CookBook - Recipe Manager Reviews

by Pinch_of_gingr

I paid for CookBook two years ago when it was not a subscription service. If I had known it would be turned into a subscription I would have just used a free app, or even saved pdfs to a drive on my computer.

Now I am being forced, after purchasing an item, to pay for that same item AGAIN? When Microsoft updates it’s operating system, does your old windows 7 stop working? In what universe is it reasonable to ask someone to pay forty dollars for a “lifetime subscription” to something they’ve already purchased? How do I know that in two more years, CookBook won’t decide that they need to add new features and charge me another forty dollars, why not a hundred this time? Giving old users a free lifetime subscription is the only thing that makes sense in this context.

I used to recommend CookBook to people, now I’m just going to uninstall it. I can’t spend more of my money on a company with such unethical business practices. I would recommend everyone considering this purchase to reconsider based on this review as well.

by Farbeyondme

A recipe/meal planner app without nutrition analyzer?

What?! How can you even call this a meal planner app when it doesn’t analyze recipes/ingredients for nutrition info? That’s what meal planning is all about. I guess you can paste in the nutritional content, but that means I either A) Have to upload recipes from the internet that already have that detail AND I can’t deviate from the recipe (like change ingredients to make it healthier) or B) I have to upload it to another app (like MyFitnessPal) to first work out the recipe the way I want it and then upload it to CookBook and then manually enter the nutritional info. Goodness forbid I should want to add a physical paper/book recipe. I’d have to take the extra step of manually adding that to another app (painstaking) to get the nutritional first.

I’m disappointed that I paid money for this. I wish I could get the money back and never see CookBook again. In this day and age, I cannot believe they haven’t linked up to a food database for REAL this app and meal planning abilities.

by Charlie2427

This is one of my favorite recipe apps I love the automatic url detection which saves me time and the UI is beautiful that being said I had been very glitchy as of late. Between app crashing and the error pop up that occasionally occurs where you have to press ‘okay’ like 80 times only to find that the recipe was imported just fine. It is simply frustrating. I also do not enjoy the fact that you need to create a meal plan to get a shopping list. Why can’t I just look at a recipe and add it to a shopping list? I think that ingredients get consolidated in the list but it’s only sometimes if certain things don’t link up you’ll have 5 different rosemary’s on your list. The set up could be way more simple than what they have laid out. As a person who used CookBook on a weekly basis I find myself using it less simply because of the annoying little things here and there that add up.

by Lakshmi Sameera

Overall CookBook is a joy too work with. I wanted an app that didn’t have a subscription model. I don’t understand why I have to pay a subscription when i’m doing all the work saving recipes. Very easy to import and add recipes. Look and feel are great. Great search function and organization using tags function. There are few glitches I hope will get corrected in upcoming updates. When using ocr function it is limited to ten pics for entire recipe. And if you upload a wrong pic it can not be deleted from the list of 10 pics. Having said this the ocr function is spot on 98% of the time. And it would be perfect if somehow they can automate nutrition info. But hey there is never an end to what we want. An awesome app.

by Amyem2000

Wonderful app for organizing recipes, love how I can scan ones I have written and they are put into CookBook . Excellent search functionality to find recipes. Like the ability to easily export to pdf.

Wish the shopping list function was a bit better so I could click on a recipe and add items needed to my shopping cart vs having to do this by clicking through to a meal plan then electing day/meal before I can add to the list. Wish I could remove what items in a recipe I don’t need on the list before it gets added. Some sort of swipe to delete button would be great

Also, wish there was a way to categorize recipes into folders, at least in a iPad/tablet view vs seeing them all. Would be nice to search through folders I’ve created for ideas

by MrsGMK

I just got this and am still working on how I want to use it. So far I love that I can snap pictures to import recipes and not have to type it all. It’s easy to add pictures of the dishes and steps. I can make up my own tags so I can organize things in my own way. I can add notes. There’s a way to back up what I’ve entered. I can share it on my devices. And I love that there’s no subscription fee which really turned me off of other app choices. Things I’m still trying to work out is editing the data after an import can be cumbersome. Sometimes it adds funky characters that I cannot get rid of no matter what I try, including deleting and adding manually. And I wish I could print an index card format vs a full page pdf. I’m also leery about having a full database of recipes on my phone. I don’t want to buy more phone memory just for recipes! But I have yet to see if that’s really going to be a problem or not. Overall I’m really pleased.

by Vivhall3

I was using another recipe organizer app that I loved and it was removed from the iPhone line up. I did some research and found the this app App. I didn’t think I would be happy and figured it would take a long time to get used to the new app. I was wrong!! I love CookBook. It’s easy to load recipes from websites, tags make them easy to find and I enjoy planning my menu for the week. And the grocery shopping list is great and easy to use.

