How to save a recipe from any website

Your browser's own ways to save a recipe

Nothing to install. Each one keeps the page, not the recipe.

• Bookmark it. Fast, and every browser has it. You still land back on the full page with the ads, and if the blog moves or deletes the post, the bookmark goes nowhere.

• Add it to Safari's Reading List. On iPhone, tap Share, then Add to Reading List. It's a tidy "read later" pile, but it's a list of pages, mixed in with every article you meant to read.

• Print it or save it as a PDF. Most recipe cards have a Print button that strips the page down to just the recipe. Choose Save as PDF instead of a printer and you have a clean copy that won't disappear. It's a file, though, so you can't search it by ingredient or turn it into a shopping list.

• Take a screenshot. Quick, but the ingredients and steps rarely fit on one screen, and the screenshots get lost in your camera roll.

Save it as a recipe: share straight from your browser

The fastest way, no copying or pasting.

1. Open the recipe page in Safari, Chrome, or any browser.

2. Tap Share in the browser.

3. Choose Prepful from the share sheet.

4. Prepful pulls out the ingredients and steps, ready to save or cook.

First time on iPhone? If Prepful isn't in your share sheet yet, tap More, then Edit, then tap the green + next to Prepful. On Android, Prepful is already listed there, no setup needed.

Paste the link

Works the same everywhere, including the web version on a computer.

1. Copy the recipe link from the address bar.

2. Open Prepful, then go to Recipes > Add > Import a Recipe.

3. Paste the link and tap Import Recipe.

4. Review the recipe, then save it to your library.

What Prepful keeps from a recipe page

The recipe, and nothing around it.

• Ingredients with their amounts, and the steps. If the recipe splits ingredients into groups, like the dough and the filling, the groups come through too.

• Servings, prep time, and cook time when the site lists them, plus the recipe's photo.

• A link back to the original. The saved recipe keeps the author and the page it came from, so you can check the blogger's notes or comments, and they still get the visit.

• Ingredients ready for your shopping list. Put the recipe on a day this week and its ingredients go onto your list, scaled to the servings you planned and combined with everything else you're cooking.

Why it works on almost any recipe site

Most food blogs and recipe sites tuck a machine-readable copy of the recipe into the page, the same data Google uses for recipe cards in search results. Prepful reads that first, so the amounts come straight from the recipe itself rather than from the text around it. When a page doesn't have it, Prepful reads the page's text and picks out the recipe instead.

Some big recipe sites turn away automated visits. When that happens, Prepful checks the Internet Archive for a public copy of the same page and imports the recipe from there. It only does this for public pages, never for private links.

When the recipe won't come through

Two fallbacks for pages that don't import cleanly.

• Copy the text, then paste it. Select the recipe on the page (the print view makes this easy), copy it, then in Prepful go to Recipes > Add > Paste a Recipe. Include the title, the ingredients, and the steps.

• Upload a screenshot. Screenshot the ingredients and steps, then go to Recipes > Add > Upload a Photo. You can add up to 6 screenshots for one recipe. More in how to save recipes from a photo.

Saving a recipe from a PDF

Got the recipe as a PDF already, like a cookbook sample, a recipe someone emailed you, or a meal kit card? Prepful doesn't open PDF files or PDF links directly, so you bring the recipe over as text or as pictures.

1. Try selecting the words. Open the PDF and press and hold (or click and drag) over the ingredient list. If the words highlight, the PDF has real text in it.

2. If they highlight, copy and paste. Select the title, the ingredients, and the steps, copy them, then go to Recipes > Add > Paste a Recipe. Paste one recipe at a time, so a PDF with a whole week of recipes becomes one paste per recipe.

3. If nothing highlights, it's a scan. The page is a picture of the recipe, so take a screenshot of each page instead and go to Recipes > Add > Upload a Photo. Up to 6 screenshots become one recipe, which covers a recipe that runs across two pages.

Either way, you end up with a recipe you can search, scale, and add to your plan and shopping list, which the PDF on its own can't do.

Saving a recipe from Pinterest

Most recipe pins are a photo plus a link to the site that published the recipe.

1. Open the pin with the recipe and tap Share. On your phone, pick Prepful from the share menu. Anywhere else, tap Copy link and paste it into Recipes > Add > Import a Recipe.

2. Prepful follows the pin to the recipe site behind it and saves the recipe from that page, with the site's name on it.

3. Review the recipe, then save it to your library.

Some pins were uploaded straight to Pinterest and have no site behind them. If the pin's picture is a recipe card, Prepful reads the picture. If it's only a photo of the dish, look for the creator's name or site on the pin and save the recipe from there. A board or a profile link won't import; open the single pin and share that.

Saved recipes gone after clearing your browser?

Where they went, what you can get back, and how to stop it happening again.

• Bookmarks usually survive. Clearing history, cookies, and cached files in Chrome or Safari leaves your bookmarks alone. If they're missing, you were probably signed out of the browser's sync. Sign back in to your Google account in Chrome (or iCloud for Safari) and turn sync on, and synced bookmarks come back.

• A recipe site's own "saved" list may be gone. Some sites keep your hearts and favorites in your browser instead of an account. Clearing cookies and site data wipes that list, and the browser can't bring it back. If you had an account on the site, sign in again and the list should still be there.

• Check your history first, if you didn't clear it. Search your browser history for the site's name or the dish, open each recipe, and save it again somewhere that lasts.

To keep it from happening again, save recipes to an account instead of the browser. In Prepful, every recipe you import is stored with your account, so clearing your browser, switching phones, or moving to a computer doesn't touch them. Sign in with the same account and they're all there.

Then actually cook it

Saving is the easy part. Put the recipe on a day this week and it joins your shopping list with everything else you planned. See how to meal plan with the recipes you've saved, how to make a grocery list from recipes, and how to organize your recipes once the collection grows.

Curious how Prepful compares to other recipe-saving apps? See Prepful vs Paprika and Prepful vs Copy Me That, which also import from recipe websites.