How to save recipes from any website

Updated 31 October 2026

Recipe pages bury the part you need under ads, pop-ups and long introductions. Saving the recipe itself (ingredients, steps, times and photo) into your own cookbook means you never have to find that page again.

The quickest way: share it from Safari

1. Open the recipe page in Safari (or any app with a Share button).
2. Tap Share and choose Add to Plate & Page.
3. You’ll see “Preparing recipe for review…”, then a confirmation that it’s saved for review.
4. Open Plate & Page. The recipe is waiting as a draft for you to check and save.

The share extension works the same way on Mac, from Safari and other apps. It accepts links, plain text, up to eight images, and .platepage recipe files.

Or paste the link in the app

1. In your recipe library, open the Add Recipe menu and choose Import Recipe (on Mac: File › Import Recipe…, ⌘I).
2. Choose Web, paste the address and tap Fetch Recipe.
3. Check the draft, then choose Review and Save.

How the recipe is read from the page

Most recipe sites publish a structured copy of each recipe for search engines: the name, ingredients, steps, servings, times, cuisine and nutrition. Plate & Page reads that structured data directly, so you get the recipe without the page around it. The recipe photo comes along too when the site provides one.

If a page has no structured recipe, the app extracts the likely recipe text instead and turns it into a draft, using on-device Apple Intelligence where available or built-in rules otherwise, and labels the draft so you know to check it.

Saving recipes on Mac

On a Mac the same tools are a click away. Share a page from Safari, or share text and images from Photos and other Mac apps, and choose Add to Plate & Page. If you already have the address copied, use File › Import Recipe… and paste it. The draft opens in the large Mac window, which makes it easy to compare the imported ingredients with the original page side by side before you save. Because your cookbook syncs through your own iCloud, a recipe saved on the Mac is on your iPhone by the time you reach the kitchen.

Save from Shortcuts

Plate & Page adds a Shortcuts action called Import Recipe from URL. Use it to build your own one-tap shortcut, for example one that takes the link you have copied and sends it straight to Plate & Page. Like every other import, the result opens as a draft for you to review.

Recipes that aren’t on a website

Pasted text

Copied a recipe from an email, a message or a note? Choose Text, paste the ingredients and directions, and tap Structure Text. The app separates ingredients from steps for you.

Photos of printed recipes

Choose Photos, pick up to eight photos of a cookbook page or recipe card from your photo library, and tap Recognize Recipe. Text is recognized on your device with Apple’s Vision framework, and several photos become the pages of one recipe, which helps with recipes that run over a page turn. Always check fractions and units; the draft reminds you to.

Recipe files

Friends using Plate & Page can send you a .platepage file from a recipe’s More menu. Open it, or choose File in Import Recipe.

Describe a dish

Choose Describe, type something like “classic carbonara for two, no cream”, and tap Draft Recipe. On devices with Apple Intelligence this creates a complete on-device draft, clearly labeled as AI-drafted; other devices get an editable starting point with the name filled in.

Moving recipes between people

A .platepage file is the simplest way to hand a recipe to someone else who uses Plate & Page. Send it from the share sheet the way you share any file, and the other person opens it as a draft in their own cookbook. If you cook with the same people every week, a shared household (part of Premium) keeps recipes, plans and groceries in sync instead, so nobody has to send anything.

Coming from another recipe app

Plate & Page 1.1.1 imports Paprika, Mela and Crouton export files on your device. For recipes that live on the web, share each one’s original page or paste its text; for printed ones, use photos. Many people start with the recipes they actually cook and leave the rest behind.

Nothing is saved until you review it

Every import opens as an editable draft. Fix a quantity, tidy a step or change the photo, then save. Plate & Page also detects cooking times in the steps and links ingredients to the steps that use them.

If the recipe looks like one you already have (the same link, the same name, or very similar ingredients), the app tells you how closely it matches and lets you Keep Both and Review, replace your existing copy after review, or cancel.

A quick review habit pays off later: check the servings, look for any oven temperature that needs converting, and glance at fractions recognized from photos. It takes a minute and saves a ruined dinner.

What’s free

Every import method is available in the free edition, which includes three reviewed imports for life, separate from the five recipes you create yourself. A slot is used only when you actually save. Premium, a one-time purchase, removes the limit.