User Guide

Tap + on the Kitchen tab and select "Add Manually". The screen has three tabs:

• Favorites: your saved items, recently added kitchen items, AI restock suggestions (Pro), and a library of common groceries and household staples grouped by category. Tap any chip to pre-fill the Single form, or long-press to save it to your Favorites.

• Single: a full form where you type the item name (with autocomplete suggestions), then set quantity, unit, category, location, expiry date, and price. SeePantry auto-suggests a category, location, and expiry based on the item type. Pro users see an AI-estimated price that fills in automatically.

• Multiple: paste or type several items at once, one per line. All items are categorised automatically.

SeePantry now tracks non-food household items too, Household Cleaning, Personal Care, Health & Medicine, Paper Goods, Pet Supplies, and Baby & Kids, so you can manage your whole home in one place.

Tap + and select "Scan Receipt". You can photograph multiple receipts in one session, each photo appears as a thumbnail. Tap the ✕ on any thumbnail to remove it, then tap "Process" when ready.

After processing, you'll see a review screen with all detected items. For each item you can:

• Toggle the checkbox to include or exclude it
• Tap the item to expand and edit name, quantity, unit, price, category, location, and expiry date
• Scroll the category chips to change the category
• Tap the ✕ to remove an item entirely

Use "Select All" / "Deselect" at the top to quickly toggle everything. Tap "Add N Items to Inventory" when you're happy.

Take a photo of your fridge, pantry shelf, or countertop and SeePantry's AI will detect the food items visible in the image. You can take multiple photos to capture everything.

The review screen works the same as receipt scanning, expand any item to edit its details before adding to your kitchen.

Point your camera at a product barcode and SeePantry will look up the item in a global product database. When a product is found, you'll see its name, brand, and image.

Before adding, you can:

• Adjust the quantity with the +/− buttons
• Select a storage location (Pantry, Fridge, Freezer, Shelf)
• Change the expiration date

You can scan multiple barcodes in a row, a success toast confirms each scan. When you've scanned everything, tap "Review N items" to see them all before adding.

If a barcode isn't found, you can tap "Add Manually" to enter the details yourself or enter the barcode number by hand using the 123 button.

Barcode scanning is always free and doesn't count toward your scan limit.

Tap + and select "Add by Voice". Tap the microphone button and speak your grocery items naturally, for example, "2 gallons of milk, a dozen eggs, and 3 pounds of chicken".

SeePantry's AI will parse your speech into individual items with quantities and units. After recording, you'll see a list of detected items to review. Tap any item to edit its details before adding.

Voice add uses one of your monthly AI scans, Free users share a pool of 5 AI scans per month across receipt scanning, fridge photo, and voice. Recipe imports have their own separate 5/month quota. Pro and Family users have unlimited AI scans.

Every item gets a color-coded border to show its expiration status:

• Red: expires today or already expired
• Orange: expires within 3 days
• Yellow: expires within a week
• No border: more than a week left

Items within each category are sorted by expiration date, so the most urgent items appear first.

You'll receive push notifications before items expire. Configure alert timing in Settings > Notifications.

Tap any item in your kitchen to see its full details: name, category, location, quantity, purchase date, expiration status, price, and photo.

Tap "Edit" in the top-right to change any field. In edit mode you can:

• Change the name, quantity, unit, and price
• Select a different category or storage location from a scrollable picker. Moving an item to a new location automatically recalculates the expiration date based on food-safety guidelines for that item type.
• Adjust the expiration date with the date picker
• Add or change the item photo
• Delete the item entirely

Tap "Save" when done, or "Cancel" to discard changes.

At the bottom of every item's detail screen, you'll see two buttons:

• Used it ✔: marks the item as consumed. You'll be asked if you want to add it to your shopping list for next time.
• Wasted: records the item as thrown away. Choose "Just Wasted" or "Wasted & Restock" to also add it to your shopping list.

Used and wasted items appear in the "Recently Used" and "Recently Wasted" sections at the bottom of your kitchen.

Marked something by mistake? Open the item from the Recently Used or Recently Wasted section and tap "Restore to Active" to put it back.

If an item is still good past its estimated expiry, tap "Still good? Extend 2 days" at the bottom of the item detail screen. This pushes the expiry date forward by 2 days.

