# Mercury — Just Cook

> AI-powered recipe organizer and cooking assistant for Apple devices. (iPhone/iPad app by Jeffrey Milner.)

- Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mercury/id6747322854 (this page in markdown: same URL + `.md`)
- Developer: [Jeffrey Milner](https://appshunter.io/developer/1820810321)
- Category: Food & Drink
- Price: Free with in-app purchases
- Rating: 5.00/5 from 1 App Store ratings
- Age rating: 4+
- Requires: iOS 26.0 · 8 MB
- Languages: American English
- Released: 2026-03-26
- Data updated: 2026-08-25
- Monetization: freemium
- User reviews in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mercury/id6747322854/reviews.md

## What is Mercury?

Mercury is a recipe storing and sharing app for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS (with Apple Silicon).    
Harness the power of on-device Apple Intelligence to save recipes from the web, YouTube, photos of handwritten recipes, or from pasted text.
                                                                                                  
Cook with confidence                                      
Enter full-screen Cook Mode for any recipe and follow each step one at a time — Mercury keeps your screen on and, on supported devices, highlights exactly which ingredients and amounts you need for each step.

Track your time in the kitchen                            
Log each time you make a recipe, rate how it went, and keep notes. Earn achievements as you cook, import recipes, and grow your library.                                                    
   
Share with family and friends
Create a shared library and invite others to join with a 4-letter code or QR code. Add your favourite recipes so everyone cooks from the same collection.                                   
                                                            
Everything else you need                                                                        
• Search across your personal and shared libraries        
• Widgets to quickly open favourites or recently cooked recipes
• Ask Siri to open a recipe or log a cook, or build automations in Shortcuts
• Create custom grocery lists for each recipe                                                   
• iCloud sync across all your devices                                                           
• Deleted recipes are kept for 30 days in Recently Deleted                                      
                                                                                                  
Save up to 5 recipes for free. Upgrade to Mercury Pro for unlimited recipes, AI-powered import, iCloud sync, and shared libraries.                                                              
                                                            
Terms of Use:                                                                                   
https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

## Key features

- AI-powered recipe import
- Full-screen Cook Mode
- Recipe logging and rating
- Shared recipe libraries
- Customizable grocery lists
- Siri and Shortcuts integration
- iCloud sync

## Pricing and in-app purchases

Base price: Free.

**One-time purchases**

| Purchase | Price | Type |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Mercury Pro | $6.99 | one-time |



## Frequently asked questions about Mercury

### What devices does Mercury support?

Mercury is available for iPhone, iPad, and macOS devices with Apple Silicon. It utilizes iCloud to sync your recipe library across all your Apple devices.

### How does Mercury's AI import work?

Mercury uses on-device Apple Intelligence to save recipes from various sources, including websites, YouTube videos, photos of handwritten recipes, and pasted text. This allows for intelligent extraction of recipe details.

### Can I share recipes with others using Mercury?

Yes, you can create shared libraries in Mercury and invite friends and family to join using a 4-letter code or QR code. This ensures everyone cooks from the same collection of favorite recipes.

### What are the limitations of the free version of Mercury?

The free version of Mercury allows you to save up to 5 recipes. To unlock unlimited recipes, AI-powered import, iCloud sync, and shared libraries, you will need to upgrade to Mercury Pro.

### How does Mercury help me while cooking?

Mercury features a full-screen Cook Mode that keeps your screen on and highlights ingredients and amounts for each step. It also allows you to log your cooking sessions, rate your results, and add notes.

### Does Mercury have ads?

No, Mercury does not contain advertisements. The app is ad-free, providing an uninterrupted cooking and recipe management experience.

### How often is Mercury updated?

The latest version of Mercury is 1.2.1, and it was last updated on July 31, 2026. Updates typically include new features, bug fixes, and performance improvements.

### What is the age rating for Mercury?

Mercury has an age rating of 4+, making it suitable for users of all ages. The app focuses on recipe organization and cooking assistance.

