Pestle: Recipe Manager Reviews

by Xxbyt

Features work well except most important feature to me, namely the ability to scan handwritten family recipes. Scanner function is practically useless as it tries to scan handwritten words and convert to text but conversion feature is inadequate rendering almost everything unintelligible (and this is the case with fairly clear printed, non cursive handwriting). At least some other apps will let you scan the recipe without trying to convert, which gets you the digitized recipe without needing to input manually ( like anyone has time for that). If they could fix the conversion feature or add a full scan feature, this would be a perfect app for the text. Hope the developer can address this!

by A. Bolourian

I bought the lifetime memebership of Pestle and use it regularly. Reading recipes is a great experience but when it gets to entering or adding recipes, it's full of bugs. Two bugs that I encounter constantly is that when I try to add bookmarks from Instagram, it says the recipe is imported but never added to the bookmarks so it basically doesn't work. The other issue is when trying to scan the recipes, the scanning screens have a bug and never brings up the camera to scan.

Emailed the support with full description of the issues but never got a response or acknowledgement for receiving the emails. So my overall experience is frustration with a non responsive app developer! Hopefully the developer would read this review and respond.

by Adam D 423

Giving Pestle 2 stars because I absolutely loved it so much and can’t bear to give it only one.

Sadly, since I have changed to a new device I have not been able to use my full version of Pestle I purchased and when I “restore purchases” it does not allow me to see my recipes and use Pestle beyond the 15 recipe limit.

I have reached out to the support email like it says on the website, and have not been able to get a response to help me out. This is so sad because what would’ve been a 5 star app has really left me feeling ripped off and like I should not have purchased the upgrade.

by Captain DDL

this app looks nice but it still needs some work, specifically in Recipe creation and scanning.

I used the camera scanning functionality - you get one scan for free, but it glitched out part way through, and when I went to try again I was blocked without subscribing.

I signed up for the free pro trial to continue where I left off. It does a good job of pulling everything in, but it separates the quantities and the ingredients into two separate lines. I manually did this, deleting the extraneous lines, but when I saved two of my ingredients were lost. I manually added them again and they seem to be saved now.

The notes field is only a single line, and does not allow line breaks, so it wasn’t very useful for what I wanted (including conversion to grams).

I wish there was an option to scan and retain a copy of the original - there is a cover photo option but it seems to crop off the right half of my recipe.

by Differentz

I normally don’t write reviews, but I felt I needed to as I have been unable to get support for a problem that has happened to me multiple times now. For some reason, the recipes that I have saved don’t show up. It has happened twice before with deleting Pestle and reinstalling it resolving that issue. Now nothing seems to work and all the recipes I have saved are gone. I have reached out twice for assistance with no response. What’s the point of purchasing the lifetime subscription if one of the reasons I purchased it isn’t working.

by Mothar61

#1 — Love Pestle (so far) mostly because it reformats the recipe to a VERY USER FRIENDLY recipe! It doesn’t save the entire article that the recipe is attached to. No adds no silly pop up’s nothing — just the recipe! This in and of itself puts Pestle at the top of my list for saving recipes from the internet. #2 — The only hiccup I have come across so far is the fact that about half of the time Pestle cannot save a recipe. It says it can’t access the url to save it. I’m guessing as Pestle grows and matures it will overcome this ‘hiccup’. Thank you for creating this very useful app! When the ‘hiccup’ is fixed I intend to up my star rating to 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Update:
I have downgraded my review as the initial problem with Pestle not being able to extract the recipe has gotten worse. At least for me. Almost 100% of the recipes I try to save will not save. It’s very frustrating. Not sure if it’s only me who is having the problem or not. Maybe I’ll use Pestle at a later date but for now I cannot use it at all.

by Saturnbones

I love Pestle. It’s beautiful. It’s simple. It does everything I need a recipe app to do. I have tons of physical recipe cards and PDFs that this app makes importing easy (with some minor formatting). I love the tagging system and smart folders and how customizable these features are. The only thing I WISH Pestle did that it doesn’t, is let me see all my recipes in a full screen grid when I’m on my iPad. I have hundreds and hundreds of recipes. I get that I could just organize them into categories to make it easier to find stuff. But sometimes I just wanna zoom out and look at the recipes I’ve collected as a whole. It drives me nuts that I cannot do this. 😞

by Itsmedarian

First Pestle is beautiful and the UI is quite nice. The recipe import function works well. Really, the only significant feature missing is the ability to automatically export or send grocery list(s) to grocery stores or Instacart for grocery item order fulfillment. Other apps already have this functionality. The is the only feature missing that would cause me to delete all of the other apps and use this one as my only food recipe management application. Note: To support the developer, I am a yearly pro user

by Trent92

Pestle is really good so far. Saving a recipe if it's online works really well and it's auto sorted into folders. Scaling and converting recipe works well and I love how you can click ingredients in the start cooking feature to see how much you need.

