How To

Short, plain answers to the things people actually ask. Pick a topic, or just read straight down — the whole page takes about five minutes.

Getting started

  1. On the home page, tap Create Account and sign in with Google. That's the whole signup — there's no password to invent.
  2. Tick Keep me signed in if this is your own phone or computer. Leave it unticked on a shared one and you'll be signed out when you close the browser.
  3. You land on your Dashboard. Everything you save lives there.
  4. Open Profile once to add your name, a photo and the food you like. It takes a minute and it's what other people in your communities see.

Adding a recipe by hand

  1. Dashboard → + Add New Recipe.
  2. Type the Recipe Name. This one is required — nothing saves without it.
  3. Fill the Ingredients rows. Each row is three parts: the amount (2), the unit (cup), and the ingredient itself (All-purpose flour).
  4. Not in the dropdown? Choose Other… at the bottom of the list and type it in. Same for the unit.
  5. + Add ingredient adds another row. The × on the right removes one.
  6. Write the Instructions in the big box — one step per line reads best.
  7. Set Servings. That's what the calorie estimate divides by, so getting it right makes the numbers useful.
  8. Tap Save Recipe.

The nutrition panel fills itself in as you type. It's an estimate worked out from your ingredients, not a lab result — treat it as a guide.

Pasting a recipe you found

The Paste a recipe box at the top of the Add Recipe page takes a block of copied text and sorts it into the form for you — name, ingredients, steps.

  1. Copy the recipe text wherever you found it (the sections below show how, network by network).
  2. Dashboard → + Add New Recipe.
  3. Tap inside the Paste a recipe box and paste. It fills the form the moment you paste — you don't have to press anything.
  4. Scroll down and check it. It's a best guess, so an ingredient sometimes lands in the wrong row.
  5. Fix anything that's off, then Save Recipe.
Paste the words, not just the link. A link on its own doesn't work — Stirring Stories doesn't go and read the page for you. You need the actual recipe text on your clipboard. Paste the link as well if you like; it gets filed under Where it came from as credit.

Pasting only the ingredients is fine too — type the name and steps yourself and paste just the list. Nothing gets lost either way.

Nothing happened when I pasted? Look just under the box: after a successful paste there's a green line saying how many ingredients and steps went in. If you don't see it, press Fill the form — that does the same job. Your text stays in the box the whole time, so you can always try again, and pressing Save Recipe picks up anything still sitting there unimported. If it still says it couldn't read the recipe, the copy probably only caught part of the post — go back and make sure the ingredient list itself is selected before you copy.

Recipes come written every which way, and the box copes with most of it: numbered ingredient lists (1. 2 cups rice), quantities written after the food (Flour - 2 cups), the amount and the food on separate lines, units like quarts, sticks and bunches, tick-boxes copied off a blog, and posts with no headings at all. It's still a best guess — check it before you save.

Is it OK to copy someone else's recipe? For the ingredients and the plain steps — yes. A list of ingredients and quantities is a set of facts, and facts aren't covered by copyright. What is covered is the writing around it and, most of all, the photos and video. So bring the recipe across, leave the blog post and the pictures where you found them, and put the link in Where it came from so the creator gets the credit. The full wording is here.

…from Facebook

On a phone

  1. Open the post and tap See more so the whole recipe is showing.
  2. Press and hold on the text until the selection handles appear.
  3. Drag the handles over the whole recipe, then tap Copy.
  4. Paste it into the Paste a recipe box.

On a computer

  1. Click See more to expand the post.
  2. Click and drag over the recipe to select it, then Ctrl+C (⌘+C on a Mac).
  3. Paste into the box with Ctrl+V.

If your selection accidentally picks the post up twice — easily done, because Facebook keeps both the shortened and the expanded version of the text on the page — paste it anyway. A recipe that arrives doubled is spotted and each ingredient is only listed once.

If the recipe is only in a comment, copy the comment. If it's only in a video with nothing written down, there's nothing to paste — you'll have to type it in by hand.

