Privacy policy · Recipai

01Who this policy is from

Recipai is a free and open-source recipe app for Android (package com.blackchapel.recipai), published by the Recipai maintainers (blackchapel on GitHub). This policy explains what the app does with information, in plain language. In it, “we” means those maintainers and “the app” means Recipai.

Recipai is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later (GPL-3.0-or-later); its source code is public at github.com/blackchapel/recipai, so everything below can be checked against the code.

02What the app keeps on your phone

All of this stays in the app's private storage and is never sent to us. It is removed when you uninstall the app or clear its storage.

Information kept on your phone
What	Why
Your recipes: titles, ingredients, steps, times, tags, notes, favourites and the web address a recipe was imported from	It is the app. Stored in one file in the app's private storage.
Photos you add to recipes	Picked with Android's system photo picker (or, on older phones, its system file picker), so the app never gets access to your gallery. Each one is re-saved as a new JPEG of up to 2048 px, which also drops the metadata (such as location) embedded in the original.
Settings: theme, library layout, haptics, screen-on and timer-sound options, backup options	To remember how you like the app.
If you connect Google Drive: your Google account name and email address, the id of the Drive backup folder, the list of your recent backups (names, dates, sizes) and the status of your last backup	To show which account is connected, what was backed up and when, and to skip a backup when nothing changed. Kept in a small file on your phone and used nowhere else. No Google access token is saved to disk. Disconnecting wipes this file's contents.
A temporary copy while a backup or restore runs	A zip of your recipes and photos is held in the app's cache for the duration, then deleted.
Running timers	Held in memory while they run, so they can finish with the screen off. Not saved.

The app tells Android not to include its data in Android's own cloud backup. If you move to a new phone with Android's transfer tool, your recipes and settings can move with it, but the Google Drive connection does not: you connect again once.

03What leaves your phone, and where it goes

The app makes network requests only in the situations below. None of them goes to a server run by us, and the app uses HTTPS only.

1. Google Drive backup (only if you connect it)

When you tap Connect, Google's own sign-in and consent screen (handled by Google Play services) asks whether Recipai may use Google Drive. If you agree, the app can:

create a folder named “Recipai backups” in your Drive and upload backup files to it. Each backup is one zip file holding your recipes, your settings, and (if “Include photos” is on) your recipe photos;
list, download, and delete the backup files it created, to show your backups, restore one, and keep only the six newest;
read your Google account's display name and email address through Drive, to show who is connected.

Once connected, backups run when you tap Back up now, and also automatically in the background on the schedule you choose (daily, weekly, or never), including shortly after the app is opened if one was missed. An automatic backup uploads only if your recipes changed, and can be limited to Wi-Fi.

The permission requested is https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive.file (“drive.file”). It only lets the app see and manage files and folders it created itself. It does not let the app see your other Drive files, your emails, contacts or anything else in your Google account. Backups go directly from your phone to Google's servers (for example www.googleapis.com and oauth2.googleapis.com); they never pass through us. Once in your Drive they are ordinary zip files: Recipai does not add its own encryption, so they are protected by your Google account and stored under Google's Privacy Policy.

2. Importing a recipe from a link (only when you ask)

When you paste a web address and tap Convert, or share a link to Recipai from another app (which converts it straight away), your phone requests that page directly from the website, like a browser would, and reads the recipe from it on the device. That website can see the usual details of any visit: your IP address and a standard mobile-browser User-Agent string (Recipai does not identify itself to the site). The app sends no cookies, accounts or identifiers, and follows redirects (at most six, always over HTTPS). Nothing is sent to us, and the page text is not kept unless you save the recipe it produced (a recipe imported from a link keeps only the site and path of the address, without any query). Pasted text is processed on the phone and never sent anywhere.