Whatever the subscription price it is worth it and I’ll be signing up for the Lifetime offer.

One more thing, they respond quickly if you have any questions and seem to be open to all good suggestions. A+ app and team.

by Wipammyk

For the first time I finally have found an app that works like it should. I have tried at least a dozen of the last few years to try and digitize my paper random recipes. The features are so help from tags to multi pictures (this is helpful for showing various steps 👍👍).

It has been very simple to use. And thanks for having it be a 1 time fee. I would be willing to pay for bigger updates from time to time to keep development going, but I’m just thankful it isn’t some crazy $19 buck a month subscription.

Thanks for hopefully being my final app to get this project done. 👍

by Optimal Health Homecook

I love this this app App! I started a Healthy Lifestyle change this year. As I have taken on learning to cook in a new way for optimal health adding recipes, adjusting the number I am cooking for daily, and planning ahead have become primary needs for my meal planning. CookBook is extremely easy to use, make edits and navigate changes. I love the meal planning calendar for planning my week while remaining easily flexible!
this app is beautiful and extremely functional for my family and personal meal success. I love using it daily! It’s rekindled a love for cooking for my family! It has become one of my highest used apps! Thank you!

by Mkl369063235

I’ve never written an app review in my life, so this tells you how much I love this. I’ve been searching for a long time for a place where I could combine all my this app, Pinterest, blogger and family recipes in one place with organization and searchable functions. The ability to take photos of recipes in my cookbooks and magazines has been a lifesaver! And I love that it’ll automatically download almost any online recipe with ease.

There’s only two things that would change this to 5 stars:

1. There’s some weird conversions that happen sometimes. I’ve turned off the function that converts the measurements within the recipes, but sometimes weird converting seems to still happen. So I wish that was better or (if I’m missing something) that the controls were more intuitive.

2. I wish the meal planner had an option to swap days instead of just swap recipes. I rarely change my recipes after planning my week, but I often just need to change a dinner from Tuesday night to Wednesday because schedules changed, meat wasn’t defrosted, we already have more leftovers than anticipated, etc. I’d LOVE it if I could click on tonight’s dinner and hit a button to “move” the meal and choose another date.

Even with these little annoyances, I still love CookBook and find it to be without a doubt the best functioning cooking app for my needs!

by CrisKaz2019

I'm not usually the reviewing type person, but I just can't keep quiet about CookBook! I've already told 5+ family members about it! I too have tried different free apps but they all lack one thing or the other. But CookBook has it all.

My favorite thing about CookBook is the minimalist clutter-free design and overall aesthetics of the interface across the whole program! It's always such a pleasure opening it up every time.

My next favorite thing is that you can import recipes from almost any website and it recognizes ingredients, steps, title, pictures, and etc. with immaculate precision and organizes them accordingly. To my delight, CookBook also converts recipes in different languages with little editing!!! I was excited about that!

The only thing I would change is that you can't access the main menu button from the "my recipes" page as well as some other pages. Would be great to access the main menu from anywhere in CookBook . But that's being nit-picky. CookBook is still a five star for me! Good job guys! Thank you.

by Bighairtexan

I cook. A LOT. I have recipes saved as screen shots. In my gmail folders, on my iPad. In my phone, not to mention zillions of hard copies of recipes saved in this binder and that. At first I went for the freebie app, but I didn’t have to reach the 40 free recipe limit before I knew I had to have complete access to CookBook. I have to say I use it most days. Some days more than once.
It’s so easy to type in “butter” and all the recipes I’ve listed with butter pop up. Importing the recipes including the photo is so easy and I’m tech challenged sometimes. CookBook is easy and intuitive.
Pretty sure I should have gone for the lifetime subscription.

by JolindaM

After several months and many dollars of purchasing the more well known cooking apps, ( I tried 7) I finally found this app (no The or My in front, just this app).

This is a wonderful App and has saved me many hours and made my cooking endeavors so much easier! It saves from a recipe from almost any site by simply copying and pasting the URL and you can also easily copy and paste ingredients and instructions, if you find a maverick site not able to auto install. I refer back to several dishes at a time thru opening “Recent Recipes” when I’m cooking many dishes at once. Also It sends to other CB users fairly easily and making my own Tags allows me to find things saved in several places.

This is a small company and they responded to my question within just a few hours. I look forward to seeing CookBook grow (i.e. share entire recipe collections with friends)as anybody who searches the internet for recipes will find it a huge blessing!
And all for a one time $5 fee. You definitely NEED this “this app” app!!

by Jmkdiva

I searched all the recipe apps and this is the best one. It works on multiple platforms, not just your phone. It has OCR so you can take pictures of recipes and input them into your collection. For the laptop, there’s an extension to automatically “clip” a recipe from a website into your collection. It’s great!