However "If it's online" is where a problem shows up. Adding a recipe via an image or the scan feature just does not work. You can forget about it if it's on multiple pages and even if it's on a single page it did not transfer well. It's better if you manually enter recipe or find it online.

It's a good app, but I can't give it 5 stars until he fixes this. I hope it's a priority because for new users adding their recipe collection will be a nightmare.

by 67524 ,,

Pestle is great in so many ways, but unfortunately it has some bugs with the meal plan days and syncing with your calendar. I have attempted 3 times to correct it, but when I close out Pestle and reopen, it will incorrectly sync the meal plan days off by one day, within Pestle and on my calendar. I thought it was me, so I went into Pestle noticed the meals planned had been shifted one day forward, so I went and set them back one day before to the correct days. Close out Pestle and reopen, the days are correct from within Pestle but when I go to my calendar, it resynced the days to be one day off/forward. To the point this has become a nuisance. As much as I enjoyed my Chicken Katsu, I do not want to be eating it every day. 😂

by Raist3001

Absolutely love Pestle for keeping all my recipes. Its simple, minimalistic and does exactly what is claims to do. I immediately purchased the lifetime access while still an introduction offer. Worth every penny.
I would have given Pestle 5 stars if not for a few issues.

1-not all recipes will import with a URL or while being shared to Pestle .
2-would love an import feature to allow me to import all my recipes from iOS notes. AI searching for ingredients and steps would be helpful.

by Moshfosh

As someone with French heritage trust me I’ve tried every single recipe app, this is one of the best. That said it has a few small problems that bug me. When adding a recipe it’s needlessly obtrusive to add category information which is vital when you’re someone with countless recipes. You have to click edit, you have to drag the recipe all the way to the bottom, then you have to click category (meat, dessert, etc.) then you have to click cuisine (French, Japanese, etc.) then finally you can save. It’s not a deal breaker by any means, it’s just annoying

by Nick Hoffman

Excellent concept and some really time saving features present.

It would be good to have a references/sources section and allow multiple sources/URLs. I’m using OneNote for recipes currently and would switch over if I could cite multiple sources per recipe. I often will start with a source and customize over time.

Also would be great to add ability to track every time you use a recipe with associated notes (again- what I manually do in OneNote).

by Donnaray

I don’t even cook but someday I might!

I would love the ability to import my own recipes, from an email, photo, notes or a PDF. If there is a way to do that right now, I don’t see it, but I hope it gets added in the future.

After reading the reviews & developer’s responses, I gladly paid $5 for the lifetime subscription. What a deal! (Hopefully I won’t end up regretting that, like a calendar app which I “supposedly” purchased for life… 😡).

The developer’s replies were all pleasant & helpful, unlike many others that I read on some other apps. For that reason alone, I wanted to support him! I also sent a link to friends, so maybe they’ll purchase it too. Just a little bit of “nice” goes a really long way in the world today! 👩🏻‍🍳

by Teetalynn

Here’s what I love: - ad free recipes saved from anywhere I’m browsing along - step by step instructions, while cooking with voice activated progression - so great! - easy grocery list creation - easy to customize and edit recipes - keeps track of where recipes come from so I can discover new recipes from those same sites! Super smart. - able to easily share recipes with others Here’s what I wish it had: A better way to browse my recipes visually. The photos are kind of small and have words over them so can’t see them. Everyone knows you eat with your eyes first. So, with a few more ways to browse visually with bigger images, Pestle would be perfect!

by Katsanes

I don’t normally bother to review apps, but this one fully deserves kudos. I use Safari ‘Read Later’ to store my favorite recipes, then manually input shopping items into my Reminders app. This changes and vastly improves all of that!

