The short version. OpenPantry has no accounts, no ads, no analytics, and no trackers. Your recipes live on your device and sync to your private iCloud. We send recipe URLs and photos you import to our extraction service so an AI can read them. We do not collect your name, email, location, or any identifier — there is no login.
What we collect
- Recipes you save, import, or share. Stored on your device, mirrored to your private iCloud database via Apple CloudKit, and (for imports from public URLs and photos) added to a shared, anonymous recipe corpus to power the in-app Explore tab.
- URLs and images you import. Sent to our extraction service (running on Render) and forwarded to Anthropic's Claude API to extract recipe text. URLs are kept long enough to fulfil the import; uploaded photos are not stored after extraction.
- Audio from videos you import. If a video share has no caption recipe, our extraction service downloads the video's audio and sends it to Groq's Whisper API for transcription. The audio is discarded after transcription.
- Shared-recipe links. When you tap Share on a recipe, the recipe content is stored on our server under a short random ID so the recipient can view it. Anyone with the link can view the recipe. Links do not expire automatically — contact us to remove one.
- IP addresses are logged briefly by our extraction service for rate-limiting (~80 requests per minute per IP) and not used for any other purpose.
What we don't collect
- No email address, name, account, password, or any sign-in. There is no login.
- No analytics SDKs, tracking pixels, advertising identifiers, or third-party telemetry.
- No location, contacts, calendar, microphone, or device data beyond what you explicitly hand to the app (a photo you pick, a link you paste).
How photos are handled
When you use "Import from photo," the chosen image is JPEG-compressed on-device, sent to our extraction service, and forwarded to Anthropic's Claude API. The image is not stored after the recipe is extracted — only the resulting recipe text lands in your library. Your photo library access (granted via iOS prompts) is used only to read the image you select; no other photos are accessed.
How camera access is used
"Take a photo" launches the iOS camera, captures a single image at your direction, and treats it identically to a gallery import. We never access the camera in the background or without you pressing the shutter.
Third parties our service uses
The OpenPantry app talks to these services on your behalf. Each has its own privacy policy:
Your rights and choices
- Delete a recipe any time by swiping left on it in the Recipes tab, or via the red "Delete Recipe" button on its edit screen.
- Stop iCloud sync by signing out of iCloud or turning off iCloud Drive in iOS Settings. Local recipes remain on the device.
- Remove a shared-recipe link by emailing us with the short ID at the end of the link (the part after
/r/). We'll delete the link's record from our server.
- Ask what we have on you by emailing the contact below. Because we don't tie data to identifiers, requests of this kind are typically resolved by telling you we have nothing identifiable.
Children
OpenPantry is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect any data from them. If you believe a child has provided data to us, contact the email below and we'll delete it.
International users
Our services are operated from the United States. By using OpenPantry, you understand your data may be processed in the U.S. If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or California, you retain all the rights afforded under applicable law (access, deletion, portability); we have no separate process because we collect nothing identifiable about you.
Changes to this policy
We'll update this page when the policy changes and bump the date at the top. Material changes will also be noted in the app.
Contact
Questions about privacy? Email nchary18@gmail.com.