culin · privacy policy
Last updated: 6 September 2026 · Published by Aksial Technologies AS
Culin stores your recipe library on your device. Everyday cooking works without an account. Optional cloud features and import diagnostics send limited data to the services described below.
You do not need an account
Your recipe library, cooking mode, timers, widgets, Spotlight search and Siri shortcuts all work fully offline with no sign-in. If you never sign in, your recipes are stored only on your device. Importing a web page needs a network connection. The import diagnostics described below can be sent without signing in.
Import diagnostics
To understand import reliability, the app can send the recipe website hostname and a label indicating that an import was completed on the device. This request contains no account identifier, device identifier, recipe content or full page URL. It is sent without signing in. As with other network requests, the hosting service receives connection information such as your IP address.
The service also logs cloud import outcomes and recipe-processing diagnostics, such as unrecognised ingredient names, without account identifiers. These diagnostics help us find import problems.
What we store if you do sign in
Three optional features need an account: syncing across your devices, translating a recipe, and the discovery feed. Signing in is via Sign in with Apple only: there is no password. If you use Apple's Hide My Email, we only ever see the relay address.
- Your email address, used to identify the account and nothing else.
- An account identifier, which is what ties your library to you.
- Your recipes: titles, ingredients, instructions, your own notes and ratings.
- Which recipes you saved, cooked, or rated, which is what makes sync work.
- If you subscribe to Culin Plus: which plan you are on, when the current period ends, and Apple's identifier for the subscription. That is what tells our servers you are a subscriber.
We never send you marketing email. We do not sell or rent any of this, to anyone, ever.
Photos never leave your device
Culin can read a recipe from a photo or a screenshot. That happens entirely on your iPhone, using Apple's on-device text recognition. The image is never uploaded to us or to anyone else. Only the text that was recognised is sent onward, and only when you are signed in and using cloud extraction.
Where your data goes
The following processors handle data to run the service. Optional account features use storage and cloud processing; import diagnostics are handled by the hosting service even without sign-in.
1. Recipe text: Anthropic
When a recipe page is too awkward for the app to read on its own, or when you translate a recipe, the recipe text is sent to Anthropic's Claude model to be turned into structured ingredients and steps. Cloud extraction and translation use this processor in addition to the storage and hosting services below. No account identifier is sent with it. See anthropic.com/legal/privacy.
2. Storage and hosting: Supabase and Vercel
Your account and synced recipes are stored in a Supabase Postgres database hosted in Stockholm, in the EU. The API runs on Vercel, also in Stockholm. Row-level security means one account cannot read another's library.
3. Caching: Upstash
Short-lived caches and rate-limit counters are held in Upstash Redis in Frankfurt, so the app stays fast and no one can overload the service.
The discovery feed shows no one's activity
Discovery is built only from recipes that enough different people have independently saved and cooked. It never exposes what any one person saved, there are no follower counts or profiles, and no part of the app learns your habits to recommend things to you. If a recipe has not cleared that threshold, it is not in the feed.
Culin Plus and payment
Culin Plus is billed by Apple, not by us. Your card, your billing address and your Apple Account credentials are handled entirely by Apple and are never sent to us and never visible to us.
What we receive is a signed receipt from Apple confirming that a subscription exists, which plan it is, and when it runs out. We keep exactly that, against your account, so the app knows what you are entitled to. Apple also tells our servers when a subscription renews, lapses or is refunded, so that entitlement stays correct without the app having to be open.
Cancelling is done in your Apple Account settings, not here: we have no ability to charge you or to stop a charge. Deleting your Culin account removes our copy of the subscription record; it does not cancel the subscription itself, which only Apple can do.
Privacy safeguards
- No advertising, and no advertising SDK is present in the app.
- No analytics or crash-reporting SDK of any kind.
- No tracking across apps or websites, and therefore no App Tracking Transparency prompt.
- No location, contacts or health data is requested. No payment details either: Apple handles billing, and card numbers never reach us (see Culin Plus and payment above).
- When you save a recipe from a link, we strip tracking parameters such as
utm_*,fbclidandgclidfrom the URL before storing it.
Deleting everything
Open Settings → Delete account and synced data in the app. This removes your account and all recipe data from our servers. This does not remove diagnostic logs described above or copies you exported separately.
Children
Culin is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
Changes
We may update this policy as the app evolves. Material changes will be reflected here with a new "Last updated" date.
Contact
Questions about privacy: privacy@aksial.io