Bulk Import Your Recipes Into Cook in Minutes

Most recipe apps lock your food data away. You've got hundreds of recipes scattered across Paprika, your phone's notes app, random browser bookmarks — and moving them feels impossible.

It doesn't have to be.

Whether you're bringing in a handful of recipes or your entire collection, Cook makes it simple. Here's how.

The fastest way: one recipe at a time with Cookify

If you've got a recipe URL — from Serious Eats, Bon Appétit, your food blog — you can convert it to Cooklang in seconds. Open Cookify, paste the link, and the AI does the work. You get a clean .cook file ready to save.

For photos of handwritten recipes or clippings, Cookify handles those too. Just upload an image and it converts to structured Cooklang. Same works on the mobile app — snap a photo of a recipe card or cookbook page, upload it, and you've got a .cook file synced to your devices.

Plain text? Paste that in too. Cookify figures it out.

There's also a shortcut: stick cook.md/ in front of any recipe URL in your browser's address bar — cook.md/https://example.com/recipe — and you'll land straight on the converted Cooklang version. Handy for bookmarklets and quick one-offs.

This works great if you're dipping your toes in, or systematically moving your whole collection recipe by recipe.

For power users: bulk import your whole library at once

If you're migrating wholesale from another app, converting recipes one by one is too slow. Sign in and head to the bulk importer — upload a single export file from your old app and Cook converts the entire library to Cooklang in one batch.

It currently handles exports from ten popular recipe managers:

  • Paprika (.paprikarecipes)
  • Mela (.melarecipes)
  • Mealie (ZIP backup)
  • Tandoor (ZIP export)
  • CopyMeThat (ZIP export)
  • Recipe Keeper (backup)
  • Crouton (.crumb)
  • Plan to Eat (.txt or .csv)
  • Nextcloud Cookbook (JSON)
  • Cookmate (ZIP backup)

The importer page lists exactly where to find the export option in each app — for Paprika it's Menu → Export → Export Recipes → All Recipes; for Mela it's Settings → Export → Export All Recipes; and so on. Files up to 100MB are accepted, so even a years-deep collection fits in one upload.

What happens after you upload

Conversion runs in the background — big libraries can take a while, so you don't have to sit and watch. When it's done, Cook emails you a download link. Click it and you get a ZIP of clean .cook files, one per recipe. (The link stays live for 7 days, so grab it before it expires.)

The whole thing is free — no paywall on imports. You can run a few back-to-back if you're consolidating from several apps (up to 3 conversions at once, 10 a day).

Unzip the result wherever you keep your recipes, and you're done. Drop them into your Cook Cloud folder and they'll sync to your phone and desktop; or just keep the folder locally. Either way, no recipe is left behind.

Where your recipes live after import

Once imported, your recipes are yours. They're plain-text .cook files — you can edit them in any text editor, check them into git, back them up however you like. No database, no proprietary format, no lock-in.

Sync them to Cook Cloud if you want your recipes on your phone and desktop. Or just keep them in a local folder. Either way, they're portable forever.

Next steps

Ready to start? Head to Cookify for single recipes, or sign in and open the bulk importer to move your whole library at once. Your recipe collection shouldn't be trapped in someone else's app.