Privacy Policy

Cook Along · Last updated: October 7, 2026

Cook Along is made by CODEDANCE PTE. LTD. ("we", "us"), a company registered in Singapore. This policy describes what the Cook Along mobile app collects, why, and what happens to it. The short version: there are no ads, we do not track you across other companies' apps or websites, and we do not sell or share your data with data brokers. One outside service, AppsFlyer, measures which links bring people to the app — described below.

What we collect

• A random install identifier. When you first open the app, it generates a random ID for your installation. It is not your name, email, phone number, or advertising ID. We use it to meter free-tier usage and to understand how the app is used. If you sign in, the install identifier is associated with your account so sessions and allowances work across your devices.
• Product events. The app reports which features are used (for example, that a recipe was imported or a cooking session started), tagged with the install identifier and platform. These go to our own servers only, and our servers store the install and account identifiers on each event as salted, one-way hashes — never the identifier itself. One of them is not a feature count: when you are asked during setup how you found Cook Along and you answer that a creator sent you, what you typed is sent only if it is shaped like an account name (letters, numbers, dots, and underscores, 2 to 30 characters); anything else — including whatever you actually wrote — is recorded as "other" and is never sent as typed. The question is optional and can be skipped, and it is used for nothing else. Some events also say which dish and how far you got: cooking from our recipe catalogue records that recipe's public catalogue id and the step number you reached, so we can tell how often a recipe is finished rather than only started. A recipe you imported yourself is treated differently — for those we record a one-way hash of the recipe and never what it is or where you imported it from.
• Voice audio during cooking sessions. When you start a voice-guided cooking session and grant microphone permission, audio is streamed to our servers and processed by Microsoft Azure AI speech services to recognize what you said and answer. Audio is processed to provide the feature — not for advertising, and not to build a voice profile. The microphone is only active during a cooking session you started. We do not record it. The audio is passed through as it arrives and is gone once the answer is spoken: we write no recording, and we keep no transcript of what you said or of what Coco said back. What survives is a short record of what kind of thing you asked, never what you said: that it was a command like "next", a question, or a request to look at the pan; whether Coco answered or had to ask you to repeat; which step you were on; and, when the question was about one of that recipe's own ingredients, which one of them. The ingredient is stored as its position in that recipe's ingredient list — a number, not a word — so the record says no more than the recipe already does. We also keep two counts about how well this is working: when you had to say something twice, and when the microphone picked up speech that was not addressed to Coco. Both are counts — neither carries any part of what was said. These records are kept for 90 days and then deleted, and deleting your account removes them from every report at once. Nothing else of the conversation is kept — unless you report one of Coco's answers (see below).
• A photo of the pan, if you ask Coco to look. Coco can look at what is in front of you: you take one frame, it goes to our server, a vision model answers your question about it, and the photo is discarded in the same breath. It is never written to disk, never stored, never attached to your account, and never used to train anything. Only the answer comes back, and only the fact that a look happened is counted, for your free allowance.
• Reports you send. If you tap Report on one of Coco's answers or on a recipe, we keep what you chose to report so we can review it: the reason you picked, your optional comment, and a copy of the reported content — for an answer, the question and the answer shown on screen, the recipe and step it was about; for a recipe, its title and source link — together with the app version and the time. Nothing else from the cooking session is kept. Reports are used only to review and fix problems, and are stored with a one-way code in place of your account ID — never your name or email. Reports are kept after you delete your account, so we can still follow up on a safety problem you told us about.
• Feedback you send. A message you send from the feedback form in the app, with the app version, your device's operating system, whether it is a phone or a tablet and the app's language, is linked to your account if you are signed in, used to reply to you and to improve the app, and kept for 365 days.
• Content you import. When you import a recipe, the link, text, or photos you provide (and the page or video content behind a link) are processed on our servers, in some cases with the help of AI models hosted by Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud, to turn them into a structured recipe for you. Unlike the two above, these are kept — the pictures become the pictures on your recipe, so they stay for as long as the recipe does.
• Purchase status. Subscriptions are processed by Google Play or the Apple App Store. We use RevenueCat to check whether your installation has an active subscription. We never see your payment details.
• Which link brought you to the app (AppsFlyer). We use AppsFlyer, a measurement service, as our processor to learn which links — for example, a cooking creator's link — lead to the app being installed and to subscriptions. In versions of the app that include it, when the app opens, the AppsFlyer software sends AppsFlyer an identifier it creates for your installation, technical details about your device such as its model, operating system version and language, the app version, your IP address (which AppsFlyer turns into an approximate region or city), the time, and the link you arrived from. On iPhone and iPad it also sends Apple's identifier for vendors, which is the same only across apps from the same developer. Once we connect RevenueCat to AppsFlyer, when you start a trial, subscribe, renew, cancel, or are refunded, RevenueCat tells AppsFlyer which plan it was and its price, so we can see which links led to subscriptions. AppsFlyer does not receive your name, email address, recipes, voice, or photos, and the app does not read your advertising ID. We use this only to measure our own links; we do not use it to show you ads, and we do not pass it to ad networks.
• Redeeming a code on our website. When you redeem a code at cookalongapp.com/redeem, we use the email address you enter to send you a one-time confirmation code (we keep only a one-way hash of it, and it expires after 10 minutes), and to give Cook Along Plus to the account that signs in to the app with that address. We keep the address itself only while the redemption waits for that sign-in: once Plus is given, or after 90 days for a backer code or 14 days for a creator code if nobody signs in with it, we delete the address and keep only a one-way hash of it, the code's own one-way hash, and which account it went to — enough to stop a code being used twice. Your network address is used, in memory only, to limit how often codes can be tried. We do not send anything else to that address and do not use it for marketing. If you were a Kickstarter backer, your code reached you through Kickstarter, a separate company with its own privacy policy; whatever it holds about your pledge stays with it. If your code comes with a backer price, we note on your RevenueCat customer record that you redeemed a backer code, so the app can show you that price. If a creator's code is given to you as you sign in to the app, we also record — under the same one-way codes as our other usage records — that this creator brought you, so we can see which creators' codes lead to cooking.
• Your name and email address, only if you choose to sign in. You can browse the recipe catalog and read written steps without an account. Saving recipes, importing a recipe from a link, and cooking with Coco require sign-in. Planning meals and using the grocery list do not require an account and stay on your device. Before adding an imported recipe to a plan, you must sign in and save it. There are three ways to sign in. If you sign in with Apple or Google, that provider gives us the name and email address on your account. With Sign in with Apple you can choose to hide your address, in which case we only ever see Apple's private relay address. If you sign in with your email address instead, you type the address yourself and we email you a short one-time code to confirm it — there is no password to create and none is stored. Either way we keep the address, and the name if we were given one, so we can show you which account you are signed in to and, when you deliberately share a recipe, to credit that public page with your display name. We do not use it for marketing, newsletters, or profiling.