You can also tap "Edit" and manually set any expiration date you like.

Use the search bar at the top of the Kitchen screen to find items by name or category.

Tap the filter icon (⚙️) to open the filter panel, which has three collapsible sections:

• By Location: Fridge, Freezer, Pantry, Counter
• By Status: Expiring Today, This Week, 2 Weeks, 30 Days, Expired, Recently Used, Recently Wasted
• By Category: all 29 built-in categories plus any custom ones

You can select multiple filters at once. The filter icon shows a count badge when filters are active. Tap "Clear filters" to reset, or "View N items" to apply.

Long-press any item to enter multi-select mode. Checkboxes appear on all items so you can select multiple at once.

The header switches to show "N selected" with a Cancel button and a Select All / Deselect All toggle.

Once you've selected items, choose a batch action from the toolbar at the bottom:

• Used (green): marks all selected items as used
• Wasted (orange): asks for a reason, then marks as wasted
• Delete (red): permanently removes selected items (with confirmation)

When you have multiple batches of the same item (e.g., two cartons of milk bought on different dates), SeePantry groups them together automatically.

The grouped item shows the total quantity across all batches. Tap the group to expand and see each batch individually with its own expiration date.

Pro and Family users can create custom categories beyond the 29 built-in ones. Tap the tags icon (🏷️) next to the search bar on the Kitchen screen.

From there you can:

• Add a new category with a name and emoji icon
• Edit an existing custom category
• Delete a custom category (affected items are reassigned to "Other")

Free users can create up to 5; Pro and Family users can create up to 20.

Tap + on the List tab to open the Add Item screen, which has three modes:

• Single: add one item with name, quantity, unit, and category. Start typing and you'll see autocomplete suggestions. Pro users get AI-powered category classification.

• Quick Add: type multiple items at once, one per line. Great for quickly dumping a list from your head.

• Favorites: tap to instantly add from your recently added items, frequently bought items (Pro), AI restock suggestions (Pro), or common grocery staples.

Items are automatically grouped by category on your list so you can shop aisle by aisle.

If an item you're adding is already in your kitchen and hasn't expired, a Before You Buy warning (Pro) appears on the list, showing what you still have and its expiration date, so you don't double-buy unnecessarily.

Tap the barcode icon on the right of the "Add to list…" input on your shopping list to open the camera in scan mode. Each scan does one of three things automatically:

• Scan a brand new product: see its name, brand, and category, then tap "Add to list" to drop it in.
• Scan something already on your list (unchecked): it gets checked off instantly with a confirmation toast.
• Scan something already checked off: a toast tells you it's already in your cart.

The camera stays open between scans, so you can blast through a whole basket without putting your phone down. Unrecognized barcodes flash "Item not recognized" and the scanner keeps running.

Barcode scanning is always free and works for everyone, including guest users, no account needed.

Your shopping list has a few key interactions:

• Tap an item to check it off (moves it to the "In Cart" section)
• Tap a checked item to uncheck it (moves it back)
• Swipe left on an unchecked item to delete it from your list
• Swipe left on a checked item to undo the check
• Tap the menu icon on any item to edit its name, quantity, unit, or category
• Tap "Clear N checked items" at the bottom to remove all checked items at once

Items are grouped by category so you can shop aisle by aisle.

Long-press any item on your shopping list to enter multi-select mode. Checkboxes appear on all items so you can select several at once.

The header switches to show "N selected" with a Cancel button and a Select All / Deselect All toggle.

Batch actions appear in a toolbar at the bottom:

• For unchecked items: Check Off (green) and Delete (red)
• For checked items: Uncheck (gray) and Delete (red)

Set your preferred grocery store in Settings > Preferred Store. Available stores include Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Target, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Sam's Club, H-E-B, Aldi, Safeway, Harris Teeter, Meijer, Food Lion, Fred Meyer, and Instacart.

Once set, you can shop in two ways:

• Swipe right on any item and tap "Buy" to search for that single item at your store's website.

• Tap the "Buy at [StoreName] (N items)" button below the search bar to start the sequential buy flow (Pro).

