Privacy policy

Last updated October 17, 2026 (recipe photos added).

Simmerbee is a recipe community. We collect as little as we can.

What we keep

• Your email address, to send sign-in codes. We never show it to other members or sell it.
• Your display name and what you post (recipes, photos, ratings, reviews, helpful votes and reports).
• Security records: hashed sign-in codes and session tokens, and short-lived rate-limit counters keyed by IP address or account, to stop abuse.
• Your meal plan: the recipes you plan for the week and what you check off on the shopping list. Signed out, it stays in your browser only; signed in, it's saved to your account so it follows you. Clearing the week deletes it.
• Your holiday menus: the dishes, headcount, date and serving time you pick in the holiday planner, and the shopping-list items you tick. Signed out, they stay in your browser only; signed in, the menu is saved to your account with a matching collection on your Saved page (ticks stay in the browser). "Delete everything" on your Saved page deletes them too.
• Your always-hide list: the ingredients and allergen boxes you save on "Hide recipes with these ingredients", so search and the other lists can leave those recipes out for you. It is private to your account, only changes what you see, and is deleted with your account; clearing the list deletes it.
• Your saved recipes, cooked log and notes: the collections you save recipes into, the days you log cooking a recipe (with any note you add) and your private notes on recipes. They are private: other members, recipe authors and the public never see them. We may count anonymous totals (like how many people saved a recipe), but we never publish, share or sell your lists or notes, or use them for ads. You can download them as a file or delete them any time from your Saved page.
• Cookies: a sign-in cookie, an anti-forgery cookie and, if you pick one, your light/dark choice. No advertising or tracking cookies.

Hands-free cook mode

Hands-free is off until you turn it on in cook mode. When it's on, your browser listens for short commands ("next", "how much butter") using its own speech recognition, and reads steps aloud with your device's voices. Simmerbee never records, stores or receives your audio or what you say; it only reacts to the words your browser hands back, and nothing is logged. Be aware that some browsers turn speech into text on their maker's servers: Chrome sends the audio to Google and Edge to Microsoft (Chrome can do it on your device instead after a one-time download, which cook mode offers when it's available), and Safari uses Apple's speech recognition, which may send audio to Apple. Their privacy policies apply to that. Voices marked "online" in the voice picker send the text being read (not your voice) to your browser's maker. Listening stops when you turn it off, say "stop listening", hide the page or leave it. Your voice, speed and read-aloud choices are saved in your browser only.

Recipe photos

Adding photos to a recipe is optional, and a person looks at every photo before anyone else can see it.

• Shrunk and stripped: your browser shrinks each photo before sending it. Before we keep it, we remove everything hidden inside the file: location (GPS), camera and phone details, dates, editing history, copyright and creator fields, and color profiles. The copy we keep is just the picture.
• The rights check: while the original file is with us for that one request, we read its copyright, creator and stock-agency fields and any Content Credentials, to help check the photo is yours. The result (a score and short notes, never the location) is shown only to the site owner while reviewing, and is deleted with the photo. The original file itself is not kept.
• Private until approved: until a photo is approved, only you and the site owner can open it. A photo that isn't approved is deleted for good after 7 days, and one still waiting for review after 30 days is deleted too (you can add it again).
• How long we keep them: until you delete the photo (Edit the recipe, tick "Delete this photo"), or delete your account, which deletes all your photos from storage.
• Where: photos are stored with Cloudflare (R2) and served from simmerbee.com. Approved photos are public on the recipe page and may be shown in search results and when a recipe is shared.

Ordering your shopping list

On the meal plan's shopping list you can pick items and order them. Nothing is sent anywhere until you press a button. When you press Shop on Instacart, we send Instacart the names and amounts of the items you selected (for example "2 cups all-purpose flour") so it can build a shopping list page for you; we don't send your name, email or account, and we don't keep a copy. Instacart's privacy policy applies on its site, where you pick a store and check out. Best sellers on Amazon, Shop this list on Amazon and Add selected to Amazon cart are plain links: Amazon receives the item search (for example "all-purpose flour 2 lb bag") or the products in the link when you open it. Where you're up to in "Shop this list on Amazon" (added, skipped, have it) and where you buy fresh groceries are kept in your browser, and in your account when you're signed in, so you can pick up where you left off.

Who else sees data

Cloudflare hosts the site, its database and recipe photos. Resend delivers sign-in emails. Instacart receives the item names and amounts you send when you press "Shop on Instacart". When you follow an Amazon or Instacart link, that company's own privacy policy applies on its site.

Your choices

You can change your display name any time, and download or delete your saved recipes, cooked log and notes from your Saved page.

Deleting your account

You can delete your account yourself: sign in, open your page, choose Delete my account, enter the 6-digit code we email you and type DELETE. It happens right away and can't be undone.

• Deleted: your email address, display name and public page; your photos (from every recipe and from storage); your sign-ins on every device; your saved recipes, collections, cooked log and notes; your meal plan, shopping-list ticks, Amazon shopping progress, kitchen list and holiday menus; recipes still waiting for review or not approved; your reviews, star ratings (recipe averages are worked out again without them) and "helpful" votes; reports you sent; and our moderation notes about you and your posts.
• Kept: recipes you published stay on Simmerbee, shown as by "Former member" with no name or link back to you (the license in our Terms; email us if you'd rather they came down too). We keep a note that an account was deleted that day and how many items were removed, with no email, name or id.
• Accounts we suspended: if we had banned an account for abuse and it is deleted, we keep a scrambled, keyed fingerprint of its email address (not the address itself) only to stop it joining again.
• Afterwards: you're signed out, and the offline copies and saved lists this browser kept are cleared. Signing in later with the same email starts a new, empty account. Short-lived rate-limit counters keyed by IP address expire on their own.

Can't sign in, or prefer not to do it yourself? Email privacy@simmerbee.com from the address you sign in with and we'll delete it the same way.

Kids

Simmerbee is not for children under 13.