What we do not collect

• No account, email, or password is required to browse the recipe catalog or read written cooking steps, plan meals, or use the grocery list. Planning and grocery data stay on your device. Saving recipes, importing from a link, and cooking with Coco require sign-in.
• No password is ever created or stored. Signing in goes through Apple or Google, or through a one-time code we email you — we never see or keep a credential.
• No precise location, contacts, or photo-library scanning.
• No advertising identifiers and no ad networks. The app does not ask for permission to track you across other companies' apps and websites, because it does not do that.

Sharing a recipe

Sharing is an action you choose. When you share a recipe, Cook Along creates a public page that anyone with the link can open. It contains the recipe title, cover image, ingredients, steps, and source credit, and it shows the display name on your Cook Along account.

The shared link can also contain an internal account identifier in its by parameter. We use that identifier only to attribute visits and app downloads; the public recipe API does not return it. If you want a public link removed, email us at hello@cookalongapp.com with the link and ask to have the public link removed.

Our website's launch notification list

The one exception to the above: if you type your email into the "notify me" form on this website before Cook Along is available in the App Store or Google Play, we store that address for the sole purpose of emailing you once when the app launches. We do not use it for anything else, do not sell or share it, and you can ask to be removed at any time by emailing hello@cookalongapp.com. This has nothing to do with signing in to the app, and being on this list is not an account.

Where data lives and how long

Data is stored on our servers hosted on Microsoft Azure; the link measurement described above is stored by AppsFlyer. Recipes you import and save stay on your device and on our servers so the app works across restarts. Usage counters reset monthly or weekly and are kept in aggregate for operating the service.

If you have signed in, the recipes you save, the notes you write on them and the folders you file them in are also kept on our servers, so that they are there on the next phone you sign in on. They remain private unless you choose to create a public share page, and they are never used to train anything. If you have not signed in, none of it leaves your device.

Deleting your data

Uninstalling the app deletes the data stored on your device. If you had signed in, the copy on our servers stays until you delete your account — which is what puts it back when you sign in on a new phone.

If you have signed in, you can delete your account from inside the app: Profile → Account → Delete account. That permanently deletes your account, the name and email your provider gave us, your saved recipes, notes and folders, your usage records, and your cooking-session history. We also ask RevenueCat to delete its customer record. Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription — subscriptions are managed by Apple or Google and only you can cancel them there.

After deletion we keep a one-way hash of the sign-in identifier with a count of the free cooks with Coco that had been used. It carries no name, no email address, and no way back to you or to your account; what it is for is that those cooks are free once, and without it deleting an account would be a way to have them again. It cannot restore your account or your cooking history.

If you have not signed in, ask us from inside the latest version of the app: Profile → Report a problem, and say you want your data deleted. A message sent there carries a one-way code for your installation — the same one your usage records are filed under — so we can find them and delete them. You can also email hello@cookalongapp.com, but an email on its own does not tell us which installation is yours.

AppsFlyer's records are kept by AppsFlyer, not on our servers, so deleting your account does not remove them by itself. To have them deleted, email us at hello@cookalongapp.com and ask. Once we have found the identifier AppsFlyer uses for your installation, we submit the deletion request to AppsFlyer for you. If you were signed in, we can find it from your account while your account exists. If you never signed in, we may have no way to tell which installation is yours; if so, we will tell you that rather than guess. To have AppsFlyer's records deleted, email us before you delete your account — afterwards we may no longer be able to tell which installation was yours.

Children

Cook Along is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

Changes

If this policy changes materially, we will update this page and note it in the app's release notes.

Contact

CODEDANCE PTE. LTD., Singapore · hello@cookalongapp.com