For iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch
A recipe box for iPhone and iPad. Scan Grandma’s cards, save from any site, cook step by step, plan the week and shop from one list. No account, no ads, nothing to sign up for.
The stained card in Grandma’s handwriting. The cookbook page with butter on it. The link someone texted you. Ovenbird keeps the recipes your family actually cooks, together, on your devices and in your own iCloud.
Bring them in
Point your camera at a recipe card or a cookbook page. Ovenbird reads it right on your iPhone and shows you what it couldn’t make out, instead of guessing. With Apple Intelligence, the lines are sorted into ingredients and steps for you.
Tap Share in Safari, Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, or paste a link. You get the recipe, not the life story and the pop-ups.
Photos, categories, ratings, favorites and notes come along.
Browse hundreds of dishes by category and cuisine and add the ones that look good to your own box. Once you’ve saved a few recipes, Discover picks dishes for what you cook. Say yes, and it brings in new recipes from the sites you save from, with a row for the holiday coming up.
Cook mode
Before the stove goes on, Ovenbird reads the recipe for you: what needs a head start, like marinating overnight, and what to chop, in the order you’ll need it. Then one step at a time, with exactly what goes in and timers that know what they’re for.
Before you startWaits to plan around and the oven to heat, then a prep list in step order: grate the garlic for step 1, pound the chicken for step 2.
What goes in, every stepEach step lists its ingredients, scaled, to tick off. On iPad the photo and the whole list stay beside the steps, with the next one underneath.
Hands-freeSay “next”, “back”, “step 3” or “set a timer for 5 minutes”. Steps can be read aloud in the most natural voice on your device. All heard on the device.
Tap a time in any step. “Simmer sauce” counts down on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, rings like the Clock app’s, even on silent, and opens right back to the recipe.
Your step waits right below it, with Back and Next, so a floury thumb never has to unlock the phone.
✦ New
Say what you’ve got. Ovenbird finds your recipes that use it, tells you what else you’d need, and counts the basics you already keep at home.
The main thing first: shrimp on hand means shrimp dishes, not a chicken recipe with a squeeze of lemon.
A recipe written on your iPhone from just what you listed, with anything extra called out.
Right inside Ovenbird. Land on a recipe and save it with one tap.
Plan & shop
Put dinners on days, type “Tacos” or “Leftovers”, or let Ovenbird fill the week. Then make the list from the whole week: ingredients added up and grouped by section, and the things you keep at home left off.
Fill the weekOne tap suggests dinners for the empty days from how you usually eat: tacos on Tuesdays, pizza on Fridays. Ask for “more chicken, no fish” and it plans around that. Swap any night you don’t fancy.
Tonight, up frontToday’s dinner with its photo, the week laid out after it, and ideas from your favorites when nothing’s planned.
Grouped by sectionProduce, meat, dairy, pantry, each item saying what it’s for. Move something and it remembers where it goes.
Widgets & Siri
Tonight’s meal and the grocery list on your Home Screen. Your step and timers on the Lock Screen. And Siri knows your recipes.
Ask Siri
“What’s for dinner in Ovenbird?”
Apple Watch
Raise your wrist for the step you’re on. Ovenbird on Apple Watch follows cook mode on your iPhone, step for step, and cooks today’s recipe on its own when the phone’s across the room.
Step by stepBack and Next move your iPhone too. Tap a time for a timer; the Digital Crown scrolls a long step.
Today and the listToday’s meals, and the grocery list to tick off as you shop. Out of range of your phone, it catches up later.
Ask Siri“What’s for dinner in Ovenbird?” answered right on your watch.
iPhone, iPad and iPhone Duo
Ovenbird is made for each, not stretched from one to the other. Plan on the couch, shop with your iPhone, cook from your iPad.
On iPhone
On iPad
On iPhone Duo
Same recipes, plan and list on all of them, through your own iCloud.
Apple Intelligence
Ovenbird hands the fiddly parts to Apple Intelligence, right on your iPhone or iPad. Nothing goes to a server, not even ours.
Handwritten cards and cookbook pages become ingredients and steps, filed in the right category, with unclear lines flagged to check.
List what’s in the fridge and get a recipe made from it, with anything extra it needs called out.
“More chicken, no fish, kids want tacos” shapes the dinners Fill the week suggests.
“Simmer sauce”, not “Step 3”, on the Lock Screen and your watch, worked out from the step.
Dishes picked for you in Discover come with a line on what they share with yours: “Curry with coconut milk and basil, like your Thai Green Curry.”
Grocery items it hasn’t met still land in the right section of the store, and a recipe without a photo gets a soft picture from its name.