SeePantry learns from your shopping patterns. In the Favorites tab when adding items:

• Recently Added: items you've added to your list before
• Frequently Bought (Pro): items that appear in 2 or more of your completed shopping trips
• Restock Suggestions (Pro): AI-predicted items you're running low on, with urgency badges
• Common Items: 16 everyday grocery staples for quick access

Tap any suggestion to add it instantly. Duplicates are caught automatically.

As you shop, check off items by tapping them to move them to the "In Cart" section.

When you're finished shopping, tap "Complete Trip" at the bottom of the list. For Pro and Family users, all checked food items are automatically added to your kitchen with estimated expiration dates.

Unchecked items stay on your list for next time.

Your trip history is saved. Tap "Completed Trips" at the bottom of the List tab to see past trips.

Tap the share icon on the List tab to create a snapshot of your current shopping list. This generates a shareable link that anyone can view in a web browser, no app required.

When creating a link, you can set an expiry time, 1 hour, 24 hours, 3 days, or no expiry. After the expiry time, the link stops working automatically. You can also revoke a link at any time to stop access immediately.

Pro and Family users get a formatted share with items grouped by category and emoji icons. Free users get a simple bullet list.

Family plan members can import shared lists directly into their own shopping list.

If someone shares a list link with you, open it in SeePantry to see the items grouped by category. You can remove individual items before adding, or tap Add All to bulk-add everything to your own shopping list.

The Meals tab has two sub-tabs:

• Meals: shows today's planned meals and "What Can I Cook?" suggestions (Pro). Tap any meal card to see the full recipe. Tap "Cook" to start the cooking flow.

• Recipes: browse popular recipes or search by keyword. Type in the search bar to find recipes, then use filter chips (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Dessert, Soup) to narrow results.

Pull down to refresh suggestions and meal data.

Tap any recipe to see its full details: ingredients, step-by-step directions, and nutritional information.

Each ingredient shows whether you have it in your kitchen. At the bottom you'll see two actions:

• Plan Meal: add this recipe to your meal plan for a specific day and meal type
• Cook Now: jump straight to the cooking flow to deduct ingredients

If you're missing ingredients, tap "Add N Missing to Shopping List" to add them all at once.

Pro and Family users see a "What Can I Cook?" section on the Meals tab with up to 5 recipe suggestions based on ingredients already in your kitchen.

Recipes are ranked by how many matching ingredients you have. Each card shows a match badge (e.g., "3/5 ingredients") so you can pick the recipe that uses the most of what you've got.

Tap "See All" to browse the full list of kitchen-matched recipes.

Tap "Plan Meals" on the Meals tab or "Plan Meal" on any recipe to open the meal planner.

The planner shows 7 days at a glance. For each day you can add meals by tapping the + button next to a meal type (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack).

Long-press any planned meal to open the action menu:

• Move to: pick a different day
• Change meal type: switch between Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Snack
• Replace recipe: search for a new recipe to swap in
• Remove: delete the meal from your plan

Curated Week Plans (Pro): tap "Browse Week Plans" above your weekly grid to open pre-built 7-day meal plan templates. Tap any template to see a full day-by-day preview and an ingredient estimate. Tap "Import This Week" to populate your entire week's meals and add missing ingredients to your shopping list in one tap, SeePantry deduplicates against your pantry and existing list automatically. A featured template rotates each week and templates can be filtered by dietary preference.

Tap the import icon on the Recipes tab to import your own recipes from three sources:

• URL: paste a link from any recipe website (including YouTube)
• Text: paste or type the recipe text
• Photo: take a picture of a recipe from a cookbook or card

Imported recipes are saved to your account and work just like any other recipe, you can plan them, cook them, and deduct ingredients.

Free users get 5 recipe imports per month, which is a separate bucket from the 5 AI scans per month (used by receipt, fridge photo, and voice add). Pro and Family users have unlimited recipe imports.

Tap "Cook" on a planned meal or "Cook Now" on a recipe detail screen to open Cook Mode.

Cook Mode shows the recipe hero image, a step progress bar, and the current step text in large readable type. Your screen stays awake for the whole session.

Free users can view Cook Mode but step navigation and hands-free mode require a Pro subscription. Tapping the Previous or Next buttons as a free user opens the upgrade screen.