…from TikTok

On TikTok the recipe is nearly always in the caption under the video, or in a pinned comment from the person who made it.

  1. Tap the caption to expand it fully.
  2. Press and hold on the caption text, then Select all → Copy.
  3. If the caption is short and the recipe is in a comment instead, press and hold that comment and copy it.
  4. Paste it into the Paste a recipe box.

To keep credit for the creator, also tap Share → Copy link and paste that link into Where it came from.

TikTok captions come with emoji bullets, hashtags and "comment RECIPE for the full video" — paste the whole thing. All of that is stripped out automatically, and 👉 or 🔸 in front of a line is understood as a bullet.

If a TikTok recipe is only spoken in the video, there's no text to copy. Type it in by hand, or check the comments — someone has usually written it out.

…from Instagram

  1. Tap more on the caption to open it out.
  2. Press and hold the caption text → Copy. On a computer, drag to select it and press Ctrl+C.
  3. Paste it into the Paste a recipe box.
  4. For credit: the … menu on the post has Copy link. Put that in Where it came from.

Instagram Reels behave like TikTok — the recipe is in the caption or a pinned comment, not the video.

…from Pinterest

A Pin is usually just a picture pointing somewhere else. There are two cases:

  1. The recipe is written in the Pin description — press and hold it, copy, and paste it in.
  2. The Pin links out to a blog — tap the Pin to open the site, then follow …from a blog or website below. That's where the real recipe lives.

…from a blog or website

  1. Most recipe blogs have a Jump to Recipe button at the top. Tap it to skip the life story.
  2. Select from the word Ingredients all the way down through the last instruction.
  3. Copy, then paste into the Paste a recipe box.

Don't worry about grabbing the extras — ratings, prep times, "Print Recipe", ads and the newsletter box are all recognised and thrown away. Headings like Ingredients and Instructions are what the importer uses to split things up, so it's better to include them.

A page covered in adverts? Just take the lot. On sites like Delish or Food Network you don't have to pick the recipe out carefully, and you don't have to copy the ingredients and the steps separately. Select the whole page — Ctrl+A (⌘+A on a Mac), or drag from the top of the article to the bottom on a phone — and paste it in. The advert strips, photo credits, "Readers Also Read" and the footer are all dropped.

Plenty of sites write the recipe out twice: a chatty walk-through with a paragraph about each ingredient, then the proper recipe card lower down. The importer takes the card, so you get 1 tsp dried oregano rather than a paragraph about oregano.

Scanning a packaged food

Bought a ready meal, a protein bar or a jar of something and want it in your recipes with the right macros? Scan the barcode instead of typing it all out. On the Add Recipe page, use Scan a package.

  1. Dashboard → + Add New Recipe.
  2. In Scan a package, tap Scan with camera and point it at the barcode. Hold it steady about a hand's width away.
  3. It fills in the product name, the ingredients and the calories and macros off the label.
  4. Check it, set Servings if it's wrong, and Save Recipe.
We read the barcode, not the writing. Photographing tiny print on a shiny, crinkly packet goes wrong more often than it goes right. The barcode holds the same information in a form a phone reads perfectly every time — so that's what we scan.

On an iPhone or iPad

Safari can't read barcodes from the camera, so tap Type the numbers and enter the digits printed underneath the barcode. Exactly the same result — it just takes ten seconds longer. Everything else works normally.

It says the barcode isn't in the database.

The food database is free and built by volunteers, so it's very good on big brands and patchier on store-brand and local products. When it doesn't know a product, add it the ordinary way — by hand, or paste the ingredients from the maker's website.

The ingredients look wrong for what I scanned.

That happens occasionally — the entries are contributed by the public and the odd one is mislabelled. Everything it filled in is yours to type over, so correct it and save. Always check it against the actual packet.

Where did the calorie numbers come from?

Straight off the package label, which is why the panel says “From the package label, not an estimate.” For everything else you cook, the numbers are worked out from your ingredients instead. If you'd rather have that here too, tap Use my ingredients instead under the panel.

It's asking to use my camera.

