Household, members, and preferences
How recipes.im households work — invite codes, shared libraries, and the per-household preferences that drive units, scaling, and grocery aggregation.
Everything in recipes.im is scoped to a household — a small group of people (you, your partner, your flatmate) who share one library, one grocery list, and one set of preferences. Most accounts are a household of one; couples and families benefit from making it bigger.
Creating a household
First time you open the app, you're asked to Create a household or Join a household. Most people create. Pick a name ("Home", your surname, whatever) and you're in.
Inviting someone
Tap the household icon (top-right of the Recipes tab) → Invite a member. We mint a short invite code and open the iOS share sheet. Send the code by Messages, AirDrop, or however you like.
On the other person's phone, in the app, they tap Join a household during onboarding (or in the household menu later) and enter the code. Their device joins, syncs the library, and starts sharing the grocery list.
What's shared, what's not
- Shared: recipe library, meal plans, grocery list (including which items are checked off), household preferences (units, default servings, etc.).
- Per-device: your phone's appearance settings (dark/light mode).
Preferences
Tap the household icon → Preferences. The settings are household-scoped, not per-device, so you and your partner see the same units regardless of phone.
- Unit system — see Units, regions, and weighing styles.
- Temperature — Celsius, Fahrenheit, gas mark, or as authored.
- Default servings — every recipe opens at this number out of the gate.
- Weighing style — when do solids show in grams vs cups.
- Number style — fractions (
1 ½) or decimals (1.5).
On first launch we sniff your locale (US → imperial+F, UK → metric+C, AU → metric+C, anything else → as authored) for sensible defaults. You can change any of them at any time and every recipe in the library re-renders immediately.
Switching households
You can only be in one household at a time on a given device. To switch, leave your current household (household menu → leave) and join another with a fresh code. We don't merge libraries across households today — leaving and rejoining is destructive.
How many members can I have?
No hard cap today. The app is designed for 1-4 people who actually share a kitchen — partners, families, flatmates. We haven't tested big groups (a 12-person commune sharing a meal plan would probably surface synchronization edge cases we haven't seen yet). If that's your situation, get in touch.
Related guides
How recipes.im handles cups vs grams, US vs Australian tablespoons, and when we weigh solids vs measure them by volume.
How recipes.im handles serving size scaling — and why some ingredients are intentionally fixed, marked with an orange sparkle.
Categorization, quantity merging, pluralization, and why your shopping list keeps cups separate from grams.