Privacy Policy

Effective October 15, 2026

Aroma is built so your recipes stay yours. There is no Aroma account, no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking. We don't run our own servers, and we can't see your recipes unless you choose to share one by link.

What stays on your devices and in your iCloud

Your recipes, photos, meal plan, grocery lists, and preferences are stored on your device. If you're signed in to iCloud, Aroma syncs recipes, the meal plan, grocery lists, and preferences through your own private iCloud account using Apple's CloudKit. That data is encrypted and managed by Apple under Apple's Privacy Policy; we can't see it.

If you enter a FoodData Central API key for nutrition lookup, Aroma sends that key once to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's FoodData Central when you tap Save, to check that it works, and then stores it in your iCloud Keychain. Nothing else is sent with it.

Recipe scanning with the camera, text recognition, and on-device intelligence features run entirely on your device.

Outside services the app contacts

These happen only when you use the feature described.

Household sharing. When you invite people to your household, the recipes and meal plan you share are visible to the people you invite, through iCloud sharing. Starting a household also creates a shared Household Shopping List that everyone in it can see and edit. Your other grocery lists stay private unless you choose to share one with the household. If you stop sharing a list, it's removed from everyone else's devices and you keep a private copy.

Recipe share links. When you create a share link, a copy of that recipe (name, description, ingredients, steps, times, servings, tags, flavors, photo, source link, the recipe's author, and the sender name from your profile) is uploaded to Aroma's public CloudKit database so anyone with the link can view it. The link stops working after 7 days, and the device that created it deletes the copy the next time Aroma opens after that. The copy isn't tied to your Apple Account or identity. To have a shared copy removed sooner, email us with the link.

Importing from a web link or social post. Aroma downloads the page you paste or share so it can read the recipe. If you share a social media post (from Instagram or TikTok, for example) whose caption links to a recipe website, Aroma also downloads that one linked page. Those websites see a normal request from your device. Shared caption text and screenshots are read on your device.

Online nutrition lookup. If you choose "Online Lookup" in Nutrition settings, ingredient names are sent to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's FoodData Central and to Open Food Facts to find nutrition data. No other recipe or personal information is sent.

Recipe videos. When a recipe has a YouTube or Vimeo video, opening the recipe loads the video's preview image right away, without a tap: from YouTube (img.youtube.com) for YouTube videos, and from vumbnail.com, a public thumbnail service, for Vimeo videos. That server sees a normal request from your device, including the video's ID. Playing a video loads it from YouTube or Vimeo. Their own privacy policies apply.

Web search links. Tapping the web search link next to an ingredient, allergy, or pairing opens a DuckDuckGo search for that name in your browser. Only the name is sent.

Tips. Tip-jar purchases are processed by Apple through the App Store. We never receive your payment details.

Feedback. If you email us, we receive your email address and whatever you send, and use it only to reply.

Export, print, and PDF. These create files on your device through the system share sheet. Nothing is uploaded.

This website

aromacooking.app is hosted on Cloudflare, which processes standard request information (such as IP address) to deliver and protect the site. We don't use cookies or analytics on this site.

Children

Aroma doesn't knowingly collect personal information from anyone, including children.

Your choices

You can delete any recipe, or everything at once with Settings → Data & Storage → Clear All Data. Turning off iCloud for Aroma stops syncing. You can leave or stop a household share at any time from Settings → Household.

Changes

If this policy changes, we'll update this page and its effective date.

Contact

John — feedback@aromacooking.app