How to save recipes from any website

Updated 28 September 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.

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, and tap Recognize Recipe. Text is recognized on your device with Apple’s Vision framework. 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.

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.

What’s free

Every import method is available in the free edition, which includes three reviewed imports — a slot is used only when you actually save. Premium, a one-time purchase, removes the limit.