OnlyPans Privacy Policy

Last updated: 27 October 2026

OnlyPans turns cooking videos, recipe links, notes and screenshots into recipes you can save, plan, shop from and log as meals. This policy explains, plainly, what data the app handles, why, and for how long. Contact: tom@only-pans.app.

Who is responsible

The controller of your personal data is the operator of OnlyPans, reachable at tom@only-pans.app. Write to that address with any privacy question or request.

Using OnlyPans without an account

You can use OnlyPans as a guest. Your recipes, meals, lists and settings then stay on your phone only. To run imports and the free trial, the app creates a random guest ID on the OnlyPans server. It has no name or email attached. If you later sign in, the data on your phone moves into your account.

What OnlyPans collects

• Account. You can sign in with Apple or Google. OnlyPans receives your email address and, if you allow it, your name and profile picture link, plus a user ID from Apple or Google. With Apple you can hide your email, and Apple then gives a relay address instead. OnlyPans never sees your Apple or Google password.
• Your saved content (when signed in). Your recipes, collections, favourites, meal plan and meal log, my meals, custom and scanned foods, favourite portions, ratings, grocery list, daily nutrition goals and display and language settings are backed up to your account and synced between your devices. So are the photos you add (meal photos, rating photos, recipe photos and the profile picture you choose).
• Food diary and nutrition goals. The meals you log and the calorie and macro goals you set can say something about your health. OnlyPans uses them only to show your diary, totals and goals, and only because you choose to enter them. The optional goal setup asks for your sex, age, height, weight and activity level only to calculate your calorie and macro goals. Those answers stay on your phone, and only the resulting goals are saved to your account. The questions in onboarding (your cooking goals and where you find recipes) stay on your phone.
• Links you share. When you share a post or recipe link (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook or a website), the link goes to the OnlyPans server, which reads the public post or page (caption, video, audio, thumbnail and sometimes public comments) to make the recipe. For Instagram and TikTok links, your phone may first read the public caption of that post itself, without logging in, and send it along with the link. That works like opening the post in a browser, so Instagram or TikTok see that request from your phone.
• Notes and screenshots. Text you paste is sent to the server to make a recipe. Recipe screenshots are read on your phone, and only the recognised text is sent, not the image.
• Meal photos and voice. If you log a meal with a photo, a description or your voice, that photo, text or recording is sent to the server and to the AI provider to estimate the food and its nutrition. Voice recordings are deleted from the server right after they're turned into text. The camera, microphone and photo library are used only when you start one of these actions.
• Barcode scans. When you scan a barcode, your phone looks up the product in the free Open Food Facts database. Open Food Facts receives the barcode number and your IP address.
• Shared recipes. If you share a recipe, a copy of that recipe and its photo is stored on the server and can be viewed by anyone with the link. Your name and account are not attached to it.
• Purchases and free codes. If you subscribe, Apple or Google handles the payment, and OnlyPans never sees your card details. Superwall shows the subscription screen and confirms whether your subscription is active. It receives your OnlyPans user ID, a device identifier, your approximate location derived from your IP address, your purchase status, paywall events (such as when the subscription screen is shown and whether you subscribe) and basic device and app information. If you redeem a free-access code, the code, the date and its expiry are stored with your account.
• Technical data. The server records standard technical information, such as IP address, time, request and app version, and a random install ID. It uses these to run the service, limit abuse (for example, how many new trials or code attempts come from one network) and fix errors.

OnlyPans doesn't use advertising trackers, doesn't track you across other apps or websites, doesn't sell your data and doesn't use it for advertising. The only analytics is Superwall's paywall analytics, described above.

Why (legal bases)

• To provide the app you asked for (account, sync, imports, meal logging, subscriptions): performance of the contract with you.
• Food diary and nutrition goals: your explicit consent, given by entering them. You can withdraw it any time by deleting the entries or your account.
• Security, abuse limits, backups and caching: legitimate interest in keeping OnlyPans working, safe and affordable.
• Keeping purchase records, where required: legal obligation.

Who processes it

• Hetzner Online: hosts the OnlyPans server and database in Helsinki, Finland (EU).
• OpenAI (USA): AI that reads shared posts, pages, notes and meal photos, and turns speech into text. It receives the content needed for that task, not your name or email. Under OpenAI's API terms, this content isn't used to train its models.
• Superwall (USA): subscription screen and subscription status.
• Apple and Google: Sign in with Apple, Google Sign-In, and payments through the App Store and Google Play.
• Services used to read public posts: HikerAPI and network proxy services, which fetch public Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook content for the server. The YouTube Data API is used for public YouTube videos. These only receive the public post link, never your identity. By importing YouTube videos you also agree to the YouTube Terms of Service, and Google's handling of that data is covered by the Google Privacy Policy.
• Open Food Facts: barcode product lookups, made directly from your phone.

Some of these providers are in the United States. Those transfers rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified, or on the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.

How long it's kept

• Account and saved content: until you delete it or delete your account.
• Guest data: on your phone until you delete the app or sign in.
• Backups: the database is backed up nightly, and each backup is deleted after about 7 days, so deleted data also leaves the backups within about a week.
• Recipes made from links, notes and screenshot text: saved on the server without your account ID, so the same post or text gives the same recipe again. They aren't linked to you and are kept to run the service.
• Shared recipe links: kept so the link keeps working. Email tom@only-pans.app to have one removed.
• Abuse-limit counters and server logs: only as long as needed for security and troubleshooting.

Deleting your account

In the app, open Account, tap Delete account and confirm. This permanently deletes your OnlyPans account, your saved content, your photos and your code redemptions from the server. If you signed in with Apple, it also revokes OnlyPans' Sign in with Apple access, and Apple may ask you to confirm once more. Data on your phone is deleted when you delete the app. You can also ask for deletion by emailing tom@only-pans.app. Deleting your account doesn't cancel a subscription. Cancel it in your App Store or Google Play settings.

Your rights

You can ask to access, correct, delete or get a copy of your data, to restrict or object to its processing, and to withdraw consent at any time, by emailing tom@only-pans.app. If you're in the EU, you can also complain to the data protection authority where you live or work. In the Czech Republic, that's the Office for Personal Data Protection (ÚOOU).

Children

OnlyPans is not directed at children under 13 and doesn't knowingly collect their data.

Changes

If this policy changes, this page and the date above will be updated.