I now have most if my recipes imported, I can add to my shopping list in a couple of clicks, and now I can meal plan too. This is a huge time saver for me. I have yet to even cook with it, but in testing it also looks to be a huge win with the hands-free option enabled.

Do not hesitate to support this developer, especially if you can get in on the lifetime sub special! Thank you for Pestle.

by Tessawrecks

Love love LOVE Pestle. It goes beyond for so many reasons that others have already mentioned. However, the most important to me: I was experiencing a bug where adding, moving, or deleting a recipe from the meal plan would cause a crash. I wrote to the developer via the support ticket setup in the this app settings. Next update (which came a day or two later) the crashing issue was corrected and no longer occurs! The developer also fields questions and design suggestions on Reddit. Love how open this dev is to user input! Please keep up the incredible work!

by Mdaniel

I found Pestle recently. Fell in love. Added a ton of recipes I’ve had bookmarked, and in my notes app. I love that I can have them all in one place. I love how easy it is to follow recipes now without all the ads, and long article as to why people love this recipe. I have been at a few sites where sharing to Pestle wouldn’t translate at all and it was a mess. If that could get cleaned up that would make this even better. Also I’d love to see a desktop app of this. Are there any plans for that?

by Rosho21

this app embodies all great characteristics of a good app. (1) it’s useful: by being able to bring together your messy folder of recipes from a dozen different sources, this app allows users to access it all in one place, (2) easy to use: the UX design of Pestle is fabulous…it’s easy to navigate, not over complicated, and without any user frustration, (3) beautiful! this app is not only functional and accessible, it’s also aesthetic. The palettes are nicely chosen and well limited, the fonts read well and pleasantly, and the program pulls in the photos of the recipe for a beautiful catalogue of your imported recipes. As a media scholar, UX professional, and personal chef…kudos to this app! Worth downloading, and worth paying for full access (if you want to upload unlimited recipes).

by Dgtiii

I am very pleased with this app, and I use it all the time. I’m so impressed by it that I purchased the Pro lifetime subscription, it’s that good. An intuitive and beautiful interface that makes it easy to import recipes from the web, from a pdf or other document, or simply from scratch. It’s your own personal digital recipe book, complete with photos, scaling, and notes. Customer support for Pestle is excellent, I had a minor issue recently, and the developer answered my request and fixed the issue within 20 minutes - that’s outstanding! I highly recommend Pestle!

by Wrldtrvlr909

When I’m looking for something to cook, I don’t really care if your grandmother’s best friend first made this recipe for you when you were a kid. What I care about is what are the ingredients and how do I cook this meal? Unfortunately, most recipe websites don’t do this.

Pestel solves a problem I’ve been looking to solve, how do I easily work from an Internet recipe without having to print it out. That’s the problem. I was looking to solve until I found Pestle. I didn’t know there was something that so easily import, tracks, and categorizes recipes. Not my wife and I are both on Pestle so we can add recipes from our own devices, and we use an old iPad in the kitchen to cook from.

My only feature recommendation is to integrate with MyFitnessPal, so I can easily add the things I cook as meals in the MyFitnessPal app.

by Toliveistofly

I’m really liking Pestle so far. It’s been really easy to import most recipes. For the ones that haven’t imported, highlighting the different sections from the bookmark in Pestle has worked well. Being able to add to my shopping list and create meal plans is really useful. My only gripe, and it’s a big one, is the lack of Mac support. Having to Air Drop recipes to my phone or highlight from the phone instead of my computer where I generally find the recipes is pretty annoying. Pestle is so useful that I won’t take away a star for this. But Mac support, or even a web app, would really complete Pestle for me. Thanks for making this!

by Elentrepreneur123

I’ve tried all the popular recipe apps over the years and there’s always been one thing or another that has prevented me from sticking with it. this app takes care of all of them and then some. The cooking view is stellar, recipe parsing is nearly perfect, and the discovery view is extremely helpful when finding recipes.

Not just this, but a huge part of it is how amazing the developer is. On more than one occasion they have responded to inquiries in less than a day, and helped resolve issues extremely quickly.

If there were any improvements I could suggest, it would simply be a Mac version, as well as the ability to open and tab through more than one recipe at a time (as I’m often switching between making a side and main). But even without those, this is an amazing app.

by Broken Toaster

It always drove me nuts when I had to scroll through an absurd amount of writing and REALLY silly questions just to get to a recipe. Yes, you can freeze the meals that are under a heading of “freezer meals!” Yes, you need to put your stuffed shells in the refrigerator. I mean seriously, who’s asking these questions?!

