Frequently asked questions
What is BiteVault?
BiteVault is a personal library and map for food finds. Share a TikTok or Reel, paste a recipe website, a venue's own site or a Google Maps link, and the app saves the recipe or venue to your Vault with the key details extracted automatically.
How is this different from just saving the video?
A saved video is still a video. You cannot search inside it, you cannot cook from it at the stove, and it does not put the restaurant on a map. BiteVault reads the video once and keeps the result: ingredients, steps, opening hours, a pin, and tags you can filter, so the thing you saved is usable months later without watching it again.
How does it compare with ReciMe, Paprika or Mela?
Paprika and Mela are strong recipe managers built around recipe websites. ReciMe also imports from TikTok and Instagram. BiteVault saves the recipes and the restaurants from the same videos, pins the restaurants on your own map, and flags likely allergens and gluten in every recipe for free, as a guide to check against the label.
Why not just use Google Maps saved lists?
Google Maps lists are good for places you already found on Google Maps. BiteVault starts from the TikTok or Reel you found the place in: share the video and the venue is looked up, checked against Google and pinned for you, with the video kept alongside it.
Who is BiteVault for?
BiteVault is designed for everyone who wants to organize food content efficiently, including home cooks, travelers, creators, and hospitality professionals.
Is it free?
The free plan is a real plan: 50 saves in your Vault, 30 imports a month, the map, cloud sync and allergen flags, with no card needed. BiteVault Pro lifts the limits and adds video listening, cook mode and shared Vaults, from A$3.33 a month on the yearly plan. Full details at bitevault.app/pricing.
Which platforms does it support?
TikTok and Instagram for videos, plus any public recipe website, a venue's own website and Google Maps links for places. YouTube and Facebook links are not supported yet.
How do I save a recipe from a TikTok?
Share the video to BiteVault from TikTok's share sheet, or paste the link into the app. It reads the caption and rebuilds the recipe with ingredients and steps in your Vault. With Pro it also listens to what the creator says out loud and reads the text shown on screen.
Does it work with Instagram Reels?
Yes. Reels are read the same way as TikToks, and with Pro a Reel that never writes the recipe in its caption still produces a full recipe from what the creator says out loud. No Instagram login is needed.
Can I save a recipe from a food blog or website?
Yes. Paste any public recipe page link. Pages that publish structured recipe data import cleanly, and paywalled pages are detected and explained rather than guessed at.
The creator says the recipe is in the comments. Can it still be saved?
Yes. BiteVault detects withheld recipes ("comment PASTA and I'll send it") and asks you to paste the creator's comment. The recipe is then built from what you pasted instead of the import failing.
Can I save a restaurant from Google Maps or its own website?
Yes. Share a Google Maps link, or paste the venue's own website, and the app looks the venue up, verifies it against Google and pins it to your map with opening hours and photos.
Is there a meal planner and shopping list?
Yes. The Kitchen holds both: tap Plan on a recipe and pick a day, and its ingredients join your shopping list at the serving size you chose. Duplicate quantities merge automatically, and unplanning a meal takes its ingredients back off the list. The Kitchen is part of Pro.
Is BiteVault good for gluten free cooking?
Every imported recipe is checked for gluten with a four-tier confidence rating that errs on the side of caution: soy sauce counts as gluten unless the recipe says tamari or names a gluten free soy sauce. It is a safety aid, not a medical guarantee, so always verify labels if you have a serious allergy.
Can my partner and I share our saves?
Yes. A shared vault sits alongside your own: you choose exactly what goes in, every venue in it gets a shared map, and whoever you invite joins free from a link. Creating a shared vault is part of Pro; joining one is always free. You can also share a single collection as a public link that needs no account to view.
Which countries is BiteVault available in?
BiteVault is available globally. You can use it from any country, subject to the availability of source content and third-party platform access.
How does the allergen detection work?
We analyze ingredient lists against a database of 13 major allergens (including gluten, dairy, nuts, and shellfish) and flag relevant risks. This is a safety aid, not a medical guarantee. If you have a serious allergy, always verify against official labels and sources.
Why do some recipe ingredients show allergen chips now?
When dietary warnings are enabled, each ingredient can show quick allergen chips (like Contains or Possible) based on AI evidence from the source content. Always treat this as guidance and verify with official labels.
What does the AI confidence score mean?
The confidence score shows how strongly the import model trusts the extracted result from captions, transcript, and frame evidence. Higher is usually better, but you should still double-check important details.
Why is a thumbnail missing or broken sometimes?
