Frequently asked questions

An app for tracking what's actually in your kitchen - inventory, recipes, meal planning, and a grocery list - so you can see what you have, plan what to cook with it, and only shop for what's actually missing.

The core app - inventory, recipes, meal planning, and the grocery list - is free. The Home plan adds AI features (receipt scanning, recipe import, ingredient substitutes, and more - see "What does the Home plan add?" below) and starts with a seven-day free trial.

Yes - get InventoryImp from Google Play (Android). The iPhone app is coming soon. On any other phone, tablet or computer, use it in the browser at www.inventoryimp.com - nothing to install.

Yes - Account page, "Import from another app". Inventory: export a CSV file from the other app (most apps, Excel and Google Sheets can) and import it - name, quantity, unit, size, category, location and best-by date are matched up for you, and you check everything before it's added. If the other app can't export, copy its list and use "Paste a list" on the Add items screen with your own AI, free. Recipes: paste a list of recipe links (up to 50 at once, free for most recipe sites), or import a CSV of recipes with a title column plus ingredients and directions. Imported recipes start private.

Yes - new accounts get a Get started checklist on the dashboard: add food, say where it lives, save a recipe, plan a meal, start the grocery list, invite your household and turn on reminders. Each step ticks itself off. Hid it and want a refresher? Account → "Show the Get started checklist again".

From the Inventory page's "Add items" panel: scan or paste a receipt, take a photo of a barcode-less item (produce, bulk bins), or add one by hand. Receipt and photo scanning use AI and need the Home plan; typing an item in yourself is always free.

Where an item lives in your kitchen (pantry, fridge, freezer, etc.). There's a starting list, and you can add your own (like "left of the oven") - it's private to you, so it only needs to make sense to your own kitchen.

Yes - Inventory → Storage lists everything by place and shelf ("Basement A1" and "Basement A2" both go under Basement, as does "Basement › Shelf 1"), with how long each thing has left. "Use soon" at the top shows what's expired or due within a month, so you can use the oldest first.

Yes - open an item, tap Edit and fill in Storage goal. The Food storage page (Inventory → Storage) then shows "6 of 12" with a bar, has a Below goal filter, and can add what's missing to the grocery list in one tap. "Suggest 3-month goals" there sets goals from how much you actually used in the last three months.

Yes - open the item and tap Label, or go to Inventory → Item labels. Pick how many labels and which batch, and its date is printed on each. Scanning one opens that item, with a Use one button that takes from that batch. Scan it while putting things away on a shelf and it's filed on that shelf.

Yes - Inventory → Shelf labels prints a QR code label for any location (on 30-per-sheet or 10-per-sheet label paper). Scan it with your phone's camera, or the app's Scan button, to see what should be on that shelf with the one to use first at the top, check the shelf and fix any amounts, put things away there by scanning each one as you shelve it, or move things to another shelf. Housemates who scan it see the household's shared items, never your personal ones.

Yes, open any item to edit its quantity, category, location, expiration, or nutrition info directly.

Add one by hand from the Recipes page, or import one - paste a URL (free for most recipe sites), search the web for one, or (with the Home plan) let AI read a pasted recipe or a photo - a cookbook page or a handwritten recipe card - and fill in the fields for you to check.

Yes - Recipes → Import → "Several at once". Paste up to 25 links, choose a file (a PDF, Word document, text file or spreadsheet saved as CSV, read by the Home plan's AI; or a JSON file of recipes from your own AI, free on any plan), or pick up to 10 photos of recipe cards or cookbook pages. Everything found shows in a list to tick, and is saved as private recipes in one go.

Yes - Recipes > "Search the web" searches recipe sites, and Import brings a recipe (ingredients, steps, and the link back to the original) into your recipe book, where it's matched against your pantry like any other. Most recipe sites import on any plan; the few that don't publish their recipe in a standard format need the Home plan's AI to read them.

Yes - each recipe has its own dietary tags, set by you (never guessed by AI, since getting an allergy tag wrong would be a real safety risk). Your account also has default food preferences that pre-fill recipe search filters and steer AI suggestions, but a recipe's own tags always take precedence for that recipe.

With the Home plan, AI suggests a real substitute for an ingredient you're missing, favoring what you already have on hand. Suggestions respect your food preferences (e.g. an allergy), but always double-check a substitute yourself before using it, especially for a serious allergy - it's a suggestion, not a guarantee.

Same idea as substitutes, but for the whole recipe - AI suggests ingredient swaps that make it healthier overall (less saturated fat/sodium/sugar, more fiber/protein/vegetables) while keeping it recognizably the same dish.

It creates (or updates) a "modified" variant of the recipe - your original stays untouched, and applying more than one change to the same recipe piles onto that same variant instead of creating a new one each time.

It's estimated from the ingredient list using the USDA's FoodData Central nutrition database each time you save a recipe with new ingredients or servings, and shown per serving (or for the whole recipe if no servings are set). It's an estimate, not a lab measurement. Any ingredient it couldn't recognize is listed as not counted. Recipes saved before this existed have a "Calculate nutrition" button.

On the Meal Plan page, drag a recipe from the sidebar onto a day and meal, or click a slot to pick one from a dropdown (on phone, drag-and-drop is replaced with a simple picker). You can also open any recipe and add it to a day/meal directly from a popup, without leaving that recipe's page.

Yes - the recipe list beside the meal plan has a search box and a meal-type filter, so you don't need to go back to the main Recipes page mid-planning.

