upgrade goes through they start importing by themselves, and if the upgrade takes more than half a minute to confirm, the checklist comes back with them still ticked. 'Import 3 now', with however many fit, takes you back to the checklist with nothing ticked so you can choose which ones to bring in for free: once you have picked that many, the rest are greyed out, and its Upgrade button works like 'All 5 · Plus'. Not now closes the box and imports nothing.
Importing a whole library exported from Paprika, Mela, or Crouton also carries its categories across: each one becomes a tag on the matching recipes, so the grouping you already had still works for filtering and browsing (see Tagging recipes).
Generating a recipe with AI
Plus → Import/Create → Create → Generate 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.
While it works you'll see what it's doing — checking your pantry, looking through your cookbook, searching the web, writing the recipe, working out the nutrition.
The 'Serves' and 'Cals' on the preview card are worked out from the ingredient amounts before the card appears, so the numbers you see are the numbers that land in your Cookbook when you save. Serves is the number you asked for; when you don't ask, it follows Profile → My Kitchen → Household. If a first draft's amounts would feed more people than that, Chef scales them down before the card appears. Ask for a different number in a follow-up message, or change the servings after saving (see 'Changing the servings').
If you give a limit — 'under 700 calories a serving', 'at least 30 g protein' — the recipe is checked against the app's own count before you see it, and the reply says whether it fits. The limit carries through your follow-up messages until you change or drop it.
A recipe is only saved to your Cookbook when you tap Save.
You can switch to another app while it works. When it's done, the phone you started it on gets a notification: 'Your recipe is ready' when there is a recipe waiting, or 'Capy needs your input' when Capy has replied with a question for you instead. Tapping either opens the chat where you left it. If you leave the Create chat itself before it finishes, no notification comes.
Generating a recipe spends one of the free plan's five weekly imports. If you have none left, Generate opens the upgrade screen instead of the chat. Manual, next to it, still opens. If the allowance runs out while the chat is already up, the assistant answers in the chat that you have reached the Free plan limit for the week and the upgrade screen follows; your message and the recipe so far are still there.
A recipe you save from this chat gets an AI cover photo even on the free plan, although generating a cover is normally a paid feature — it comes with the import you just spent (see 'Recipe cover photos').
Typing in your own recipe
Plus → Import/Create → Create → Manual opens a blank recipe. Give it a title, at least one ingredient and at least one step, and tap Save. Everything else — description, servings, times, nutrition, cuisine, dietary labels, notes — is optional.
Ingredients are entered as an amount, a unit and a name, so scaling the servings and adding the recipe to your grocery list work the same way as for any other recipe. If you leave the prep or cook time blank, A La Carte fills in a rough estimate you can change later. Nutrition only appears if you enter it.
Your work is saved on your phone as you type. If you close the screen before saving, the next time you tap Manual it asks 'Continue your draft?' — Continue picks up where you left off, Start over throws the draft away and gives you a blank recipe. Only one draft is kept at a time.
Recipes you type in yourself are free on every plan and never count toward your five free imports a week. Add a cover from the recipe afterwards: tap the camera on the card.
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. For a recipe made in the Create chat the same calculation runs before the preview, so the calories and serving count on the preview card are the ones you save.
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 you are on the free plan and this week's imports are gone, the iOS share sheet tells you there and then — 'You've used this week's free imports. They reset Monday, or open A La Carte to go unlimited.' — and closes without switching apps, so you stay where you were. Open A La Carte afterwards and the upgrade screen is waiting. On Android the app opens the upgrade screen instead.
Sharing a set of photos is different: while you still have some imports left, the share hands over to the app so you can choose which recipes to keep (see 'Roundup posts with several recipes'). Only at none left does the sheet answer on the spot.
On iOS the sheet says 'Sending to A La Carte…' while it works, then one of two things. 'Sent! We'll notify you when it's ready.' means it went through there and then and you can stay where you are. 'Saved! Open A La Carte to finish importing.' means it has been kept for the app to pick up — open A La Carte and it carries on by itself. That is the normal answer for a note, a file and a set of photos, and for a link the sheet couldn't send on its own. If something goes wrong you get 'Couldn't save that. Try again.' or 'Couldn't read that share.' The wording is the same whatever you shared.
Once a share handed to the app has been accepted, a banner drops in at the top of the screen saying 'We're cooking that up' for a link or a single photo, on both phones. Tap it, tap its X or swipe it up to close it. It only appears once the import has really started, so a checklist, the upgrade screen or an error never comes with one; a document, a note or several photos show their progress panel instead. Problems on the way (needing to sign in, photos that couldn't be read) come up in an A La Carte popup with one button.
Some answers are final, and the iOS share sheet gives them there and then instead of sending you to the app to be told again: 'Too many imports at once. Wait a minute, then share it again.', 'You've reached today's import limit. Try again tomorrow.', and for a OneDrive link, 'OneDrive links can't be read. Share the file as a PDF instead.' A link from a site we don't import from yet gets 'We can't import from that link yet' with two buttons: Request it sends the team a request to add that site, and Done closes the sheet. In the app, an import that meets the same limits shows 'Too many at once' or 'Today's limit reached' with a single Got it button — trying again straight away, or with Photo Import, would only hit the same limit.
On Android you can share a document straight from Files or a cloud app: PDF, Word (.docx), rich text, plain text, Markdown, HTML and CSV all import. It works even when the app you shared from doesn't say what kind of file it is — A La Carte goes by the file's name instead. A file it genuinely can't read says 'A La Carte can't import that kind of file.' A share carrying both photos and a document is treated as photos. And a share that arrives while you are still being signed back in waits for that to finish rather than being dropped.
If A La Carte isn't in the share sheet, see 'A La Carte isn't in the share sheet' — on iOS, scroll the app row to the end, tap More, tap Edit, tap + next to A La Carte and drag it to the top. If it's still missing, restart the phone — iOS is sometimes slow to register a new share extension.