Yours, forever

A Cooklang app for recipes you own.

Many recipe apps keep your collection in a database only they can read. Kept saves every recipe as a plain-text Cooklang file in your own iCloud Drive. Open it, copy it, back it up. It’s just a file.

Strawberry Cheesecake Bites in Kept with its plain-text .cook file shown from iCloud Drive

What is Cooklang?

A recipe you can read without the app.

Cooklang is an open, plain-text format for recipes. You write the steps the way you’d say them, and mark the ingredients, cookware and timers inline. Kept writes it for you, so you never have to learn it.

COOK

strawberry-cheesecake-bites.cook

iCloud Drive › Kept › Recipes

---
title: Strawberry Cheesecake Bites
category: Dessert
tags: American, Dessert
servings: 12
---
Line a #baking sheet{} with wax paper.

Melt @semisweet chocolate chips{2%squares} with
@canola oil{1%tsp} in a #glass bowl{},
stirring every ~{30%seconds}.

Dip @fresh strawberries{12%large} and chill
for ~{20%minutes}.

@Ingredients: Name, amount and unit. Kept builds your checklist and scales them.
#Cookware: Pans and bowls, so you know what to pull out first.
~Timers: Every one becomes a tap-to-start timer in the step.
---Front matter: The lines between the --- marks at the top: title, category, tags and favorites, so your organization travels with the file.

The format is open and documented at cooklang.org.

Where they live

In your iCloud. Not ours.

Kept keeps its library in its own folder in your iCloud Drive and syncs it across your devices. There’s no Kept server in the middle, so there’s no copy of your library on ours.

iCloud Drive
▾ Kept
▾ Recipes
blueberry-buttermilk-pancakes.cook
blueberry-buttermilk-pancakes.jpg
one-pot-mushroom-risotto.cook
sheet-pan-chicken-and-chickpeas.cook
sheet-pan-chicken-and-chickpeas.jpg
strawberry-cheesecake-bites.cook
…

Already have a folder? Link it.

Already keep a collection of .cook files? Link that folder and Kept browses and edits those files in place, without moving or duplicating them.

Preview in Finder.

On Mac, .cook files get real thumbnails, and pressing Space shows the formatted recipe with Quick Look. No app launch needed.

Kept on Mac with Strawberry Cheesecake Bites open beside its plain-text file card

The promise

If you ever stop using Kept, nothing happens to your recipes. They’re still files, still in your iCloud Drive, still readable in any text editor or Cooklang app.

Recipe files, answered.

Do I need to learn Cooklang?

No. Kept writes the file for you when you save or edit a recipe. Cooklang only matters if you want to open the file yourself.

Can I edit a recipe file outside Kept?

Yes. Edit it in any text editor and Kept picks up the change.

Where are recipe photos stored?

In the same folder, as a .jpg with the same name as the recipe file.

Can I back up my recipes?

Copy the Kept folder anywhere: an external drive, another cloud, a zip in your email. That’s the whole backup.

Keep reading

No subscription →How Kept compares with other ways to keep recipes. Organize →Tags and categories that live in the file. Privacy →Exactly what Kept does and doesn’t touch.

Keep them for good.

For iPhone, iPad and Mac. No subscription.