How Preserves Works

Preserves is the private digital cookbook for serious home cooks. Here’s how it works.

Whether you find recipes in a book, on TikTok, or scribbled on a sticky note, Preserves captures them and keeps them organized. No more lost links, cluttered bookmarks, or recipes that vanish when a site goes down. Everything lives in one place—yours.

Save a Recipe From a Photo

Found something in a cookbook you borrowed? Cooking from grandma’s handwritten cards? Just open the app, tap Add Recipe, and take a photo.

We built this to handle the real world: messy handwriting, faded text, weird layouts. Even coffee-stained recipe cards from the 1970s come through clean.

Import From Any Website

Copy the URL from any recipe site and paste it into Preserves, or share the page to the app.

We strip out the ads and the long stories and keep what you need—ingredients, steps, prep time, and servings. Your library stays clean and focused.

Save From TikTok and YouTube

Those viral 60-second cooking videos are fun to watch, but actually cooking from them? Usually a mess of pausing, rewinding, and squinting at ingredient lists that flash for two seconds.

TikTok

YouTube & Shorts

After It’s Saved — Make It Yours

Once a recipe is in your collection, you can do more than just open and cook.

Notes. Sometimes a recipe needs a little extra context—a substitution that worked, a tip for next time, or a note like “Dad’s birthday, 2024.” You can add notes (and images) to any recipe. They show up at the bottom of the instructions so they’re there when you need them.

Duplicate & Edit. Want to tweak a recipe without losing the original? Use “Duplicate & Edit” to create a copy. This lets you experiment with changes or variations while keeping the original recipe safe and untouched in your collection.

Shopping lists. Long-press an ingredient to add it to your shopping list, or tap the shopping list icon at the top of the ingredients to add the whole recipe. Your list lives in the app and, on iOS, you can put a Shopping List widget on your home screen so you see it at a glance. (Android widget is coming soon.)

Widgets. Besides the shopping list, you can add a widget for quick access to your favorite recipes right from your home screen.

Smart Features That Help You Cook

We also help at cook time. Switch between metric and imperial with one tap—handy when the recipe says cups and your jug shows milliliters. Cooking for two instead of six? Adjust the servings and all the amounts update. Your recipes stay organized so you can browse and find what you want to make.

Languages We Support

Preserves is available in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Dutch. Pick your language in Settings—and when you import a recipe, we use it. Whether the original is a photo in English, a French blog post, or a Spanish TikTok, we extract the recipe and translate it into the language you selected. So you always get ingredients and instructions in the language you cook in, without switching apps or copying into a translator.

Your Private Cookbook

Everything stays yours. We don’t run a social feed, we don’t sell your data, and we don’t use your recipes to train AI. Your collection is private, full stop.

• No social features — This isn’t a sharing platform.
• No algorithmic feed — Just your recipes, the way you organized them.
• No data selling — Your collection is private, period.

Getting Started

Ready to build your digital cookbook?

1. Download Preserves from the App Store or Google Play
2. Save your first recipe using any method above
3. Start cooking with confidence

Have questions? Reach out at hello@preserves.ai.