Frequently Asked Questions

My Family's Cookbook is a recipe organizer, meal planner, and grocery list app designed to keep your recipes and meal planning in one place.

You can create your own recipes, import recipes from websites, plan meals, create grocery lists, and use your cookbook across your supported Apple devices.

Yes. My Family's Cookbook includes a collection of default recipes that you can add to your cookbook.

You can also create your own recipes and import recipes from supported websites.

No. My Family's Cookbook does not require you to create a separate account.

Apple's iCloud services are used for syncing your cookbook between your devices and for cookbook sharing.

Choose New Recipe from the menu. Enter your recipe information, including the ingredients and instructions, and save it to your cookbook.

Yes. Choose Import from Web and enter the web address of the recipe.

My Family's Cookbook will retrieve the recipe information and let you review and edit it before saving it to your cookbook.

My Family’s Cookbook recognizes industry standard recipe formatting, but unfortunately some websites may prevent access or structure their recipe information in non-standard ways, preventing apps from importing recipes.

Most major recipe websites and blogs like Allrecipes, Food Network, and Food.com, to name a few, support what’s known as JSON-LD formatting that allows apps to import recipe details. For recipes, it means there's an agreed-upon format for saying "this is a recipe, these are the details, these are the ingredients, and here are the steps.”

To find out if the website you are accessing supports this format - you don’t need to be technical - just open your browser and ask it if the website you’re using supports JSON-LD formatting. I.E. - “Does example.com support JSON-LD formatting?” If the answer is yes - then My Family’s Cookbook can import recipes from this website. If the answer is no - then My Family’s Cookbook cannot import recipes from this website.

Yes. Open a recipe to view its details. From there, you can edit the recipe or delete it from your cookbook.

You can mark a recipe as a favorite from the Recipe Detail view.

The Home view can then be filtered to show only your favorite recipes.

What Can I Make? helps you find recipes based on ingredients you already have.

Enter the major ingredients you have available and the app will search your cookbook for recipes you may be able to make.

No. Concentrate on the main ingredients you want to use. You do not need to enter everything in your pantry or refrigerator.

You can add ingredients directly from a recipe to your grocery list or from the recipes in the meal planner. My Family's Cookbook processes the ingredients and combines matching items.

Yes, you can add items directly to your grocery list, even when they are not part of a recipe. As you type an ingredient, matching suggestions appear below the field.

If an item is not in the default suggestion list, My Family's Cookbook will add it to the list for next time.

Grocery items are automatically organized into categories such as Produce, Bakery, Dairy & Eggs, Meat & Seafood, Pantry, Frozen, Beverages, Household, and Other to make your list easier to use while shopping.

Yes, you can change its category from the grocery list, and My Family's Cookbook will remember the new category for future categorization.

The Meal Planner lets you assign recipes from your cookbook to specific days so you can plan upcoming meals.

Yes. Your cookbook will automatically sync across your supported Apple devices using iCloud.

Make sure your devices are signed in to the same Apple Account, have iCloud enabled, and have an internet connection.

iCloud synchronization may take a little time. Make sure both devices have an internet connection and are signed in to the appropriate iCloud account.

Yes. My Family's Cookbook allows you to share your cookbook with family members or friends using iCloud sharing.

Sharing options are available from Settings.

Yes. The person you share with needs My Family's Cookbook installed on their device and access to iCloud to participate in the shared cookbook.

Open Settings and choose Manage Sharing.

From there, you can view and manage the people who have access to your shared cookbook.

Visit the Guide page for detailed instructions covering the major features of My Family's Cookbook.

Use the Contact Us page to report a problem, ask a question, or send feedback.

When reporting a problem, please include as much detail as possible about what you were doing when the problem occurred. Including a screenshot can also be helpful.