---
url: https://mangia-app.com/en/export-recipes
title: Export & back up recipes — no lock-in | mangia
description: How to back up your recipe collection and take it with you, instead of leaving it trapped in an app. What happens when an app shuts down — and what mangia does differently.
locale: en
type: article
author: mangia editorial
date_published: 2026-06-24
date_modified: 2026-06-24
app_url: https://mangia-app.com/app-laden
alternate_languages:
  de: https://mangia-app.com/rezepte-exportieren
  en: https://mangia-app.com/en/export-recipes
  fr: https://mangia-app.com/fr/exporter-recettes
  it: https://mangia-app.com/it/esportare-ricette
  es: https://mangia-app.com/es/exportar-recetas
---
# Export & back up recipes — no lock-in | mangia

> How to back up your recipe collection and take it with you, instead of leaving it trapped in an app. What happens when an app shuts down — and what mangia does differently.

**Autor:** mangia editorial · **Veröffentlicht:** 2026-06-24 · **Aktualisiert:** 2026-06-24 · **Lesezeit:** 8 min

*We've been testing what makes cooking easier since 2024, and writing about what we learn along the way.*

*Your data belongs to you*

## Export recipes — and never lose them in an app again

You've spent years building a recipe collection. Then an app update hits, a subscription lapses, or the provider shuts down — and **it's all gone**. This happens more often than you'd think. Here you'll read how to spot an app you can actually get your recipes back out of, why open formats are the deciding factor, and what exporting from mangia looks like in practice.

## When your recipes belong to the app and not to you

There's a story that repeats itself almost word for word across the app-store reviews of many cooking apps: «After the update, all my recipes were gone.» Or: «I cancelled my subscription — and suddenly couldn't access my own collection anymore.» Or simply: «There's no way to export my recipes.»

This isn't a fringe problem. It hits exactly the people who use an app most intensively — the ones who've built up a collection of 100, 200, 400 recipes over the years. The more work that's gone in, the bigger the loss.

Three patterns keep coming up:

1. **Data loss after an update.** A big version update migrates the database — and something goes wrong. Collections vanish, folders can't be created anymore, favourites are empty. If you don't have your own backup, you're out of luck.
2. **Loss on cancellation.** With some subscription apps, you lose access to the recipes **you entered yourself** the moment you stop paying. The recipes are technically still there — but behind the paywall. You typed them in, and you can't reach them.
3. **No export, full stop.** Other apps don't lose anything — they just never let you back out. There's no «Export collection» button. Your recipes are in there, and in there they stay.

What all three share: you created the content, but the app decides whether you get to keep it. This is called **vendor lock-in** — and it's the most important, most often overlooked point when choosing a recipe app.

## Why you check the export BEFORE you build a collection

Export is the feature nobody thinks about as long as everything works — and the only one that matters when it stops. That makes it one of the few features you should check **before** you commit, not after.

The logic is simple: an app you can leave anytime is one you never have to leave — but you **can**. An app you can't leave is one you'll have to leave eventually — and won't be able to. Export isn't an emergency exit for the worst case. It's the insurance that lets you use an app with peace of mind, because you know: this is mine, I'll take it with me whenever I want.

Concretely, «real export» means three things:

- **Complete.** Not just the recipe titles, but ingredients, steps, quantities, categories, notes — and ideally weekly plans and shopping lists too.
- **In open formats.** More on this in a moment — but the short version: in formats you'll still be able to open in ten years, without needing that exact app.
- **Without hurdles.** One button, one download. No support ticket, no «write us an email», no hidden premium feature.

If an app delivers all three, the lock-in is broken. If it fails even one of them, you're stuck deeper than you'd like.

## What you get with mangia — concretely

With mangia, you export your entire account with one click as a ZIP file. Inside isn't a single inscrutable blob of data, but several formats for several purposes:

- **`rezepte/…md` — your recipes as Markdown.** Each recipe becomes its own readable text file: title, ingredients as a list, preparation, quantities, categories, source. You can open Markdown in practically any note app (Notion, Obsidian, Bear, Apple Notes) or in a plain text editor. No special software needed.
- **`wochenplaene.csv` and `einkaufslisten.csv` — your plans and lists as a spreadsheet.** Double-click, and they open in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets.
- **`data.json` — the complete, machine-readable dataset.** This is the mandatory part under GDPR Article 20 («right to data portability»). It contains literally everything — including fields that don't appear in the readable files.
- **`README.txt` — an explanation** of what lives in which file, so you can still find your way around a year from now.

What matters is what **doesn't** happen here: there's no mangia-specific secret format that only mangia can read back in. There's no paywall in front of the export. And there's no difference between «free» and «paying» — the export belongs to the account, not to the subscription.

In short: if you want to leave mangia tomorrow, you take everything with you today. That's by design.

## Why Markdown and CSV — and not PDF

When people hear «export recipes», many think of PDF first. Understandable — but for this purpose PDF is the worse choice, and it's worth understanding why.

**PDF is frozen.** A PDF looks like a printout and behaves like one too: you can read it, but you can't sensibly do anything more with it. You can't generate a shopping list from a PDF, can't search for an ingredient, can't rescale a portion, can't import a recipe into another app. It's a photo of your recipes, not a moving box.