Anyway, since I’ve been using the this app app, my joy at using the Internet for finding recipes has increased dramatically. I still get all the emails with recipes, but as soon as I click on the link I open it up in this app immediately to see the actual recipe. And there are all kinds of amazingly handy things Pestle has to offer otherwise. You can tap a microphone and just say “yes” and the recipe moves to the next step. Seriously, Pestle is AMAZING!!

by Snrankin

I’ve searched through a ton of cooking apps to find one that has a really good “cooking mode” for iPad/iPhone and this is it. Pestle has all the features of other apps and then some.

There are a few kinks with some of the newer features but I sent them in and got quick response from the developer (even though I probably annoy them by now). All in all great experience.

My only wish would be for an Apple Watch app that could hold grocery lists and sync timers. Maybe even show the current step in cook mode? Regardless, Pestle as it is now is awesome. Keep up the good work!

by Khchloe

Pestle saves me so much time. I greatly appreciate the way it efficiently grabs recipes from websites and leaves the excess behind. I’m also a big fan of the Dynamic Island integration. Besides that, another feature I love is the ability to create an account, which lets me seamlessly keep my recipes on different devices. There’s so many apps that aim to make life easier but end up more often than not making things more complicated— this is one of the apps that actually helps.

by Bartacus415

I don’t buy many apps, because I often find myself using them briefly then forgetting them in the shuffle. When I say I use this app daily, I mean it. This definitely the best cooking app ever, but also one of the best apps I have period. The developer is great (and lightning fast for support) and Pestle is clean, useable and handy. If you like keeping track of favorite recipes, this here is the one. Just download it, you won’t be disappointed.

by BCH1001

I found Pestle accidentally and have really only used it for about a week. I read and collect recipes from so many places and the. Can’t remember where I found them. So this little beauty is pretty amazing - you find a recipe, hit a couple of buttons, and the recipe is saved neatly in a place where you can always find it. Without having to re-type anything, copy & paste it, or hunt around for it later. For an old lady like me, it’s great not having to remember where I saw the last great recipe I want to try.

by GaryCATX

I’ve used a number of recipe management apps over the years, and this app is, hands-down, the best. Recipe import is smooth and flawless. I’ve rarely encountered a recipe it can’t import (usually those annoying ones that include the author’s life story and their insights on Legos vs. Tinker Toys). Serving conversions are simple, the walk through of steps easy and intuitive, and many other things are well thought out. Even the inclusion of timers within Pestle - sure, your phone or iPad has timers, but it’s easier just to use ones within this app. I use Pestle often, and it quickly ascended to my go-to app for cooking. I find the Discover feature often won’t load the URL of a presented recipe or article but that feature isn’t, in my mind, integral to Pestle or why I use it. I wish more apps performed their intended mission with this degree of elegance, efficiency, and effectiveness.

by Nephilim983

Edit: ok, this app didn’t show up in share menu in safari, but, I copied the link from Safari, went back to this app app and clicked on + and added from link. After that I clicked on share and share link in this app, went to more and it showed there. Simple edit, + next to this app and done. Now it shows in Safari as well and it works great.

Original:
I downloaded Pestle, searched for recipe I wished to save and in Safari when I click on share, this app is not listed there or under more. I have no idea how can you import recipe. Disappointing.

by XHazey1x

I love Pestle and have been using it for such a long time now but it just has a lot of issues. It’s super laggy and crashes constantly if trying to look through recipes or do anything other than stay on one page. It needs a lot of bug fixes and performance fixes. I ended up backing up my recipes elsewhere since this is unreliable right now and I just can’t trust it not to crash and delete my recipes again. However, if it were fixed and running well this would be one of the best recipe apps out there. (Note: I’m using iPhone 14 Plus running iOS 17.0.2)

by Pv1366

The only recipe app I’m using and that I’m never deleting. Updates come often, sometimes really big updates that add amazing features (such as the recent ‘import recipe from instagram’ feature). If you collect a lot of recipes from all corners of the internet, like a hands free experience while cooking, want to scale recipes, edit recipes, write your own recipes, then this is Pestle for you.
And if there happens to be a bug, you can be sure that it’ll be fixed. I’m impressed with this developer!