Timers: steps that mention a cooking time (e.g. "simmer 20 minutes") show a built-in countdown timer. Tap Play to start, Pause to hold, and the reset icon to restart. Steps with multiple timers show a dot indicator, tap the skip button to advance to the next one.

Hands-free mode (Pro): tap the hand icon in the top bar to enable. With hands-free on:

• The current step is read aloud using a high-quality Neural2 voice
• When reading finishes, any timers for that step start automatically
• When all timers finish, the app advances to the next step on its own

Voice gender and speed: go to Settings > Profile > Cook Mode Voice to choose female or male narration and set the speaking speed (Slow, Normal, or Fast) independently for each.

When you finish the last step, you'll see a summary of ingredients to deduct from your kitchen. Each ingredient has a toggle, turn off any you don't want deducted. Tap "Confirm Cook" to apply changes or "Skip Deduction" to mark the meal cooked without changing your kitchen.

Tap "Your Impact" on the Settings screen to see a summary of your food waste reduction:

• Usage rate: the percentage of items you used vs. wasted
• Money saved: estimated savings based on real category prices for items you genuinely used before they expired
• Items saved: how many items you've consumed rather than wasted
• CO₂ avoided: net greenhouse gas savings: the production emissions of items you rescued minus the disposal emissions of items you wasted

The impact model counts only genuine saves, items you actively marked as used before expiry. Items already expired when logged do not count as saves. This gives you an honest picture of your real impact.

Use the period picker at the top to filter all stats by Week, Month, Year, or All Time. The charts and numbers update instantly to match your selected range.

Pro users can tap "See More" on the Impact screen to open the full Activity & History view with three tabs:

• Recent: a month-by-month log of every item you used or wasted.
• History: monthly summaries with usage rates, progress bars, and trend arrows.
• Trends: visual bar and line charts showing your usage rate, items saved vs. wasted, and money saved vs. wasted. Chart buckets adapt to the selected period (daily for a week, weekly for a month, monthly for a year).

Tap "Share My Impact" on the Impact screen to generate a shareable image of your statistics. The image is formatted for social media and includes your usage rate, items saved, and money saved.

Sharing is available to all users, not just Pro.

The Free plan includes everything you need to get started:

• Up to 200 kitchen items
• Manual item entry with autocomplete and smart suggestions
• Expiration tracking and push notifications
• Shopping list with smart suggestions and sharing
• Recipe search and viewing
• Impact statistics and sharing
• Data import and export
• Barcode scanning (always free)
• Up to 5 custom categories
• 5 AI scans per month (shared across receipt, fridge photo, and voice add)
• 5 recipe imports per month (separate quota: URL, text, photo)

Pro unlocks scanning and AI-powered features:

• Unlimited receipt, fridge, voice, and barcode scanning
• AI food classification for smarter categorisation
• AI price estimation on manual adds
• AI restock predictions with urgency badges
• Kitchen Copilot: Act Now cards that rank waste-risk items and suggest the best action to take
• Auto-add to kitchen when completing a shopping trip
• Sequential "Buy at Store" flow for your entire list
• "What Can I Cook?": kitchen-based recipe suggestions
• Proactive recipe suggestions on the Home screen
• Meal planning + curated week plans
• Cook Mode with hands-free TTS narration
• Recipe nutritional facts & calorie goals
• Recipe import from URLs, photos, or text
• Frequently bought items in shopping suggestions
• Auto-restock: items silently added to list when running low
• Detailed activity history and trend charts
• Up to 20 custom categories

Available as a monthly or annual subscription.

The Family plan includes everything in Pro, plus:

• Shared kitchen: everyone in your household sees the same items
• Shared shopping list: coordinate shopping across family members
• Import shared lists from other family members
• Family group management: invite and remove up to 5 members

One person creates the family group (Settings > Family > Create Family) and invites others by email. All members need a SeePantry account.

You can view your current plan in Settings > Subscription.

To change or cancel your subscription:

• iPhone: Settings app > Apple ID > Subscriptions > SeePantry
• Android: Play Store > Subscriptions > SeePantry

You'll keep your plan's features until the end of the current billing period. Your data is never deleted when you cancel.

If something went wrong with a purchase, tap "Restore Purchases" on the subscription screen to sync your status.

SeePantry supports Light, Dark, and System appearance modes. Go to Settings > Appearance to choose.