**Markdown is alive.** A Markdown file is plain text with a bit of structure (headings, lists). That very simplicity is the strength: almost any program can open, search, edit, and process it. A recipe collection in Markdown can be dropped into Notion or Obsidian, converted by a script, or simply read in an editor — today and in ten years.

**CSV is the spreadsheet lingua franca.** For weekly plans and shopping lists — that is, for anything with rows and columns — CSV is what Excel, Numbers, and Google Sheets have understood for decades. No provider can «take CSV away» from you.

The rule of thumb: a good export format is one that **doesn't need the app it came from**. Markdown and CSV meet that. PDF only meets the «view it» part — and even that worse than it sounds. That's why mangia gives you both: readable (Markdown/CSV) and fully machine-readable (JSON). You can always print a PDF for yourself from those — the other way around doesn't work.

## How to back up your collection — step by step

Exporting from mangia is deliberately unspectacular:

1. Go to **Profile → Settings → Account & subscription**.
2. Tap **Export data**.
3. mangia packs your entire account into a ZIP file and downloads it.
4. Unzip the file. You'll see the folder `rezepte/` with your Markdown files, the CSVs, and the `data.json`.

The whole thing is limited to five exports per hour — not as a hurdle, but because the process gathers up all your data, and that costs compute. For a backup you only need it occasionally anyway.

**What you do with it afterwards is up to you:**

- **Keep it as a backup.** Put the ZIP on your hard drive or in your cloud — done. If anything ever goes wrong, you've got everything.
- **Drag it into Notion or Obsidian.** The Markdown files import directly; you have your recipes in your note app right away.
- **Move house.** If you ever switch to another app, you've got your recipes in a format other tools can read.

Our honest advice, completely independent of mangia: do a test export **at least once** with every app that holds a valuable collection. If it comes out clean, you know your data is yours. If no export button exists, you also know something important — before it's too late.

## Lock-in check: 5 questions for any recipe app

Before you build a collection anywhere, ask the app these five questions. The more «yes» answers, the more the recipes truly belong to you:

| Question | What to look for |
|---|---|
| Is there an export button? | If you can't find it in the settings, it usually doesn't exist. |
| Does it export **everything**? | Not just titles — ingredients, steps, quantities, plans, lists. |
| In open formats? | Markdown, CSV, JSON — not an app-specific format only it can read. |
| Without a subscription too? | The export should belong to the account, not to the paying tier. |
| Do you keep the recipes after cancelling? | With pure subscription apps, often not — check this before you cancel. |

mangia answers all five with yes: export button in the settings, complete, in Markdown/CSV/JSON, included in the free tier, and your imported recipes stay yours — even if you cancel mangia Pro or never had Pro at all.

This isn't a marketing gesture. It's the consequence of a simple stance: an app should hold on to you because it's good — not because you can't get out.

## Common questions

**Can I export my recipes as a PDF?**

Not directly as PDF — and that's by design. mangia exports your recipes as Markdown (readable text) and your plans/lists as CSV (spreadsheet). Both are more flexible than PDF: searchable, editable, importable into other apps. If you want a PDF to print, you can open a Markdown file in almost any program and save it as a PDF from there — the reverse (turning a PDF back into usable data) is far more tedious.

**Do I keep my recipes if I cancel mangia Pro?**

Yes. Your recipes, plans, and lists belong to your account, not to the subscription. If you switch from mangia Pro back to the free tier, your collection stays intact and the export keeps working. There's no state in which you've entered your own recipes and can no longer reach them.

**What exactly is in the export file?**

A ZIP with: your recipes as individual Markdown files (`rezepte/…md`), your weekly plans and shopping lists as CSV, a complete `data.json` (everything machine-readable, GDPR Art. 20), and a `README.txt` explaining what's where. If you keep children's taste profiles, their history comes along as its own CSV.

**How do I move my recipes to Notion or Obsidian?**

Both apps understand Markdown directly. You unzip the mangia ZIP, take the `rezepte/` folder, and import (or copy) the `.md` files into your Notion/Obsidian directory. Each recipe becomes a page or note — with ingredients, steps, and source.

**What happens to my data if I delete my account?**

When you delete, all your data is irreversibly removed — except for content in workspaces you share with others (there the team stays, you're only removed as a member). That's exactly why we recommend exporting once **before** deleting: then you've got your collection safely with you before it disappears from us.

**Is the export included in the free tier too?**

Yes, fully. The data export is tied to the account, not to the tier. You don't need mangia Pro to back up your recipes or take them with you.

## Sources

- [GDPR Art. 20 — Right to data portability (EUR-Lex)](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/DE/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32016R0679)
- [EDÖB — Data protection for cloud services (Switzerland)](https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/de/cloud-computing)
- [Markdown — CommonMark specification](https://commonmark.org/)

## Related

- **[Collecting recipes in mangia](https://mangia-app.com/en/collect-recipes)** — How the photo, PDF, and URL import work — and what mangia automatically reads out of a source.
- **[What mangia costs — and what it doesn't](https://mangia-app.com/en/why-pay)** — Why being ad-free and the export are included in the free tier, and what mangia Pro is for.

## Your recipes. Your file. Your moving box.

Collect in an app you can leave anytime — with plan, list, and balance right there too.

→ **Start free**