We analyzed 53 negative reviews from the top 5 Recipe Counter apps on the App Store. Here's what users hate most.
Ranked by frequency — how often each complaint appears in negative reviews.
32% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"Sync between two devices simply doesn't work. I have 15 more recipes on my phone than on my iPad."
"any recipe my wife adds to our shared list doesn't show up on my app"
23% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"Repeated emails to the developer have received no response"
"Been emailing developer for months with no response"
15% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"Have 38 recipes left, the rest are just gone"
"One day turned on iCloud sync and without warning it deleted all my data. Years of data gone"
11% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"OCR is absolutely horrible. Mixes up lines and word order constantly, such that I am essentially forced to manually input recipes"
"Scanning recipes from a cookbook into the app is a bit clunky"
9% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"it's missing key things like sorting the recipes by categories (appetizer, breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner, etc..)"
"the shopping list is not 'sortable' which means you need to scroll the entire list to see how many of each item you need to buy"
9% of negative reviews mention this issue.
"Mela has no way to import them in batches or individually"
"Hard to really know if I can't import my recipes from Crouton. I see there is an import option but it doesn't have any information on what kind of formats are supported"
Design and usability issues driving negative reviews.
Users cannot copy text from their own recipes after import, blocking workflows like printing to cardstock or exporting
"Once you put your recipe in Mela you will no longer be able to copy the text. I wanted to print some of the recipes on 4x6 cardstock but I cannot select the text from my own recipe"
Search bar requires scrolling back to top, creating friction when browsing large recipe collections
"Why do I have to scroll alllllllll the way back to the top to find the search bar again? It should be static at the top of the recipe lists. This is my only real complaint but it's super annoying because I have 100s of recipes"
Toggle exists to adjust serving sizes but does not actually modify recipe quantities
"There is a toggle to adjust serving sizes, but nothing happens to the recipe when this is selected. I am only just not trying to use the app, but this is an important feature"
Scanning multi-page recipes from cookbooks fails after first page, requiring manual workarounds
"If you're scanning in a recipe from a photo/ camera, the first page works fine, and then any additional pages or photos don't. It won't offer the same option to ad"
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