Why I Built MoveMyRecipes.com
After years of collecting and entering recipes, I had thousands of them. And when I looked at what it would actually take to switch apps, the only real option was one recipe at a time. Manually. Every single one. That's not a migration path. That's vendor lock-in.
I have a weird relationship with recipe apps.
Not because I don't like them. I cook a lot, and I genuinely want a good place to store the recipes I've actually tested and come back to. Not a blog. Not a content feed. Just a solid, searchable collection of things I make.
The problem is that every time I've wanted to switch from one app to another, it turned into a whole thing. You'd think moving your own recipes from one app to another would be simple. It is not.
After years of collecting and entering recipes, I had thousands of them. And when I looked at what it would actually take to switch apps, the only real option was one recipe at a time. Manually. Every single one.
That's not a migration path. That's vendor lock-in. So I stayed put, not because I wanted to, but because the alternative was worse.
Eventually I got annoyed enough to just fix it.
The Switching Problem
I've used a few recipe apps over the years. Cook'n exports in its own proprietary format, something only Cook'n can open. Copy Me That exports to HTML, which sounds reasonable until you realize no other recipe app accepts HTML as an import format.
Neither app had done anything wrong exactly. They both had export buttons. But the end result was the same: I was stuck. Cook'n's export was useless outside of Cook'n. Copy Me That's export was technically a file but practically a dead end.
The frustration wasn't really about the formats themselves. It was that switching apps, something that should be straightforward, turned into a whole project. Your recipes are yours. Moving them shouldn't be this hard.
The "Just Build It" Moment
I've been a developer for fifteen-plus years. When something annoys me enough, I build a solution.
The idea was simple: take whatever proprietary format a recipe app spits out and convert it into something standards-compliant, something that actually belongs to you and that more recipe apps are likely to accept when you try to import it somewhere new. No subscription. No premium export tier. No catch. Just your data, in a format you can use.
I wanted the tool I wished existed every time I'd felt stuck in an app I was done with.
What MoveMyRecipes Does
MoveMyRecipes.com takes your exported recipe files and converts them into portable, standards-based formats. You upload your file, we process it behind the scenes, and give you back your recipes in formats other apps can actually use. We hold onto your file for 7 days in case you need to grab the outputs again, then it's gone.
The goal isn't to be another recipe app. The goal is narrower: make sure you're never actually locked in. Whatever app you're using today, you should be able to leave if you want to.
Why It's Free
People ask me this.
Charging for data portability felt like being part of the same problem. If the whole point is that your data should be yours, then the tool that gets it there should be free. The people who need it most are usually the ones who've already been burned by a subscription app once.
If you find it useful, check out FlourPower. That's the recipe app I'm building alongside it, and it's where I'm putting my long-term energy.
If you've ever tried to leave a recipe app and felt like the door was locked, give it a try. And if it doesn't support the format you need, let me know. I'm still actively working on it.