## Version history (last 5 releases)

### 1.2.3 — 2026-08-22

What's New

- Recipe scaling — Scale any recipe from ½× to 8× right from the ingredients list.  Every ingredient amount (including substitutions) adjusts instantly, along with the serving count. Scaling is display-only, so your saved recipe is never changed.
- Multi-part recipes — Recipes with named phases like "Make the orange sauce" or "Fry the chicken" now keep their structure. Part headers appear in the recipe view, in cooking mode (so you always know which phase you're in), and in shared text and Markdown exports.   
- Add parts while entering recipes — When creating or editing a recipe manually, a new "Recipe part" field lets you group steps into parts. The field remembers the current part between steps, and a quick-pick menu reuses parts you've already named.
  
Improvements

- The grocery list now opens pre-set to whatever scale you chose on the recipe page, and supports fractional scaling (½×, 1½×) instead of whole batches only — using the same scale menu as the recipe view.
- Web imports now recognize equipment lists (like "Equipment: Dutch oven") and file   them under Notes instead of mixing them into the instructions. 
- Imports from well-structured recipe sites now preserve the site's own instruction groupings as recipe parts.
- Each step can be assigned a part in the step editor, so you can organize older recipes too.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed imported recipes showing equipment or section-header lines as numbered cooking steps.
- Fixed instruction group names from some recipe sites being discarded during import.
- Editing an ingredient while a recipe is scaled can no longer save the scaled amounts back to the recipe.

### 1.2.2 — 2026-08-02

New Features in Version 1.2.2

Show Tips setting
A new toggle in Settings lets users turn off all TipKit tips app-wide. The setting is stored in AppStorage and a new ConditionalTipView wrapper automatically respects it everywhere tips appear — no tip will render when the setting is off.

Library status in the share sheet
The "Copy to My Library" and "Add to Shared Library" buttons now reflect whether the recipe is already present. If it's already in your personal library, the button changes to "Already in My Library" with a checkmark. Likewise for the shared library. The shared library check is reactive — the button updates in real time as recipes are added or removed.

Improvements
Recipe import sentence spacing
When importing recipes, steps that had sentences run together without a space (e.g. "Heat the pan.Add oil.") are now automatically corrected to "Heat the pan. Add oil." This is applied across all import paths: Foundation Models, JSON-LD, and plain text.

Shared library status available immediately on launch
The SharedLibraryViewModel now seeds its sharedRecipes list from the local SwiftData cache at startup, rather than waiting for the CloudKit sync to complete. This means the "already in shared library" check works correctly from the moment the app opens.

Bug Fixes
  
- Light image export had light text — Exporting a recipe card with the "Light" style produced white text on a white background. Fixed by switching from adaptive Color(.label) (which respects the system dark/light mode) to explicit Color.black for all text when the background is light.
- Share extension version number was null — The CFBundleShortVersionString of the share extension showed as (null) due to a circular MARKETING_VERSION = "$(MARKETING_VERSION)" self-reference in the build settings. Removing the target-level override lets the project-level value propagate correctly.
- SwiftData compile error — var dateAdded: Date = .now caused a build failure under the SwiftData @Model macro. Fixed with the fully-qualified form Date.now.
- 11 compiler warnings — Addressed across SharedLibraryViewModel, HACCPAnnotator, RecipeImporter, and CookingModeView (unused variables, ambiguous enum cases, and discarded return values).

### 1.2.1 — 2026-07-31

What’s New in Version 1.2.1
New “show tips” toggle in settings

Improvements
When sharing recipe the app will indicate if the recipe is already in “my library” or “shared library”.

Bug Fixes
Fixed an export bug for light export when in dark mode
Recipes that are missing spaces after periods and other punctuation in instructions will be fixed on import.

### 1.2.0 — 2026-05-01

What’s New in version 1.2.0 - Giant update:
Implemented a second database of shared recipe files. Accessing the shared library is as easy as entering a six character code (or use the QR code) and you're set. 

Improvements
Changes to some of the welcome screens and layout.

Bug Fixes
Various bug fixes.

### 1.1.3 — 2026-04-20

What’s New in version 1.1.3

Improvements
Added more accessibility features especially focusing on improvements for those with reduceMotion turned on.

Bug Fixes
Various bug fixes.

## More apps by Jeffrey Milner

- [Five O'Clock Somewhere](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/five-oclock-somewhere/id6752682916)

All apps by Jeffrey Milner: https://appshunter.io/developer/1820810321

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*Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-25.*