Only while you're scanning, and only on this page. Tap Allow. Nothing is recorded and no picture is kept or uploaded — the barcode is read on your phone and thrown away. Tap Stop camera whenever you like, and it also switches off by itself the moment it reads a code.

Adding or changing the picture

The photo control lives on the recipe form, not on the recipe page. That trips people up.

  1. Open the recipe and tap Edit Recipe. (Making a new one? It's on the same form.)
  2. Scroll to Photo, under the nutrition panel.
  3. Tap Choose File and pick a picture from your phone or computer.
  4. A preview appears. Picking another picture replaces it; Remove photo takes it off.
  5. Tap Save Recipe — the picture isn't stored until you save.
No Photo section on the form? Photo uploads come with Premium. On the Free and Pro plans the box is replaced by a note telling you which plan you're on. If you've already paid and it still says Free, see Plans & upgrading.

Big photos are shrunk automatically before they're saved, so you can use a picture straight off your camera roll. Recipes with no picture simply show no picture — nothing is filled in on your behalf.

Joining & creating communities

A community is a private group — a family, a few friends, a church group — that shares recipes with each other.

Joining one

  1. Get the 6-character code from whoever runs it (something like K7QM2X).
  2. Go to Community in the menu.
  3. Type the code under Join a Community and tap Join. Capitals don't matter.
  4. It appears under My Communities and you can see everything shared there.

Starting one

  1. Community → Create a Community.
  2. Give it a name and a line about what it's for.
  3. A join code is generated for you. Send that code to the people you want in it — that's the only way in.

Putting a recipe in one

  1. On the recipe form, use the Share to Community dropdown near the bottom.
  2. Leave it on None (Private) and only you can see the recipe.
  3. You can change this later — open the recipe, tap Edit Recipe, pick a different one, save.

Free includes 1 community, Pro 5, Premium as many as you like. That's communities you own. Joining other people's is counted separately: 3 on Free, 8 on Pro, unlimited on Premium.

Sharing a recipe out

Open any recipe and use the share buttons — WhatsApp, Email, Pinterest, Facebook and X.

Your recipes are readable only by you and your communities, so a bare link would be useless to anyone else. Every share carries the recipe text instead — the name, the full ingredient list with amounts, the steps, and a credit line back to the original if you filled one in.

Making a printable cookbook

  1. Go to Recipe Book from your Dashboard.
  2. Give it a title, a subtitle and an author name.
  3. Tick the recipes you want in it.
  4. Generate the PDF, then print it or send it to a print shop.

The recipe book is a Premium feature.

Plans & upgrading

What you getFreeProPremium
Recipes715Unlimited
Communities you own15Unlimited
Communities you can join38Unlimited
Members per community you own815Unlimited
Full community accessFirst 14 daysYesYes
Photo uploads——Yes
Private communities——Yes
Printable recipe book——Yes
Paste importer, search, allergens, comments, likesYesYesYes

To upgrade

  1. Go to Profile and tap Upgrade.
  2. Pick Pro or Premium, then choose the same plan from the dropdown on the PayPal button.
  3. Pay with PayPal or a card.
Upgrades are switched on by hand, usually within a day. Right after you pay, your account still reads Free and photo uploads stay locked — that's expected, not a fault. If it's been longer than a day, email stirringstories2@gmail.com with your PayPal receipt and the email you sign in with, and we'll sort it out.

Your plan is shown as a badge at the top of your Profile. That badge is the real answer to "did my upgrade go through?".

Changing the language

The language picker is in the top bar on every page, and under the banner on the home page. Twelve languages: English, Español, Português, Français, Italiano, Ελληνικά, Kreyòl, 中文, 한국어, עברית, العربية and Tagalog. Hebrew and Arabic flip the whole layout right-to-left.

That changes the app's own buttons and labels. Recipes stay in the language they were written in — open one and use the 🌐 Translate button to read it in yours.

Sign-in trouble & pop-up blockers

I tapped Sign In and got “Login failed: Firebase error (auth/popup-blocked)”.