System mode automatically matches your device's setting, so the app switches between light and dark when your phone does.

Tap Settings > Units to toggle between Metric (kg, L, °C) and Imperial (lb, oz, °F). This affects how quantities are displayed throughout the app.

Go to Settings > Preferred Store to select your go-to grocery store. Type to search from 15 stores: Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Target, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Sam's Club, H-E-B, Aldi, Safeway, Harris Teeter, Meijer, Food Lion, Fred Meyer, and Instacart.

Once set, the "Buy" swipe action and the "Buy at [StoreName]" button appear on your shopping list. To remove your selection, tap "Clear" at the top of the store list.

Go to Settings > Account & Security > Change Password. Enter your current password, then type and confirm your new password.

This option is only available for email/password accounts. If you signed in with Google or Apple, your password is managed by that provider.

Go to Settings > Profile to update your display name, household size, dietary preferences, and primary goal.

To change your email address, tap "Edit" next to your email. Enter your new email and current password to confirm. A verification link will be sent to the new address, your email won't change until you click it.

If you signed in with Google or Apple, your email is managed by that provider and can't be changed from within SeePantry.

Set your dietary preferences during onboarding or update them anytime in Settings > Profile.

You can select a preferred diet (Vegetarian, Vegan, Pescatarian, Keto, Halal, Kosher) and any restrictions (Gluten Free, Dairy Free, No Nuts, No Shellfish, Pork Free, No Beef, No Alcohol).

These preferences help tailor recipe suggestions to match your dietary needs.

Toggle haptic feedback (vibrations) on or off in Settings.

For more options, go to Settings > Accessibility:

• Reduce Motion: disables animations for users sensitive to motion
• Large Text: scales all text 25% larger
• High Contrast: increases color contrast for better visibility

SeePantry also works with VoiceOver (iOS) and TalkBack (Android) screen readers.

Go to Settings > Notifications to control which alerts you receive:

• Expiration alerts: choose how far in advance (1 day, 3 days, or 1 week). Includes push notifications with food images on iOS. Enabled by default.
• Weekly digest: a summary of what's expiring this week. Enabled by default.
• Shopping reminders: weekly reminders listing items you're running low on.
• Low stock alerts: notifications when items are running low
• Tips and suggestions: recipe suggestions and helpful tips

Pro and Family users also get auto-restock: items with established purchase patterns are silently added to your shopping list when you're running low.

SeePantry adapts to how you use notifications. If you don't interact with them, the app gradually sends fewer to avoid fatigue. You can turn each category on or off independently.

Go to Settings > Preferred Currency to set the currency used for price estimates and savings calculations throughout the app. SeePantry supports major global currencies and auto-detects the right one from your device.

This setting only affects how prices are displayed, it does not convert existing values.

Tap "Feature Requests" under Help & Support in Settings to browse ideas from the community. You can vote on requests, leave anonymous comments, and submit your own suggestions.

All comments are posted anonymously, only a display alias is shown, not your name or email address.

If you're switching from another app, go to Settings > Manage Data > Import.

We support CSV exports from most popular kitchen management apps, as well as generic CSV files. The importer auto-detects columns and lets you review the mapping before anything is added.

After importing, you'll see a results summary with counts of items added, skipped, and any errors. You can undo an import within 72 hours if something doesn't look right.

Your CSV file is temporarily uploaded to process the import and automatically deleted within 72 hours.

Go to Settings > Manage Data > Export to download your data.

You can export your kitchen items, shopping lists, and settings in two formats:

• CSV: opens in Excel, Google Sheets, and other spreadsheet apps
• JSON: a complete backup for restoring your data

The export uses your device's share sheet, so you can save to Files, send via email, or share to any other app.

For a complete backup of everything (including trip history, meal plans, and imported recipes), tap "Download Full Backup". This creates a server-side export with a download link that expires after 24 hours.

Go to Settings > Account & Security > Delete Account to permanently remove your account and all associated data.

You'll need to type "DELETE" to confirm. This action cannot be undone. All kitchen items, shopping lists, meal plans, imported recipes, and personal settings will be deleted.

If you're the owner of a family group, the group will be disbanded and all members will be removed.

We recommend exporting your data first, just in case.