Recipe Box

Recipe Box 1.7.0

Released November 9, 2026

This is the current version. To see which one your box is on, open Recipe Box, then the menu, then Settings and Updates. If a newer one is ready, the button to install it is on that page.

What changed

1.7.0

Current

Some dinners take more than one recipe. Now you can keep those recipes together as a meal, and put the whole meal in a plan at once.

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  • Meals is new in the menu, between Recipes and Meal plans. A meal has a name, its recipes in the order you like, and notes if you want them: Taco night might be tacos, rice and beans.
  • A meal's page shows its notes and a card for each recipe in it. Edit adds recipes, moves them up or down, or takes them out.
  • When you choose what goes in a meal plan, tap Meals at the top of the list, beside Recipes. A meal is found by its name or by any recipe in it.
  • A meal in a plan says Meal beside its name. The plan's grocery list has what all of its recipes need, and each item still says which recipe it's for.
  • A plan uses the meal itself, not a copy, so changing a meal changes every plan it's in. Deleting a meal leaves its places in your plans empty, and deleting a recipe takes it out of any meal.
  • Exports now include your meals, and importing just meal plans brings in the meals they use.
  • On a locked box, anyone can look at meals, but it takes the password to change them, the same as recipes.
  • Help has a new page about Meals.

1.6.5

You can now have the box install only its security fixes, and leave its other updates until you choose.

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  • Settings → Updates has a new choice, What to install: Everything, or Security fixes only.
  • With Security fixes only, Automatically installs just the security fixes overnight, and Ask me first only puts a dot on the menu when security fixes are waiting.
  • The other updates are still listed in Settings → Updates, and Install everything puts them in whenever you like.
  • Security fixes are Debian's. Updates to the Raspberry Pi kernel and firmware don't count as security fixes, so with this choice they wait until you install everything.
  • Nothing changes unless you choose it: the box goes on installing everything, as before.

1.6.4

More ways to make Recipe Box look the way you like, including dark themes that switch on by themselves.

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  • Settings → Display now has 13 themes, in two groups: Light, and Dark for evenings or a dim kitchen.
  • New light themes: Saffron, Plum, Beetroot, Cocoa, Sea Salt, and Holly-Beary, a mix of blue and purple.
  • New dark themes: Espresso, Aubergine and Cast Iron, alongside Midnight. In a dark theme, scroll bars and tick boxes go dark too.
  • Automatic switches between a light theme and a dark one that you pick, whenever your phone or computer goes into or out of dark mode.
  • As before, each phone or computer keeps its own theme.

1.6.3

Recipe Box opens faster, especially once it holds a lot of recipes.

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  • Your recipe list, on the home page and when choosing a meal for a plan, now loads only what each card shows. The whole recipe still comes up when you open it.
  • Recipe Box now packs its pages and lists smaller before sending them, so less has to travel over your Wi-Fi.
  • Nothing else changes: your recipes, meal plans and grocery lists are just as they were, and exports and shared recipe files are the same as before.

1.6.2

Recipe Box now keeps the small computer it runs on up to date, the way your phone and laptop keep themselves up to date.

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  • The first time you open Recipe Box after this update, it asks how updates for the box itself should be installed: Ask me first, or Automatically. You can change your answer any time in Settings → Updates.
  • Ask me first: the box checks every night, and a dot on the menu says when updates are waiting. Install them from Settings → Updates, then restart the box to finish.
  • Automatically: updates are installed overnight, between 3 and 5 am, and the box restarts by itself when it needs to.
  • Choosing also sets the box to your phone's time zone, so "overnight" is your night.
  • If security fixes have been waiting for two weeks, a note above your recipes says so.
  • In Settings → Updates, What's in them lists the updates waiting, and More info shows each one's version, whether it's a security fix, and what it's for.
  • These updates come from Raspberry Pi and Debian, who make the box's software. Nothing about you or your recipes is sent to get them.

1.6.1

Recipe Box is now better protected from web pages that try to misuse it.

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  • A recipe link whose page is built to be slow to read now gives up after 10 seconds and offers Paste a recipe, instead of keeping Recipe Box busy for an hour or more.
  • While Recipe Box is reading a recipe link, everyone else in the house can keep using it as normal.
  • Recipe Box only takes changes from its own page. A website opened on a phone or computer on your Wi-Fi can't add recipes, eject the drive or switch off Tailscale, even when the box isn't locked.

1.6.0

Recipes can now come in from websites that used to turn Recipe Box away, and from anything you can copy.

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  • Import from a link now works on many sites that used to refuse it, such as Allrecipes and Serious Eats. Recipe Box reads the Internet Archive's copy of the page instead, and says so with the date of the copy, so you can check it against the site.
  • A saved copy takes longer to read, so Import now says it's still working when it takes more than a few seconds.
  • + New recipe → Paste a recipe reads a recipe you copy yourself, from a web page open on your phone, an email or a note. The form fills in, with the photo too if the page has one.
  • When a link can't be imported, Recipe Box says why and opens Paste a recipe for you, with the steps for the phone or computer you're using.
  • A site that stops partway through sending its page now says it took too long, instead of "Something went wrong".
  • Save recipe now shows that it's saving, and can't be pressed a second time by mistake.

