Yummly is gone. Whirlpool, which acquired it in 2017, shut the service down in December 2024. Accounts were closed, saved recipes became inaccessible, and millions of users were left looking for an alternative with no notice.
If you're finding this after searching "what happened to Yummly" or trying to log in and getting an error — this page explains the shutdown and, more usefully, what to use instead.
What Happened to Yummly
Whirlpool acquired Yummly in 2017 for a reported $15 million with the plan to integrate smart recipe features into its connected appliances. The integration never meaningfully happened. Yummly continued operating as a standalone app, but it was never a priority within Whirlpool's core business.
In 2024, Whirlpool began a broad cost-cutting restructuring. Yummly was one of the assets that didn't survive. The app was shut down in December 2024, with minimal advance notice to users.
Saved recipes, personalised feeds, meal plans, and grocery lists — all gone.
What You Lost (and What You Need to Replace It)
Different people used Yummly for different things. The right replacement depends on what you actually relied on:
If you mainly saved recipes from the web: You need a recipe clipping app with good organisation — not necessarily AI planning.
If you used Yummly's personalised feed for meal ideas: You need something that suggests recipes based on your preferences — ideally smarter than Yummly was.
If you used Yummly for weekly meal planning and grocery lists: This is where most apps fall short. You need something that actually builds your week, not just a blank calendar.
If you used Yummly because you cook South Asian food: Most of the apps that try to replace Yummly don't handle South Asian cuisine well. This matters if biryani, dal, karahi, or dosa were part of your regular rotation.
The Best Yummly Replacements in 2025
For Recipe Saving: Samsung Food (formerly Whisk)
Samsung Food is the most direct replacement for Yummly's recipe-saving features. It has a browser extension that clips recipes from any site, organises your collection, and syncs across devices. It's free.
It doesn't do meaningful AI planning, but if recipe clipping and organisation was all you needed, this fills the gap.
Try if: You mainly saved recipes from the web and want a clean, free app.
For Personalised Suggestions: Paprika
Paprika is a paid app (one-time fee, around £5 mobile / £25 desktop) that lets you save and organise your own recipe library. It doesn't pull from a wider feed like Yummly did, but it has excellent organisational features, works offline, and doesn't require a subscription.
Try if: You want to own your recipe library permanently and prefer not paying monthly.
For Automatic Meal Planning and Grocery Lists: FridgeFirst
FridgeFirst does what Yummly's planning features should have done but never quite got right.
Instead of showing you recipes from around the web and hoping you plan around them, FridgeFirst works backwards from your fridge. You add what you have (or scan your fridge with your camera), and it builds a weekly meal plan from those ingredients — adding a grocery list for only what's missing.
Why it's better than Yummly was for planning:
- Uses what you actually have. Yummly suggested recipes that often required a grocery run. FridgeFirst plans from your existing pantry and minimises waste.
- Family health profiles. Set dietary preferences, allergies, and health conditions (diabetes, gluten intolerance, etc.) per family member. Plans respect each person without cooking separate meals.
- South Asian cuisine support. This is the gap where Yummly consistently fell short. FridgeFirst has a proper South Asian recipe library — not just "chicken tikka masala" but real Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankan home cooking.
- Grocery list that builds itself. One of Yummly's better features was generating a shopping list. FridgeFirst's version only lists what's genuinely missing from your pantry — smarter and less wasteful.
Try FridgeFirst free for 14 days — no credit card →
The Short Answer
If you want to just save and clip recipes: Samsung Food (free, direct replacement).
If you want the meal planning features Yummly never fully delivered on: FridgeFirst.
Yummly promised AI-powered personalised meal planning for families. FridgeFirst actually delivers it — and for users who cook South Asian food, it covers territory Yummly never did.
Getting Your Data Back
Unfortunately, if you didn't export your Yummly recipes before the shutdown, they're gone. There's no official recovery path.
If you have screenshots, browser history, or bookmarks to the original recipe sources, you can re-save those to Samsung Food or Paprika. For recipes you remember but didn't save, FridgeFirst's AI recipe generation can recreate family favourites — you describe what you want to cook and it generates the full recipe.