Recto

Privacy Policy

Last updated October 29, 2026

Recto is a recipe library that keeps your recipes on your own devices. There are no accounts, no ads, no analytics and no tracking. This page explains the few times anything leaves your phone, and why.

Your recipes stay yours

Every recipe, photo, note, favorite and grocery list is stored on your device. With Recto Pro, it's also kept in your own private iCloud (Apple's CloudKit), so your library is the same on your iPhone and iPad; without Pro it stays on the device. Your Recto settings and how many recipes you've imported this week are kept in your iCloud too. Apple keeps this for you under your Apple Account; we don't have a copy, and we can't see your library.

Reading a new recipe

When you import a recipe (by sharing a link, pasting text or taking a photo), your iPhone first opens the page itself, as a browser would. To turn it into a clean recipe, the recipe is sent to Recto's own server (run on Cloudflare), which passes it to Google's Gemini API, an AI service, to read, and sends the result back to your phone.

• Only the recipe itself is sent: its text, a cooking video's caption and video, or the photos you took or picked. Never your library, your name or anything else about you.
• We don't store it. Our server keeps no record of what you import.
• Google processes it only to answer the request. It may keep it for a limited time to detect abuse, and doesn't use it to train its models.

For a cooking video (Instagram, TikTok or YouTube), the video your phone has already loaded from the post (or, for YouTube, its link) is sent along with the caption, so the steps shown in it can be read too. For a TikTok link, our server asks TikTok's public page for the post's caption and cover. Nothing is stored.

A few smaller features work the same way, sending only the words they need: translating a recipe into your language, suggesting a recipe's tags and its preparation time, and sorting the items on your grocery list by aisle (only the items' names are sent).

Recto's browser

Some pages (Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and others) open in Recto's own browser so the recipe can be taken from the page as you see it. Like Safari, it keeps the sites' own data, such as a sign-in, on your phone. We never see it.

Links you copy

When you open Recto, it checks whether you've copied a link, without reading it, so it can offer to import it. The link is read only if you tap Paste.

Photos

A recipe's photo is downloaded straight from the recipe's own page (or the post you shared) and kept on your phone. Photos you pick for a recipe are chosen with Apple's picker, so Recto never sees the rest of your photo library.

Sharing a recipe

Only when you tap Share on a recipe, that recipe (its name, description, ingredients, steps, notes, tags, source link and photo) is kept on our server so the link you send can show it. Anyone with the link can see it. Nothing about you goes with it. A shared recipe is removed a year after it was last shared, or sooner if you ask us at [email protected].

Keeping the reader safe

So that only the real Recto app can use our server, your iPhone proves it with Apple's App Attest. This uses a random key made on your device; it contains nothing about you. To keep the service fair, our server counts requests per device or connection for a minute at a time, and then forgets them.

Purchases

Recto Pro is bought through the App Store. Apple handles the payment; we never see your payment details or Apple Account.

Notifications

Notifications (a recipe being ready, a cooking timer) are made on your phone. No notification server of ours is involved; iCloud may quietly wake Recto to bring in changes from your other devices.

Your choices

• Delete a recipe and it goes to Recently Deleted, where it's removed for good after 30 days, or right away if you choose.
• Deleting Recto removes everything it keeps on your phone. What's in your iCloud can be removed in the iPhone's Settings › your name › iCloud.
• To have a shared recipe taken down, or with any question about your data, write to [email protected].

Children

Recto isn't directed at children and collects no personal information from anyone.

Who we are

Recto is made by Ahmet Bostancıoğlu (Vager Studio), who is responsible for this app and this policy.

Changes and contact

If this policy changes, the new version will be posted here with a new date. Questions: [email protected].