Scan your fridge or shelves

Instead of typing what you have, take a picture of your fridge or a shelf. RecipeClip names the ingredients it sees, you tick the right ones, and they join your pantry.

Start a scan#

1. 1

   Press Scan a shelf

   Open your Pantry. The button is at the top of the Add to pantry card. On a phone, tap Add to pantry first to open the card.

   

   You'll see: A box titled Scan Your Pantry opens.

Add your photos#

1. 1

   Choose pictures of your fridge or shelves

   On a phoneOn a computer

   Tap Browse Files, under the box that says Take a photo of your fridge or pantry. Your phone offers the camera or your photo library. Pick several pictures at once, or press + Add more to add another.

   Drag pictures onto the dashed box, press Browse Files, or paste a copied picture with Ctrl + V.

   

   You'll see: Small previews appear under 2 photos selected.

2. 2

   Press Scan 2 Photos

   The button shows how many pictures you added, such as Scan 1 Photo.

   

   You'll see: The button changes to Scanning for ingredients… with a spinner.

3. 3

   Wait while it reads

   Stay on the page until it finishes. Closing the box does not cancel the scan. It still runs, and the AI import is spent.

   

   You'll see: The list of ingredients replaces the pictures, headed Ingredients Found.

You can add up to 5 pictures to one scan. Each can be JPEG, PNG, WebP or HEIC, up to 10 MB.

Check the list#

1. 1

   Untick anything that is wrong

   Ingredients are grouped by type. Every one starts ticked. A small label says how sure the scan is, high, medium or low, so look hardest at the medium and low ones. Items you already keep in your pantry are marked in pantry and start unticked. To untick one, tap its row (cabbage, in the picture below). Press Deselect all to clear every tick, or Select all to tick them all. The × on a row removes it from the list.

   

   You'll see: The heading says how many it found, such as 14 Ingredients Found, and a counter such as 12 selected shows how many are ticked.

2. 2

   Add anything it missed

   Type it in Add missing ingredient… and press Enter or the plus button.

   

   You'll see: Your item is added to the list, already ticked.

Add it to your pantry#

1. 1

   Press Add 12 to Pantry

   The number is how many are ticked. If some of them turn out to be there already, the message says so, such as Added 10 · 2 already in pantry. Nothing is added twice.

   

   You'll see: The box closes and a message says, for example, Added 12 items to pantry.

The new items appear on your shelves at once. To change your mind, remove them as described in Keep track of your pantry.

If the scan misses things#

• 0 Ingredients Found or the message No ingredients detected, and that didn’t use up a scan. Try a clearer photo. means the picture was too dark or too far away, or showed no food. Press Scan again with a closer picture. A scan that finds nothing is refunded, for up to 3 photos a day. Past that, it still counts. If the message leaves out the part about the scan, the refund was already used up for the day.
• If one of several pictures fails, you get the ingredients from the others, and a message names the photo: We couldn’t read this photo: fridge.jpg. The rest were scanned. A photo that failed is not charged (up to 3 photos a day). Add anything missing with Add missing ingredient….
• Couldn’t scan your photos. Try again. means the scan did not finish. Try again in a minute. Your pantry is not changed.
• The picker stops at 5 photos. Adding more shows You can scan up to 5 photos at once. Remove one to add another., or You can scan up to 5 photos at once, so we kept the first 2. when some fit. At 5, + Add more is replaced by Up to 5 photos. A file that is too large gets File too large (max 10MB). Remove it, or choose a smaller copy.

Common questions#

Does scanning use up my AI imports?#

Yes. Each picture counts as one AI import. A picture that fails, or a scan that finds no food, is refunded, up to 3 photos a day. Free accounts get 20 every 30 days, shared across all AI features. Pro and Family get 100 a day for each feature, so scanning does not use up your link or photo imports. See Free, Pro and Family. Typing items in costs nothing.

Do I need Pro?#

No. Scanning is open to every plan, as long as you have AI imports left.

Why do the names look generic?#

The scan names what it sees in plain words, such as cheddar cheese or hot sauce, not brands. It cannot tell how much you have.

An old link took me to the Pantry page. Where is the scanner?#

The scanner now lives on the Pantry page. Use Scan a shelf there.