3. Checking for a new version (when the app is opened)

To show an Update card when a newer release exists, the app asks GitHub for the repository's latest release (api.github.com) when it is opened, at most once every ten minutes. This check is anonymous and cannot be turned off in the app. The request carries no account, no device identifier and no information about you or your recipes; GitHub sees your IP address and the app's name, as with any web request, and handles them under GitHub's privacy statement. If the check fails, nothing is shown. The app never downloads or installs updates by itself; the Update card just opens the release page in your browser.

Notifications

If you allow notifications, the app shows them for running timers. They are created on your phone and involve no network.

04Google user data: access, use, sharing and Limited Use

This section covers the information the app receives from Google APIs, if you choose to connect Google Drive.

What we access. Files and folders created by the app in your Drive (its backups), and your Google account's display name and email address, as described above. Nothing else.
How we use it. Only to provide the backup and restore features you asked for, and to show which account is connected. Your recipe data in a backup is used only to be restored into the app.
Sharing. We do not sell, rent, share or transfer Google user data to anyone. We never receive it: it moves only between your phone and Google, and nobody on the Recipai team can read it. Backups sit in your own Drive as ordinary, unencrypted zip files under your Google account's protection.
Advertising and AI. Google user data is not used for advertising, profiling, or to train any machine learning model. The app has no AI features that use it.
Storage and protection. On your phone, only your account name, email address, the backup folder's id and your recent backups' details are saved, in the app's private storage. Backups live in your own Drive. Access tokens are issued by Google Play services when needed and are not saved by the app.

Recipai's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

05What the app never does

No accounts or sign-up with us. The only account involved is your own Google account, if you connect Drive.
No analytics, advertising, crash-reporting or tracking libraries, and no advertising identifiers.
No developer servers, so there is nowhere for us to collect, store or sell your data.
No reading of your contacts, location, messages, microphone, camera or gallery. Photos you choose come through Android's system photo picker, one selection at a time.
No fonts, scripts or images loaded from third parties; the fonts are bundled in the app. This website follows the same rule and sets no cookies.

06Android permissions

Permissions the app requests
Permission	Used for
Internet, network state	Link import, Google Drive backup, the update check, and waiting for Wi-Fi if you chose “Wi-Fi only” backups.
Notifications (Android 13+)	Showing running and finished timers. Asked once, the first time you start a timer.
Foreground service, wake lock	Keeping a timer running accurately with the screen off.
Vibrate	Haptic feedback, which you can turn off in Settings.
Run at startup	Added by Android's background-work library: lets scheduled backups be re-armed after the phone restarts.

07Keeping and deleting your data

You are in control of every copy:

On your phone: delete a recipe in the app, or uninstall the app (or clear its storage in Android settings) to remove everything it holds.
In Google Drive: backups stay in your Drive until you delete them or the app replaces them: after each successful backup it deletes the oldest backups it created beyond the six newest (and deletes at once a backup that fails its size check after upload). You can also delete the “Recipai backups” folder yourself in Drive at any time. Restoring a backup first saves a “Before restore” copy of your current recipes, which counts as one of those backups.
Disconnecting: choose Disconnect on the app's Backup page to stop backups, wipe the stored account details and backup list from your phone and, if your phone is online, ask Google to revoke the app's access. If that request fails, or any time you like, you can remove Recipai's access yourself at myaccount.google.com/permissions. Disconnecting does not delete backups already in your Drive; delete them there if you want them gone.

We hold no copy of your data, so there is nothing for us to delete on our side.

08Children

Recipai is a general recipe tool and is not directed at children. Because the app collects no personal information, it knows nothing about the age of the person using it.

09Changes to this policy

If the app starts handling information differently, this page will be updated before the change ships, and the “last updated” date above will change. The page's full history is public in the repository. Changes that would use Google user data in a new way would be made only with your consent.

10Contact

Questions, or a request about your data? Open an issue at github.com/blackchapel/recipai/issues. Please don't post private information in a public issue; ask for a private way to share it and we will arrange one.