by Kim On The Coast

My favorite and most used app ever! Everything finally in one place. No ads, no need to find the "jump to recipe" button - your favorite recipe is converted into step-by-step pages and can be scaled up or down as well as converted for units. So many other features that make cooking a breeze! This has changed my entire way of meal planning, shopping, and cooking — freeing up more time than I thought possible! The other huge plus is that I am not throwing away unused food anymore. I buy exactly what the recipes call for - all right there in my shopping list. You will pay for the pro version easily with what you save on food waste.

by Cucsmom

My husband got Pestle for me and I thought “oh no another recipe app”, but it’s a dream! A couple years ago I was frustrated with Pinterest taking me back to the webpage so I stoped using it. I would just bookmark a recipe page.

Once I started using Pestle, saving the link in this app…wow what a time saver. It gets rid of all the junk I don’t want to see, formats it nicely and makes it very lovely to look at.

There have been great updates and it is very easy to use. Download it and try it! Bliss!

by Eric Again 2

Really enjoy Pestle . Tried several major players and moved completely to this app.

Excellent support for auto importing on iPhone or iPad and seamless integration. Perfect for planning and doing.

Two suggestions:

Would really like improved timer feature. Would be good to have timer counting down in the top of screen (and continuing to count “down” negatively when it goes over) and MUCH more robust alarming when it goes off. It is much too subtle now. For timing I still use my OXO.

Also, would like a way to automatically, or at least efficiently, delete duplicate recipes that I imported. Not talking about a program bug, just mistakes where I imported some things twice. (Just like Contacts or Photos, but don’t need much sophistication like comparisons.)

Again, really enjoy Pestle .

by Armand Agopian

This is the first app that has made me want to review it such a high rating. Everything about this is perfect, and I’ve already added and categorized so many of my recipes thanks to its easy document scanning and link sharing. It also handles my shopping list and syncs to reminders, and takes care of meal prep planning for me in an easy way! I absolutely love Pestle and everything about its intuitive design. Well worth the premium!

by Yaaaosjfbdnd

I love that I can do everything in one place with Pestle. Save my favorite recipes from any website, meal plan, and find new recipes. It seriously makes following recipes so much easier. Instead of scrolling through paragraphs of texts and then having to scroll up and down from ingredients to directions, it simplifies everything into steps. No more flour and sauce on my phone screen lol. Give it a try, you’ll be happy you did!

by Garrett Hamlow

I’ve been waiting for a recipe app like this for such a long time! I showed it to all my family members and they were amazed at how quick it added recipes from the internet and how easy it is to scale serving sizes. It has everything I need in a recipe app and as a graphic designer, I must say Pestle ’s UX and UI are both beautiful. I really hope Pestle is supported for a long, long time.

by Mrskatie

My son clued me in on this handy app, and I’m so glad he did.

Search for a recipe. Copy the URL. Past it into your phone. And you have the recipe in its most useful layout. Simple and clear. It removes all the flowery words and bazillion photos that I don’t need to scroll through.

Then if you want to make it again it’s ready!

by Mac Techie

After spending 15 minutes with Pestle, I can say that this is going to be my new best friend in the kitchen. Not only can it easily import recipes from Safari, it also includes information like nutritional facts, serving size, and photos/videos of the recipe. Nothing but pure magic. Also, NO ADS OR LIFE STORIES IN THE RECIPES! Thanks Will for this incredible app!

by Gunarrrr

Lovely design, feels right at home on iOS. So lucky to have snagged a lifetime subscription, I’m currently using a Pinterest board to store my recipes and this is going to be a game changer. I’d love a way to remove the rating from a recipe or at least toggle their visibility in settings, not sure what use it provides…that being said would love to see a version make its way to macOS.

by Space Wizz

Pestle is great! Finally, Pestle I’ve been looking for.

If you find a recipe you like on most web sites, it will seamlessly add it your collection. You can add your own recipes if you like and generate a shopping list of the ingredients with the Reminder app for easy export and access.

by Noah Kraar

I love the only thing is that I think discover should be free and maybe 15 could be 17 but I’m just some guy who doesn’t wanna spend 2 dollars a month that’s very cheap and most people can afford it easily but I’m picky with spending money also there are some recipes with multiple different things like lemon loaf has the icing and loaf so could you make a way to separate them also paprika has a pantry feature soooooo I would get right on it