How to Switch Recipe Apps Without Retyping a Single Recipe

The main reason people stay in a recipe app they’ve outgrown is the collection. Hundreds of recipes, years of notes in the margins, and the fear of retyping all of it. If you want to switch recipe apps, the good news is that you almost never have to retype anything. Most established recipe managers can export your whole collection to a file, and a good new app can read that file in one pass.

This guide covers how to export from the most common apps, how to import into Pluck, what comes across and what doesn’t, and a short checklist before you uninstall anything.

Why people switch recipe apps in 2026

The apps people leave are usually good at what they were built for: clipping recipes from food blogs. What changed is where recipes come from. A large share of what people cook now starts as a TikTok, an Instagram Reel or a YouTube Short, where the recipe is spoken in a voiceover or flashed on screen, not written on a web page. A recipe clipper that reads web pages, or an importer that only reads the caption, comes back with half a recipe.

So the usual reasons to switch are:

Social and video recipes. You want the TikTok saved as a full recipe, not a bookmark or a copy of the caption. Several apps now import social posts, but many read only the caption, or the caption and audio. Pluck also reads the video frames and on-screen text. See how AI watches cooking videos.
Android or a second platform. Mela is Apple-only, and many people end up with a household that mixes iPhone and Android.
A modern cooking workflow. Cook mode with timers per step, a meal plan, an aisle-sorted grocery list, and an AI assistant that can answer “what can I use instead of buttermilk?” for the recipe in front of you.

If you’re still deciding, the recipe app comparison hub has the side-by-side tables. This post assumes you’ve decided and want to move.

Step 1: Export from your current app

Each app has its own export format. These are the ones Pluck reads directly:

From	Export file	Where to find it
Paprika	`.paprikarecipes` (or a single `.paprikarecipe`)	Desktop: File → Export → Paprika Recipe Format. Mobile: Settings → Export
Mela	`.melarecipes` (or a single `.melarecipe`)	Select recipes or a category → Share/Export
Crouton	`.crumb` (JSON)	Recipe or collection → Share → export as Crouton file
CopyMeThat	`.zip` (HTML + images)	Website: Account → Export recipes
Anything else	`.json` with schema.org Recipe data (JSON-LD)	Many apps and sites export or publish this standard format

Menu names move between versions, so if a label differs slightly, look for “Export” in the app’s settings or share menu. We have step-by-step guides for the two most common moves: import from Paprika and import from Mela.

Tip: export everything in one file if the app allows it. One file means one import, and it’s easier to check that the recipe count matches.

Step 2: Import into Pluck

Get the export file onto your phone: AirDrop, email it to yourself, or save it to iCloud Drive or Google Drive.
Open Pluck and sign in. Imports go into your account, so they’re backed up and available on any device you sign in on.
Go to Settings → Data → Import Recipes, choose the app you’re coming from, and pick the file.
Pluck reads the file, shows how many recipes it found, and imports them with a progress bar.

When it’s done you get a summary: how many recipes were imported and how many were skipped, with the reason for each. A recipe is skipped if, for example, it has no title or you already imported it. Running the same file twice won’t create duplicates.

Importing doesn’t use your monthly AI extractions. Nothing is re-extracted, because the recipe is already structured in the file. It does count toward your saved-recipe limit: the free plan holds 10 recipes, Light 50, Plus 500 and Pro unlimited. If your file has more recipes than you have room for, Pluck tells you before importing and brings in as many as fit.

What comes across, and what to check

Recipe export formats aren’t identical, so it’s worth knowing what usually survives the trip:

Comes across: titles, ingredient lists, instructions, servings, times, notes and source URLs, as far as the source app included them in its export.
Check afterwards: photos (some exports leave out or shrink locally stored images) and categories. Many apps export categories as plain labels. Use them to rebuild your structure as Pluck groups or tags. Our guide to organizing a recipe collection suggests a structure that holds up.
Doesn’t come across: app-specific extras like another app’s meal plan history or pantry inventory. Those live in the old app’s own database, not in its recipe export. A count of how often you’ve made each recipe doesn’t come across either: Pluck’s cooking log starts with the first time you cook it here.

Spot-check five recipes you know well: one with a photo, one with long notes, one with ingredient sections (“For the sauce”), one you edited heavily, and the oldest one you have.

Step 3: Make the new app yours

An import gets your recipes across. A few minutes of setup makes the switch feel finished:

Recreate your top-level groups. “Weeknight dinners”, “Baking”, “Mum’s recipes”. Free plans include 3 groups and paid plans have unlimited.
Try “What can I cook?” Your imported recipes are searchable by ingredient straight away, which tends to resurface recipes you forgot you had. Type what’s in the house, or take a photo of your fridge and let the pantry scan list it for you (one scan a month on the free plan, more on paid plans). See what can I cook with what I have.
Plan one week. Put three imported favourites in the meal plan and build a grocery list from them, or on Plus and Pro let Fill my week draft the week from your imported recipes for you to review. That’s the fastest way to learn the new app.
Save one new recipe from social media. Share a TikTok or Reel to Pluck and compare the result with what your old app saved from the same video. Some apps keep only the caption; Pluck reads the video too.

Before you delete the old app

Keep the export file. Store it somewhere safe, like a cloud drive. It’s your backup in a format other apps can read.
Check what you’d be giving up. Pluck runs on iOS and Android phones, with no web or desktop app, and it shows no nutrition info. Your recipe box and meal plan are personal to your account; what you can share is a grocery list and single recipes by link.
Check subscriptions. Cancel a subscription in the App Store or Google Play settings, not by deleting the app.
Leave it installed for a week. If something didn’t come across, it’s easier to re-export a single recipe than to rebuild it from memory.

Pluck can also export your recipes, so you’re never locked in here either.

Coming from an app without an export?

Some apps have no export at all, or only export to PDF. You still don’t have to retype:

Recipes that came from a website: share the original link to Pluck and it extracts the recipe again.
Recipes you typed in yourself or copied from a cookbook: take a screenshot or photo of each and let Pluck’s photo extraction read it. It works on handwritten cards too.

It’s slower than a file import, but it’s a few seconds per recipe rather than five minutes of typing.

Pluck is available on iOS and Android. Get it on Google Play or on the App Store. Stuck on an import? Our Help & FAQ covers the common questions.