Recipe scanning

Turn recipe cards into a recipe box you can search

Focara Kitchen scans recipe cards, cookbook pages, and handwritten notes from a photo and reads them into ingredients and steps, so the recipes in the old tin become ones you can scale, search, and share.

Free on the App Store and Google Play.

Last updated

How it works

  1. Take a photo with your camera, or choose up to six from your library.
  2. Crop to just the recipe. Focara reads the text and sorts it into a title, ingredients, and steps.
  3. Look it over, fix anything the scan misread, and save it to your box.
Focara Kitchen's Crop Recipe screen framing a printed Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins recipe card, with Use Full Photo and Use Crop buttons
Crop to just the recipe before Focara reads it.

Good to know

  • Clear photos in good light read best, and neat handwriting reads better than quick cursive.
  • Ingredient lines Focara isn't sure about wear a small orange dot, so you know where to look.
  • Focara Kitchen comes in 34 languages, and photo scanning reads most of them. A few can't be scanned yet, among them Greek and Hebrew, and the exact list differs between iPhone and Android.
  • Cards printed in two columns may need a quick tidy after scanning.

Questions about scanning recipes

Can Focara read handwriting?

Often, yes. Snap a photo of a handwritten recipe and Focara reads what it can into ingredients and steps. Neat, print-style handwriting reads best, and cursive or faded cards may need more fixing by hand before you save.

Is my recipe card uploaded anywhere?

No. Focara reads the text right on your phone, and the recipe is saved in your recipe box on your device.

Can I scan a page from a cookbook?

Yes. Cookbook pages, printed recipe cards, and handwritten notes all go through the same scan. For a recipe that runs over two pages, photograph each page, then choose them together from your library and Focara reads them in order as one recipe.

Can I share a scanned family recipe with relatives?

Yes. Share sends the whole recipe as text anyone can read. With a free Focara account, you can send a link to a clean web page of the recipe instead, with the ingredients and steps ready to cook from. They don't need the app.

More of what Focara Kitchen does

Or start from the Focara Kitchen homepage, read the frequently asked questions, or take the step-by-step tutorial.

Get the app

Bring the old recipe tin home

Focara Kitchen is a free recipe box for iPhone and Android.

Free on the App Store and Google Play.