Yes - on the Meal Plan page tap "Kitchen view". It shows the time, today's meals in big type with a Cook button for each, anything today's meals are missing (with a button to add it to the grocery list) and the week below. It keeps the screen on and updates itself every few minutes, so changes from anyone in your household show up. Tap Full screen to hide everything else.

Yes - open a recipe and tap "Start cooking" above the instructions, or tap Cook next to one of today's meals on the meal plan. It shows one step at a time in big type, the ingredients that step needs, and a timer button for any time the step mentions, and it keeps your screen on. Turn on Hands-free and it reads each step aloud and listens for "next", "back", "repeat", "start timer", "stop timer", "ingredients" and "done" (your browser asks to use the microphone first). Hands-free works in Chrome, Edge and Safari and in the Android app; it's coming to the iPhone app.

Yes - on the Account page, under "Meal plan in your calendar", get your calendar link and tap Add to Google Calendar, Add to Apple Calendar or Add to Outlook (or paste the link into any calendar app that subscribes by URL). Your planned meals show up as events - breakfast at 8 am, lunch at noon, a snack at 3 pm and dinner at 6 pm, or the meal times you set there - and update as you change the plan, though Google can take up to a day. It's one-way: changing an event in your calendar doesn't change the meal plan. The link is private; if it gets out, reset it there.

Assigning a recipe reserves its ingredients against your inventory (it can go negative if you're short); removing it restores exactly what was reserved. A banner on the page shows what you're short on, with a one-click button to add the shortfall to your grocery list, and each day that's short gets a "missing" badge you can tap to see and add just that day's items.

One serving of each recipe planned that day, added up - roughly what one person eating all of it would get. Recipes without nutrition info yet are left out, and the line says how many.

Type an item in directly, add a missing ingredient from any recipe or recipe suggestion card, or add an inventory item that's running low. Everything you add remembers where it came from, and stays marked as added even after you leave and come back.

Yes, if you want that guardrail - it's an opt-in setting on your Account page (off by default), for anyone who wants to make sure grocery items are tied to an actual plan rather than casual browsing.

Yes, once you're in a household, everyone shares one active grocery list - anyone can add, check off, or remove items, and it updates for everyone automatically.

Yes - tap "Scan as you shop" and scan each thing as it goes in the cart: it checks off the matching item ("milk" for a carton of 2% milk), or adds it if it wasn't on the list. On the Home plan you can also take one photo of the cart. Back home, "Put away what you bought" adds everything you scanned to your inventory and takes it off the list.

You choose, item by item. Inventory has a Household side everyone shares and a Personal side only you can see - pick which when you add something ("Add to: Household / Just me"), and move items you added later: open one and tap Move to personal or Move to household, or tap Move beside the tabs to tick several and move them together. The grocery list works the same way, with the household's list and your own My list. The meal plan is the household's unless you switch to your own, and your recipes are shared only if you turn on "Share my recipes". A housemate never sees your personal items.

From the Household tab on your account page, generate an invite code and share it - anyone who enters that code joins your household.

Yes - handy if you live in two homes. On the Household tab tap "Join or start another household"; you stay in the first one. Inventory, the grocery list and the meal plan show one household at a time: pick which from the household button at the top of those pages or on the Household tab. Your personal items show in every one, and Move items can send items you added to your other household.

Yes - when people move in together. The owner of the household that's moving goes to Account → Household → "Merge this household into another" and enters the other household's invite code. That household's owner approves it on their Household tab. Then everything shared - food, recipes, meal plans and the grocery list - moves across, everyone joins, and the old household is removed. Personal items stay personal. If you own both, it happens straight away.

Account page, "Food Preferences" tab - dietary/allergy defaults and favorite cuisines. These feed recipe search and AI suggestions everywhere, but a recipe's own dietary tags always take precedence for that specific recipe.

Yes, both from the Account tab - download everything InventoryImp has for your account as a JSON file, or permanently delete your account and everything in it.

Yes - Account page, "Notifications". Pick any of: food expiring within 3 days, items running low, ingredients missing for meals planned this week, and a monthly storage check of what to use in the next 2 months. It's one a day at most, only when there's something new (the storage check comes once a month). If you're in more than one household, it covers all of them and says which household each thing is in. It comes by email (every email has a link to turn them off), and in the iPhone app you can have it sent to your phone too. They're all off until you turn them on.

Yes - connect it once and ask your own AI things like "what can I make with what's in my pantry?" or "add eggs and milk to our grocery list." In Claude: Customize, then Connectors, then Add custom connector. In ChatGPT (Plus or higher, on the web): turn on Developer mode under Settings, Security and login, then add an app. Either way, use the address https://www.inventoryimp.com/mcp and sign in to InventoryImp when asked. Your AI can see your inventory, recipes, grocery lists and meal plan (never a housemate's personal items) and can do a few everyday things when you ask: add to or check off your grocery list, mark something as used, and add a recipe to your meal plan - nothing else. Your AI subscription does the thinking, so it's free on any InventoryImp plan. To disconnect, remove it in Claude or ChatGPT.

Invite a friend by email from your Account tab, and track who's signed up so far, right there.

AI features: receipt scanning, item-photo scanning, reading a grocery list from a photo, making your own imp from a photo, recipe import parsing, ingredient substitute suggestions, and "make this healthier" suggestions, plus estimated recipe and weekly meal costs at your Kroger store. Everything else - inventory, recipes, meal planning, the grocery list, household sharing - is free.

Yes, seven days, and you won't be charged if you cancel before it ends. See the Pricing page for current plan details.