1.5.1

Recipe Box now has a Help guide, and a few things work more the way you'd expect.

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  • Help, in the menu just above Settings, shows how to use Recipe Box, from getting around to keeping a copy of your recipes. Read it page by page, or open the part you need.
  • Searching Recipes now matches every word you type, in any order, so "chicken quick" finds the chicken recipes tagged quick.
  • Tapping ↗ beside a meal in a meal plan saves the plan before opening the recipe, so meals you've just picked aren't lost.
  • On a locked box, Settings → Display no longer asks for the password, because a theme only changes the device you're using. The Settings pages that do need it show a padlock.

1.5.0

Recipe Box can now be reached when you're away from home, so the grocery list and tonight's recipe come with you to the shop.

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  • Settings → Away from home sets it up through Tailscale, a free service that links your own devices together privately. Nothing is opened up to the rest of the internet.
  • Turn it on, then sign in by scanning the QR code with your phone. The first time, the box downloads Tailscale, which takes a few minutes.
  • On each phone, install the Tailscale app and sign in with the same account. The page then gives you one address for Recipe Box that works both at home and away.
  • The page shows the date Tailscale will ask for the box to be signed in again, and how to stop it asking.
  • Turn off signs Recipe Box out of Tailscale, and it can only be reached at home again.

1.4.1

Small fixes to setting a new password and to updating.

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  • Forgot the password? now asks for the code from the app on its own. Once it is right, you have ten minutes to choose the new password, instead of typing it twice before the code changed.
  • Update now shows straight away that the update has started, and can't be pressed a second time by mistake.

1.4.0

Recipes can now be shared, photo and all, with someone in the house or with anyone at all.

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  • Share on a recipe now offers two choices. On your Wi-Fi shows a QR code: point another phone's camera at it and the recipe opens there. A Copy link button sits beside it.
  • Send a copy saves the recipe and its photo as one file to email or text to anyone, and then shows the steps for sending it from your phone or computer.
  • Whoever gets the file can open it in any web browser to read or print the recipe.
  • If they have a Recipe Box of their own, + New recipe → Import from a file fills the recipe in, photo included, ready to check and save.
  • The Import from a link box on a new recipe now looks like the rest of the form.

1.3.0

Recipe Box can now be locked with a password, so only people who know it can change things.

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  • A new Lock page in Settings sets the password. Anyone on your network can still read recipes, meal plans and grocery lists.
  • Adding, editing or deleting anything, ticking off a grocery list, and everything in Settings now ask for the password first.
  • Each phone or tablet signs in once and stays signed in. Sign out from the menu on a device that isn't yours.
  • Set up an authenticator app such as Google Authenticator, and a code from it lets you choose a new password if you forget the old one.
  • Lost the password and the app as well? Hold the setup button for five seconds and choose Remove the lock on the setup page.

1.2.1

Recipe Box now keeps its address when it changes network.

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  • After joining a Wi-Fi network, or being disconnected and reconnected quickly, the box could start answering at recipebox-2.local instead of recipebox.local, and bookmarks to it stopped working. It now notices within about 15 seconds and takes its usual name back.
  • If another device on your network really is called recipebox, the box tries less and less often instead of fighting over the name.

1.2.0

Recipe Box can now be put on your Wi-Fi from its own Settings page.

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  • A new Wi-Fi page in Settings shows the networks in range. Pick yours, type its password, and the box joins it.
  • If the password is wrong, the box goes back to the network it was on and tells you so.
  • A new box needs its network cable only long enough to do this once. After that it can live anywhere your Wi-Fi reaches.
  • Networks the box has joined are remembered, and can be forgotten from the same page.

1.1.0

Recipe Box can now update itself.

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  • A new Updates page in Settings shows which version your box is on and whether a newer one is ready.
  • One button installs it. Your recipes, meal plans and grocery lists are not touched.
  • If a new version doesn't start properly, the box goes back to the one it was running.
  • A small dot on the menu button tells you when an update is waiting.

How a box updates

Updates are free and nothing forces one on you. A box that never updates keeps working.

  1. The box looks. Once a day, and when you open the Updates page, it downloads one small file from this site that says which version is current.
  2. It tells you. If that version is newer than its own, a dot appears on the menu button and the Updates page shows what changed.
  3. You decide. Nothing is installed until someone presses Update now.
  4. It checks the download is genuine. Every release is signed with a key that is not kept on this website or on any server. A download that does not match the signature is thrown away, so a release that did not come from us cannot be installed, even if this website were broken into.
  5. It installs and restarts. This takes a few minutes. Your recipes are on the USB drive and are not touched.
  6. It makes sure the new version works. If the new version does not start, the box puts back the one it was running, and does the same if it loses power partway through.