Your Custom Recipes Are Private By Default
When you create and save a recipe in MyFitnessPal, whether by manually entering ingredients or using the recipe importer, it is saved to your personal database. This database is inherently private and is only accessible to you. Your recipes do not appear in the general food search results for other users. This provides a secure way to store your personalized meal information without having to worry about others seeing your favorite culinary creations or personal meal habits. The privacy of custom recipes is a core feature designed to protect user data and preferences.
How Recipes and Foods Differ in Terms of Visibility
It is crucial to understand the distinction between a 'Recipe' and a 'Food' within the MyFitnessPal ecosystem, especially regarding public visibility. While recipes are always private, custom foods can be made public, but only via the website version of the app.
- Custom Recipes: These are a collection of ingredients that you group together to create a single meal entry. As noted, these are always private.
- Custom Foods: A custom food is a single-item entry, like a specific homemade bread or sauce. When creating a custom food on the MyFitnessPal website, you are given an option to make it public by checking a box that says, "Yes, let other MyFitnessPal members use this food".
This public sharing feature is often used by food bloggers or brands who want to provide nutritional information for their items to the wider MyFitnessPal community. It is important to note that if you choose to make a custom food public, it cannot be made private again later.
Making Recipes Visible Through Your Food Diary
While the recipes themselves are private, a user's food diary is not. By default, your food diary is set to private, but you have the option to change the sharing settings.
If you log a custom recipe as a meal in your food diary and your diary sharing is set to 'Friends Only' or 'Public', then friends or the general public (respectively) can see the nutritional information of that logged meal. However, they will not see the individual ingredients of your custom recipe. They will simply see the meal name and the total nutrient data.
Sharing Your Recipes with Others: The Workaround
Directly sharing a custom recipe is not possible within the app. Instead, the accepted workaround for sharing with friends relies on the diary-sharing feature.
How to Share a Recipe with a Friend:
- Adjust Diary Settings: Set your food diary to 'Friends Only' or 'Public' via the app or website settings.
- Log the Recipe: Log the custom recipe you wish to share in your food diary for a particular meal (e.g., Dinner).
- Friend Copies the Meal: Your friend can then view your food diary, find the meal entry, and use the 'Quick Tools' or 'Copy to Date' feature to copy the logged meal into their own diary.
- Friend Reuses the Meal: Once copied, the meal is saved in your friend's database and can be reused for future loggings.
This method transfers the final nutritional information rather than the editable recipe ingredients, maintaining your original recipe's privacy while still allowing for easy sharing of the end product.
Custom Recipe vs. Public Food Comparison
| Feature | Custom Recipe (Private) | Custom Food (Public) |
|---|---|---|
| Visibility | Only visible to you | Searchable by all users |
| Creation Method | Via "Meals, Recipes & Foods" section | Via "My Foods" on the website |
| Sharing Method | Shareable indirectly by logging it to a public or friends-only diary | Directly visible to all users in the database |
| Privacy Changes | Always remains private | Cannot be made private once public |
| Deletion | Can be deleted from your personal database | Cannot be deleted from the public database once saved |
| Best For | Personal tracking and meal prep | Sharing with the broader community or specific clients |
For more detailed information on privacy settings, you can refer to the official MyFitnessPal Help Center.
Protecting Your Custom Recipes: A Checklist
To ensure your recipes remain private, follow these steps:
- Keep your food diary private. The default setting is private, so if you have not changed it, you are already protected.
- Review sharing settings. Regularly check your 'Privacy Center' in the app or 'Diary settings' on the website to ensure it is set to 'Locked' or 'Friends Only' as you prefer.
- Use the recipe function, not custom food. When creating complex recipes with multiple ingredients, stick to the 'Create a Recipe' function. This keeps the ingredient list completely private.
- Be selective with friends. If you use the 'Friends Only' diary sharing setting, remember that any friend can copy your logged meals. Only add people you trust.
- Use the web for public sharing. If you intentionally want to share a single food item, use the MyFitnessPal website to create a 'Custom Food' and enable public sharing.
Conclusion: Navigating Your Recipe Privacy
In short, are recipes public on MyFitnessPal? No, not automatically. Your custom recipes remain private to your account unless you take specific actions that make them visible to others. The most common scenario where recipes become accessible is when they are logged as a meal in a food diary with 'Friends Only' or 'Public' sharing enabled. For those who need to share custom foods publicly, the website provides a dedicated function for permanent public sharing. By understanding the distinction between private recipes and public custom foods, and by being mindful of your diary sharing settings, you can fully control the privacy of your culinary creations within MyFitnessPal.