Apple Intelligence needs a supported iPhone or iPad. Without it, scanning, planning, groceries and timers still work, just in simpler ways.
Privacy
Your recipes are read and stored on your devices. There’s no server of ours to send them to.
Nothing to sign up for. Open it and start.
No analytics, no ad SDKs. Nothing sent to us.
Scanning, recipe ideas and listening run on your iPhone or iPad.
Sync and sharing go through your own iCloud account.
All the features
Pricing
Start free on your iPhone or iPad. When your recipe box outgrows 50 recipes, or you want to share your library with others, buy Pro once. No subscription.
The whole app, for up to 50 of your own recipes.
Launch price One purchase, yours to keep. Not a subscription.
No. There’s nothing to sign up for. Open Ovenbird and start adding recipes.
iPhone, iPad, iPhone Duo and Apple Watch:
The Apple Intelligence touches need an iPhone 15 Pro or later, an iPad with M1 or later, or the iPad mini with A17 Pro, with Apple Intelligence turned on in Settings. Everything else works on every supported device. Cook mode’s steps and timers show on the Lock Screen of every iPhone, and in the Dynamic Island on iPhones that have one.
No, and none is planned. Ovenbird is built for Apple devices and leans on what they do well: Apple Intelligence on your device, iCloud sync and sharing, Siri, widgets and Apple Watch. A Mac version may come later.
Yes. Share the post to Ovenbird, or paste its link. Ovenbird reads the recipe from the caption or description, or from the creator’s site when the caption links to it, and uses the post’s cover as the photo. Many posts keep the method in the video, so you get the ingredients and the post is kept as the recipe’s source, a tap away. Ovenbird never makes up steps the post doesn’t have. Private posts can’t be read.
Yes. Ovenbird is made for iPhone and iPad, with a layout for each. On iPad your recipe list sits beside the recipe you’re cooking, and with Ovenbird Pro the same recipes, Meal Plan and Groceries are on both through iCloud.
Yes. With the iPhone app, Ovenbird on Apple Watch shows the step you’re on while you cook (Back and Next move your iPhone too), can cook today’s recipe on its own, shows today’s meals and the grocery list to tick off, and answers “What’s for dinner in Ovenbird?” with Siri.
Yes. In cook mode, tap the microphone and say “next”, “back”, “step 3”, “ingredients” or “set a timer for 5 minutes”. Speech is recognized on your device; nothing is recorded or sent. Steps can be read aloud too, in the most natural voice installed on your device.
No. Ovenbird is free for up to 50 of your own recipes, synced between your own iPhone and iPad, and Discover’s hundreds of dishes are free to browse and plan from. Ovenbird Pro is a single in-app purchase that unlocks unlimited recipes and sharing with your household. Family Sharing and future updates are included.
Yes. Export from Paprika or Mela and open the file in Ovenbird. Photos, categories, ratings, favorites and notes come along. Spreadsheets (CSV) work too, with a step to match your columns.
Yes. Copy it and choose + → Paste a recipe, or share the note or email to Ovenbird. A recipe written out with its ingredients and steps comes in as written; one written as a paragraph is sorted by Apple Intelligence. A PDF, a photo or a text file opens with + → From a file, or share it to Ovenbird from Files or Photos: scanned pages and photos are read like a scan. You check the recipe before it’s saved, and anything Ovenbird isn’t sure of is marked.
Yes. Scan a card or a cookbook page with the camera. Ovenbird reads it on your device and points out any line it couldn’t make out, so you can check it against the photo.
On your devices, and in your own iCloud if you sync. Ovenbird has no server of its own, no analytics and no ads, and sends nothing to us.
On supported iPhones and iPads it reads scanned cards and pages into ingredients and steps, writes a new recipe from what’s in your fridge, understands requests like “more chicken, no fish” when filling the week, sorts unfamiliar grocery items into store sections, names timers for what they time, picks a picture for dishes without a photo, and says why each dish Discover picks for you is like one of yours. It all runs on your device.
Yes, with Ovenbird Pro. Invite up to 5 people you live with to share recipes, the Meal Plan and Groceries. The people you invite don’t pay.
Yes. Open the recipe and tap ••• → Send recipe. Mail gets a recipe card with the photo, ingredients and steps, and credit to the site it came from; Messages gets the recipe and its photo; you can print it or save a PDF too. If they have Ovenbird, the small file that comes with it adds the recipe to their library.
Your recipes, in their own nest.
For iPhone and iPad with iOS 26 or later, and Apple Watch with watchOS 26.