Mealime closes on 21 October, and your Sunday plan lives in it.

So does the grocery list your partner opens by signing in as you, because that was the only way to share it. You need a Mealime alternative before the date, and you would rather not spend the weekend rebuilding a kitchen in an app that does half the job.

We read Mealime’s own closing page and help pages today. Here is what happens on the 21st, what you can save before then, and where each part of your week goes.

What Mealime’s own closing page says

Mealime’s homepage now carries one line: it will shut down on October 21, 2026. The detail sits on a separate closing page on mealime.com, which we read on 7 October 2026.

The short version. Pro recipes and features are open to everyone until the end, and Pro subscribers are not charged again. Personal data is deleted when the app shuts down. The recipe catalogue moves to Meals Hub, a section inside the Albertsons Companies grocery apps (Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, Jewel-Osco and others), reached from the More menu, and your preferences have to be set up again there.

Nothing on that page describes an export. Your plan, your favourites and any recipe you imported yourself go on the 21st.

The Mealime alternative the whole house can open

Here is Sunday night in Chirpy. Open Kitchen and put your recipes on the week: chilli on Monday, the fish tacos on Wednesday, and Takeout picked for Friday, because not every night is a recipe. Under the plan, tap Add this week’s meals and the ingredients drop onto the grocery list, sorted by aisle, skipping anything somebody already added.

Your partner sees that list on their own phone, under their own name. When you plan a dinner, the rest of the house is told, so nobody asks what’s for dinner on Wednesday. All of it is on Chirpy Basic, which is free for the whole household, up to six people, with no card.

Mealime planned the week for one login. Most kitchens have two people shopping for it.

The plan holds breakfast, lunch and dinner on each day, and recipes can carry vegetarian, vegan, Jain or gluten-free tags so the person who needs to know can see it at a glance. Your recipe box sorts itself with the most cooked first, which after a month is a better index than any folder you would have made.

The thing Mealime never fixed: one login for two people

Mealime’s own help page on multi-user accounts says there isn’t an in-app way to share recipes, grocery lists or meal plans. Its suggestion is that couples and families sign in to the same account on each phone, or print the grocery list from the web app as a PDF and email it.

That works until one of you changes the plan and the other is already in the shop with a printout. It also means the app thinks there is one person in your kitchen, with one set of tastes.

In Chirpy every adult and child has their own login inside one household. Your partner adds oat milk from the bus and it is on the list you are holding in aisle four. The same household has a shared shopping list family app built in, and the calendar sits next door, so Thursday’s swimming is in view when you are deciding Thursday’s dinner.

Save your Mealime recipes before the 21st

Mealime’s help pages say recipes can only be printed from the web app, not from the phone. So this part happens on a laptop.

1. Log in at app.mealime.com with the account you use on your phone.
2. Open each recipe you actually cook. Favourites first, then anything you imported from the web yourself, because those are the ones that exist nowhere else.
3. Scroll to the bottom and press the printer icon under the method. Choose Save as PDF rather than paper.
4. Stop at the ones you cook. The rest of a recipe collection is mostly wishful thinking, and it does not need moving.

One honest difference: if what you loved about Mealime was being handed five tested dinners you had never heard of, that catalogue is going to Meals Hub, and Chirpy does not ship one. What Chirpy does instead is keep the ten dinners your house really eats, plan them in a minute, and write the shop from them onto every phone in the house.

If your recipe box needs a cull before it moves, our guide to the save and organise recipes app question is mostly about what to leave behind.

Free against free, and what the paid plans are for

Like for like: Mealime’s free tier against Chirpy Basic, and Mealime Pro against Chirpy Pro. Mealime’s side is from its own closing page, ours from our pricing page, both on 7 October 2026.

Everything a Mealime household needs to keep cooking on 22 October is on the free plan. Pro is where Chirpy does the typing in every tool, so “something quick with the chicken and spinach” comes back as a full recipe with its ingredients sorted by aisle. We have announced it and are not selling it yet, so nothing in this guide depends on it.

Weighing other apps as well? We sorted the field by the job you need doing in best meal planning app 2026, and if Paprika is on your shortlist, read the paprika recipe manager alternative first, because its version 4 is moving to a subscription.

Your first week in Chirpy, Sunday to Saturday

Sunday: five recipes and four dinners

Type in the five recipes you printed, with their ingredients. Plan four dinners, not seven, and mark the other three nights as Leftovers, Eating out or Takeout. Our guide on how to meal plan for the week explains why the seven-dinner plan is gone by Wednesday.

Sunday night: one tap for the list

Press Add this week’s meals and invite the other adult. They open a list that is already written, which is the fastest way to get somebody to keep using an app.

During the week: add as you run out

Whoever finishes the ketchup adds it, from their own phone. By Saturday the shop is a list three people built and nobody had to read out.

Common questions