Nothing is wrong with your account. Signing in with Google opens a small Google window on top of the page, and your browser's pop-up blocker shut it before it could load. Allow pop-ups for this site and it goes away for good.

The one-second fix. Look at the right-hand end of the address bar for a small icon of a window with a red ×. Tap it → Always allow pop-ups from stirringstories.com → Done, then tap Sign In again.

Chrome — computer or Chromebook

  1. Three dots at the top right → Settings.
  2. Privacy and security → Site settings.
  3. Scroll to Pop-ups and redirects.
  4. Under Allowed to send pop-ups, tap Add and type stirringstories.com.
  5. Go back to the tab and tap Sign In.

Chrome — Android phone

  1. Three dots → Settings → Site settings → Pop-ups and redirects.
  2. Turn it on, or add stirringstories.com to the allowed list.

Safari — iPhone or iPad

  1. Settings app → scroll down to Safari.
  2. Turn Block Pop-ups off.
  3. Return to Safari and tap Sign In. You can turn it back on afterwards — you only need it for the sign-in itself.

Safari — Mac

  1. Menu bar → Safari → Settings → Websites → Pop-up Windows.
  2. Find stirringstories.com in the list and set it to Allow.

Firefox

  1. Three lines → Settings → Privacy & Security.
  2. Under Permissions, tap Exceptions… next to Block pop-up windows.
  3. Add https://www.stirringstories.com → Save Changes.

Can't change the setting — a school or work Chromebook, or a managed Google Classroom account? You don't have to. If the pop-up is blocked, Stirring Stories now sends you to the ordinary Google sign-in page instead and brings you straight back. Just tap Sign In and let it go.

It sent me to Google, I signed in, and I came back signed out.

That's a browser refusing to keep cookies from Google while you're on our site. Allow pop-ups as above (the pop-up route doesn't need those cookies), or turn off Block all cookies / Prevent cross-site tracking for this site. Private and Incognito windows block it too — use a normal window.

The Google window opened and closed on its own.

Usually a second tap while the first window was still opening. Wait for it to settle and tap Sign In once.

Still stuck.

Email stirringstories2@gmail.com and say which browser and which phone or computer you're on — that's normally enough to spot it straight away.

Something went wrong

My recipe saved with nothing in it.

This used to happen when text was left sitting in the Paste a recipe box and Save was pressed without importing it first. It's fixed: pasting now fills the form straight away, and Save picks up anything still in the box. A recipe with no ingredients and no steps is refused outright rather than saved empty.

My ingredients didn't show up but my instructions did.

Same cause, same fix. Ingredients have to end up in the numbered rows — if the rows are empty when you save, there are no ingredients. Paste into the box and watch the rows fill in below.

The importer put things in the wrong places.

It's reading a best guess out of plain text, so it won't be perfect. The copied text stays in the box on purpose so you can check it against the form. Fix the rows by hand and save — nothing is locked.

There's a picture on my recipe that isn't mine.

An older version of the app filled in a stock photo when a recipe had none of its own — that's where the loaf of bread on a chicken recipe came from. It's gone. Recipes without a picture now show no picture, and yours will show a note pointing you to where you can add one.

I can't sign in — it says popup-blocked.

Your browser's pop-up blocker. Sign-in trouble & pop-up blockers has the fix for every browser, and it takes about ten seconds.

I paid but I'm still on the Free plan.

Upgrades are applied by hand, usually within a day. See Plans & upgrading.

My communities have stopped updating.

The Free plan includes full community access for your first 14 days. After that you keep everything you could already see — your own recipes, and every message and shared recipe from your first 14 days — but new posts are hidden and the chat box goes away. Upgrading to Pro or Premium brings it all straight back; nothing is deleted while you wait, it is only hidden.

I've hit my recipe limit.

Free holds 7 recipes and Pro holds 15. Delete one you don't need, or upgrade from your Profile. Nothing you've already saved is ever removed when a limit is reached.

Something else.

Email stirringstories2@gmail.com. Tell us what you tapped and what happened — it's the fastest way to get it fixed.