Help & support

I don’t have an invitation code.

Papupata is invitation-only while it is young. Every member has a few codes to give out, so the usual way in is to ask someone who already cooks with it.

If nobody you know has one, write to us and say a little about how you cook — we hand out codes as the app grows.

How do I create an account?

On the iPhone: open the app, pick your language, type the name your friends will see, paste the invitation code, and tap “Create account”. Signing in with Apple does the rest — there is no password to invent and no email address to type.

On the web: papupata.app has a sign-up form that takes a name, an invitation code, an email address and a password.

Both doors lead to the same account. If you already have one, use the app’s “Already have an account?” link — signing in with Apple on a phone will find it as long as it is the same Apple Account.

Can I change the language?

Yes, at any time. Papupata speaks Finnish, Swedish, English, German, French, Spanish and Italian, and the choice sticks to your account rather than to the device. It is under the avatar in the top-right corner on the web, and on the welcome screen and in Settings on the phone.

I forgot my web password.

There is no automated reset yet — Papupata sends no email at all, on purpose. Write to us from the address on your account and we will set a new password for you.

On the iPhone this cannot happen: the app has no password, only Sign in with Apple.

How do I start hands-free?

Say “hey papu” — a greeting and the assistant’s name. The name alone never wakes it, because papu is Finnish for bean, and beans come up in a kitchen.

Hands-free has to be switched on first, from the control in the top bar or in cook mode. Once it is listening you can ask for the next step, set a timer, or add something to a list without touching the phone.

It can’t hear me.

Check that Papupata is allowed to use the microphone: iPhone Settings → Papupata → Microphone, and Speech Recognition in the same list.

If you added Papupata to your home screen from Safari rather than installing the App Store app, iOS blocks speech recognition inside that home-screen window. Use the App Store app, or open papupata.app in Safari itself.

The “Hold to talk” button on the list and find screens always works as push-to-talk, even when hands-free is off.

Does it keep listening in my pocket?

Only while you have hands-free switched on. Recording that starts in the foreground keeps running with the screen locked — that is what makes “hey papu” work from a pocket in the shop — and the phone stops the moment you switch it off.

It answers in the wrong language.

It follows your account’s language, not the words you happen to say. Change it under the avatar or in Settings and the voice follows.

How do I get a recipe in?

Type it, dictate it, photograph a page from a magazine or a cookbook, paste a link to a recipe page or a video, photograph a plated dish for an educated guess, or describe what you feel like and let Papupata find one. A photographed page is read in whatever language it is printed in and comes out as a structured recipe in yours.

A recipe is stored as data rather than as a block of text, which is what lets the same recipe be shown as a card, as a table, or as one step at a time in cook mode.

Does scaling really work?

Yes, and it is unit-aware: change the number of eaters and the amounts follow, converting between weights and volumes where that is what a cook would do. Amounts that should not scale — a pinch of salt, the oil in the pan — are marked as such and stay put.

Who can see my recipes?

Nobody, unless you say so. Every recipe is private until you share it with friends or make it public, and shopping lists are never public — they are shared with named people or not at all.

Can I change someone else’s recipe?

You can take a copy of it. The copy is yours to edit, it remembers where it came from, and the original is untouched.

How does the aisle order work?

Papupata learns the shop by watching a trip: the order you tick things off becomes the order the list is in next time. There is nothing to drag into place and no shop map to maintain.

Can two people shop from one list?

Yes. Share the list with a friend and both phones see the same list; a shared list updates itself while you shop, and a list only you are using never wastes battery checking.

What happens if I lose signal in the shop?

Keep ticking. Changes queue on the phone and go up when the signal comes back, so a basement freezer aisle does not cost you the trip.

Can the assistant be wrong?

Yes, and it will sound just as certain when it is. It is a language model: it invents details, it misremembers quantities, and it is confident about both. Treat every answer as a suggestion.

Check anything that matters yourself — cooking temperatures, how long something keeps, and above all allergens. If somebody at your table has an allergy, read the packaging rather than asking the assistant. What happens in your kitchen is your responsibility, not the app’s.

What are beans?

Beans are what the AI features cost. Reading a photographed recipe, asking a question while cooking, finding a recipe on the web and having a step read aloud all spend a few; keeping recipes, planning the week and shopping the list spend none and never will.

Beans come with Premium: the subscription switches the AI features on and adds 250 beans to your wallet every month. A free account keeps every cooking feature and simply does not run the AI ones.

How do I buy more?

Premium and the bean packs are on the usage page, which the bean count opens, and buying goes through Apple on the phone. A wallet holds at most 1,000 beans, so a pack is only offered when it fits whole — nothing you pay for is ever dropped on arrival.

How do I export my recipes?

Write to us and we will send you everything on your account in a machine-readable file. A self-service export is on the list.

How do I delete my account?

In the app: Settings → Delete your account, or the same entry under the avatar. The screen first tells you what is about to go — how many recipes, how many lists, how many of those lists someone else is shopping from — and nothing happens until you tick that you understood.

It is immediate and cannot be undone. Recipes, lists, photos, friends and conversations all go. Unused beans are not refunded, and the invitation code you joined with stays spent.

If your public recipes are worth keeping for other cooks, one switch leaves those standing with nobody’s name on them. Everything private goes either way.

If you cannot get into the account at all, write to us from its address and we will close it for you.

The app is showing an error screen.

Reload it — the button on the error screen restarts the part that failed rather than the whole app. If it keeps happening, tell us what you were doing and roughly when; the app reports its own crashes, and a time is usually enough for us to find the line.

Something looks stale or out of date.

Pull the screen down to refresh, or close and reopen the app. An installed app caches itself so it starts instantly, and very occasionally that cache is what you are looking at.

I want to report a bug or ask for something.

Write to us. Papupata is small and made by people who cook; the shopping list, the timers and the aisle order all exist because someone said what was missing.