Some social platforms block direct image hotlinking or rotate media URLs. BiteVault now saves import thumbnails to local media paths where possible to keep them stable after import.
How do venue imports choose the map location?
We try to match the extracted venue name and suburb to Google Places and only keep map coordinates when Google confirms them. If we can't verify the place reliably, the location is marked as needing review.
Can I edit imported recipes and venues?
Yes. You can edit titles, descriptions, tags, notes, thumbnails, and ratings after import. This is your personal library, so you can clean up anything the source got wrong.
How long does an import usually take?
Most imports finish in under a minute, but longer videos, slow upstream responses, or multi-venue content can take longer while extraction and enrichment complete.
Do imports fail if TikTok or Instagram is private?
They can. Private, restricted, removed, or region-blocked posts may not provide enough data to scrape. If that happens, retry with another link or add details manually.
Can I share a saved recipe or venue with someone else?
Yes. Each saved item can generate a share link when sharing is enabled, so others can view that specific recipe or place without access to your full library.
Is my data private?
Your library is private to your account. We don't sell data or show ads.
Can I use it on my phone?
Yes. The iPhone app is on the App Store, the Android app is on Google Play, and the web app at bitevault.app works in any browser. Your Vault is the same on all three.
How do I sign in?
BiteVault uses Sign in with Google or Sign in with Apple. There are no passwords to remember or store.
Can I save several restaurants from one video?
Yes. When a video is a roundup ("five best cafes in Melbourne"), BiteVault detects it and shows a picker of every venue it found, up to twenty. Tick the ones you want and they are looked up, verified and pinned in parallel, and you can drop the whole batch into one collection as you go.
Is there a cook mode for following a recipe at the stove?
Yes. Cook mode walks you through one step at a time in large type and keeps the screen awake, so you are not unlocking your phone with wet hands halfway through. Cook mode is part of Pro.
Can I scale a recipe to more or fewer servings?
Yes. Change the serving count on a recipe and the ingredient quantities scale with it. Units are normalised on import, so mixed measurements in the original video come out consistent.
Does it show calories or nutrition?
An optional nutrition estimate can be generated for a recipe from its ingredients. It is an estimate produced from the ingredient list, not a lab measurement, so treat it as a rough guide rather than a number to count on.
Can I search my saved recipes and places?
Yes. Search runs across your whole library, and recipes and places can both be filtered by tag. Places also group by city, so a saved venue is easy to find again even when you cannot remember its name.
Do I need the TikTok or Instagram app installed?
No. A link is enough. You can share straight from the app's share sheet if you have it, or paste the URL into BiteVault from anywhere.
What happens if I close the app while something is importing?
The import keeps going. Reading the post, transcribing the audio and writing the recipe all happen on the server, so you can share a video and close the app straight away. A notification tells you when it has landed in your Vault.
Can I organise my saves into collections?
Yes. Collections hold recipes and places together, so a single collection can be a whole trip: the restaurants you want to try and the recipes you want to cook when you get back. Any collection can be shared as a public link.
Can I use BiteVault to plan a trip?
Yes. Saved venues group by city and by country, so everything you have collected for a destination sits together on one map before you land. Save as you scroll for months, then open the city when you arrive.
Can I add a restaurant that Google does not know about?
Yes. If a venue cannot be verified automatically it goes to a review list where you can set its name and location by hand, so a new or tiny place is still saveable.
How many recipes and places can I save?
The free plan holds 50 saves in your Vault, recipes and places combined, with 30 imports a month. BiteVault Pro removes the Vault cap entirely. Nothing you have saved is ever deleted if you hit a limit.
Can I install it without going through an app store?
Yes. bitevault.app can be added to your home screen from your phone's browser and runs like an installed app. The app is also on the App Store and Google Play if you would rather install it that way.
Does it work offline?
Not fully. Importing needs a connection because the reading and transcribing happen on the server, and your library loads from your account. Plan around having a signal when you save something.
Can I export my recipes?
Not yet. Every recipe can be shared as a link, and everything you save stays editable, but a bulk export is not built. It is on the list.
Can I change how the app looks?
Yes. There is a dark and a light theme plus ten accent colours, along with a reduce-motion setting, in Settings under Appearance.
Can I delete my account and everything in it?
Yes. Settings has a delete account action that removes your account and the saves attached to it. There is a confirmation step so it cannot happen by accident.
Where should I send feedback or report issues?
For any additional questions, feature requests, or issue reports, please use the feedback form in Settings so the team can review and prioritize accurately.