You can set timers within recipes as you make them. You can halve or double recipes. You can do meal planning and construct grocery lists.

It’s a reasonable price for all you get and it’s great that you don’t have to pay a monthly fee. I refuse to have to pay each month to organize and access my own recipes! These developers get it and have made a very user-friendly app.

by LG2.0

This is a great app and one that I use all the time and the new update and move to a subscription model is an exciting development. I cook a lot and had been looking for one place to act as a central hub for my recipes. After looking around I chose this app because of its excellent features and great reviews. The biggest drawback though was that CookBook appeared to be infrequently updated and there were some minor issues that cried out to be fixed. I am really pleased that the team has switched to a subscription plan because this should allow them to continue to invest in making CookBook even better. The latest release looks better and feels faster. I can’t wait to see what comes next!

by Sharonr75

CookBook has everything I was looking for to help with meal planning! I love that I can save recipes from multiple websites , and even add my own recipes - and everything looks so pretty with nice big photos! I really love that the information actually gets copied into the corresponding fields in CookBook , instead of just linking to the external websites. Now I don’t have to scroll through long rambling blogs with annoying banner ads! The meal planner is very easy to use and I can easily compile a shopping list for the week and text it to my husband to pick up at the store. There are a lot more thoughtful features too. This is my first ever review on CookBook Store and it is completely unsolicited! I’m just super happy I decided to buy CookBook and wanted to share it!

by Min124

I ❤ CookBook! It literally does everything but cook the food for you . The new update is awesome!!!! The only downside is that I now need to move over my entire recipe collection of 5,000 + from my previous recipe organizer because this one is just that good 🤗. There’s only 1 thing I wish I could do in CookBook & it’s to add links in the ingredients list . If I am making a recipe that requires a 2nd recipe for example “ my favorite BBQ sauce” I’d like to be able to link it in the ingredients so I can just click it & it takes me straight to that recipe. I use another popular organizer that has this feature & that’s all CookBook is missing . Thanks for the great work I do plan to purchase the lifetime subscription once my membership is due . I know it takes time & money to run a decent app & I support you guys all the way .

by Azstrider

I am converting all of my favorite recipes to CookBook. The various capture and input methods make this easy to build an integrated recipe book. It takes a bit of experimenting to learn the various capture methods but once you’ve got it you won’t forget as CookBook is self directing on how to capture and tune your recipes.

Capture from your browser is very easy and my go to method if possible. The OCR method works well and is the way I captured many of my oldest printed recipes or from the recipe books that line my kitchen shelf.

CookBook works and it gives me my recipes at my fingertips wherever I go and when I use it in the kitchen it does not switch off when I turn my back like other apps that I have used like to do. It sounds simple but this can be very irritating if your hands are knee deep in ingredients. Try it - you will like it.

by Montmeag

I used a different app for years and was ok with it until they went to a yearly subscription. That’s a HUGE turn off for me. I found this one and have really enjoyed it since. The import process was so simple and fast. I love that I can just take a picture of a recipe, edit very little and it’s ready to go instead of typing out the entire recipe. Customizing the tags is also nice to have and easy to do. I have recently started using the meal planner function, which I have to say is WAY better than the last app I used so I never used it before now. It pops up a button on the bottom of the home page that says “dinner” and it takes you straight to the recipe for the day. Genius! The developers are responsive and open to feedback and suggestions for future updates, which is appreciated. I highly recommend CookBook!

by Dmovius

I had a different recipe manager for probably 10 years. I was happy with it as it met the need. Over the years I had accumulated over 500 recipes. A few months ago I decided to pay for the cloud service that allowed me to access recipes on other devices. Imagine my chagrin when the syncing stopped after the last IOS update. When I looked back at CookBook version info I was stunned to see that the last update was 2 years ago. Now there is no way to contact the developer or customer support as the website won’t come up.” And it’s still available for downloading in CookBook Store. Stupid me for paying for the cloud service subscription through 2020 (seems like fraud to me) Anyway, found the Cook Book app and I love it. I have transferred all my recipes and love the automatic syncing from my IPad to IPhone. And I love the features. If you’re looking for a great recipe manager, this is the one to get!!

by KimbPW

Overall I really like CookBook and I have recommended it to others. Its easy, love the import and tag options and I am just getting into the meal planning.

My only issues are for some recipes I cannot get the ingredients to stay in cups and it switches it to oz or another measurement. I have tried different things but doesnt help. This is only a few recipes this has been an issue with. The other issue is I wished I could backup on my computer instead of on phone. However, I did email it to myself so it does accomplish it.

My complaints are more annoying then anything and overall I am very happy with CookBook !! I recommend giving it a try!