Meals
Import a recipe from text, photo or PDF
What it's about
When importing a recipe (the “Import a recipe” button), alongside the familiar link import, there are two more tabs: Paste text and Photo or PDF. Both let the AI read a complete recipe – name, servings, ingredients with quantities, and the method – and enter it as a suggestion in the recipe dialogue.
Why it's here
Not every recipe sits on a website with a tidy recipe format. Some arrive as a note from grandma, a photo of a cookbook page, a PDF from a catering service, or text someone sent you in a message. Until now, you had to retype that kind of thing ingredient by ingredient. Now, pasting or photographing it is enough.
How it works
Paste text: paste the whole recipe text into the field – ingredients, quantities, method, emojis welcome, even in loose order. Clicking “Create recipe” sends the text to the AI, and the result lands as a fully structured suggestion in the recipe dialogue.
Photo or PDF: tap “Choose a file” and pick a photo (from your gallery or freshly taken) or a PDF file up to 10 MB. patchio uploads the file and then reads the recipe from it – the same fields as with the text import.
Either way, you check and change the result in the recipe dialogue as usual before tapping “Save”. If the AI can't recognise a recipe (say, from a blurry photo or a text with no ingredient list), patchio says so plainly and you can try again.
Quota
Text and photo/PDF imports share a combined quota of 5 AI imports per calendar month and household. The dialogue always shows how many are left. Once the quota is used up, it picks up again automatically with the next month – the link import isn't affected by this and always works, with no limit.
Before you start
Both tabs need the AI categorisation setting (Manage → “AI” section) – the same setting that reading recipe photos and the school letter scanner depend on. If it's off, the dialogue shows this straight away, along with a note that an admin can turn it back on in Manage.
Privacy
With the text import, only the pasted text goes to Claude (Anthropic); with the photo/PDF import, only that one file – both only on tap, never automatically. An uploaded photo or PDF is deleted after processing and isn't kept as the recipe's photo in patchio. Details are in the privacy policy.
Tip
Take your time checking the result before saving – the AI can get it wrong, especially with handwritten recipes or unclear quantities. Everything stays a plain suggestion, which you can change however you like, right up until you click “Save”.