Frequently Asked Questions

Yes — and you can keep using it for free, indefinitely, with no API key at all. Download the app, answer three quick questions (your gender, your age group and any dietary restrictions), and you’re set up with a full food and nutrient library ready to log against. Adding a free Gemini key later unlocks AI-personalised targets, meal ideas, answers to your questions, photo and voice logging, and adding foods that aren’t in any library.

Yes. GapPlate itself is free, with no payment or credit card asked for anywhere in the app. The optional Gemini API key is also free from Google. Google may charge for very heavy AI use on your own key; that is between you and Google, and most people never see a charge.

No. There is no account and no sign-up. Everything is stored on your own phone.

Android and iPhone. The app works the same way on both; a few screens look slightly different.

On Android, install GapPlate from Google Play. On iPhone it will be live soon on the App Store; until then, join the test through Apple’s free TestFlight app (how to join). Updates arrive automatically through Google Play, the App Store or TestFlight and keep your data.

Yes. Logging, your diary, daily totals and trends all work without an internet connection, because the food and nutrient library is built into the app. You only need a connection for AI features, the online library and the Recipes Market Place.

No — the app works fully without one. Without a key, your targets are set from your gender and age group, and you can log anything in GapPlate’s built-in library or the online library. Adding your own free Gemini key, and allowing AI, personalises your targets using your full profile and unlocks the AI tab (Meal Plan, Tip and Ask), photo and voice logging, recommendations in the Nutritionist’s report, and adding genuinely new foods and nutrients.

In the app, go to Settings → AI and tap Get a free Gemini API Key (it opens Google AI Studio), then Add API Key and paste it. If you get stuck, Having trouble getting a key? on the same screen walks you through it. It takes about two minutes.

First, GapPlate shows a screen, “AI and your data”, that lists what is sent to Google and asks whether to allow AI features. If you allow it, GapPlate does a one-time pass to personalise your nutrient targets to your full profile; you may see “Syncing…” at the top for a little while. Nothing you’ve already set up or logged is lost, and changing to a different key later doesn’t redo that work.

Only what each feature needs, from your phone directly to Google’s Gemini service, using your own key: the names and descriptions of foods you look up or add, photos you take to log a meal, what you say when logging by voice, the questions you type, the profile details used for suggestions, and your day’s totals and foods when you ask for advice, tips or a report. Your name and email address are never sent. Nothing is sent until you tap Allow AI features, and you can stop AI any time in Settings → AI → Sharing with Google Gemini.

Check Settings → AI: your key should be there and Sharing with Google Gemini should say Allowed. If it does, Google’s servers may be busy; keep using the app normally, and anything that couldn’t be filled in by AI catches up automatically once it’s available again, usually within an hour. If it keeps happening, fully close and reopen the app (Settings → App → Close App).

Yes. You can use GapPlate as a nutrition reference without logging anything: search any food on the Foods tab to see its nutrients, nutrient score, serving sizes and description, and open any nutrient on the Nutrients screen to see why it matters and which foods are good sources of it. If you log some days but not others, GapPlate still gives you the bigger picture. The Trend view on the Show tab estimates your weekly, monthly and yearly intake from the days you did log, marked with ~ as approximate. The Nutritionist’s report includes a week once you’ve logged at least 4 days of it, a month from 15 days, and a year from 150 days.

You don’t have to. New users start at level 1, which follows 13 nutrients. To follow more, choose a higher level at the top of the Nutrients screen; each level adds six. Choosing a level never removes nutrients, so to follow fewer, hide or delete the ones you don’t want on the Nutrients screen.

They set how many nutrients you follow. Level 0 is Calories, Protein, Carbs, Fat, Sugar, Sodium and Water. Each level after that adds six more, most important for you first: with an AI key, AI orders them from your profile; without one, GapPlate uses a default order for your age group and gender.

Type the name in the Diary (tap +) or on the Foods tab. If you see “Did you mean one of these?”, GapPlate has found a close match — a similar spelling or another name for the same food. Pick it, or tap “None of these”. If it still isn’t there, tap Look for “…” on the GapPlate website to search the online library and add it in one tap. If it’s nowhere, you can add it as a new food with an API key, or tap Ask us to add it: it will be live soon in the app. For packaged products, try the barcode scanner.

You can type the words in any order: “rice basmati” finds “White basmati rice (boiled)”, and the last word can be partly typed. Raw, uncooked and dry mean the same in a search. Plurals, accents and spellings such as dal/dhal or bhindi/bindi don’t matter. Results come in sections: Best matches (every word you typed), Other forms of this food (the same food uncooked, boiled, steamed and so on), Other names and languages (for example “Rice (boiled) — chawal”) and Similar foods and spellings. You see 8 at a time; tap Show more for more. In the Diary, foods eaten as they are come first, so boiled rice comes before uncooked rice.

Grains, dals and lentils, beans, pasta and noodles come as one food per form, with the form in brackets: “White basmati rice (uncooked)”, “White basmati rice (boiled)”, “Masoor dal (pressure-cooked)”, “Chickpeas (canned and drained)”. They are separate because uncooked and cooked rice or lentils differ two to three times in calories and nutrients per 100 g. In the Diary, pick the cooked form you ate, for example a bowl of boiled rice. In a recipe, pick the form you measured, usually uncooked, and set the recipe’s cooked weight. If you don’t know or mind the variety, pick a simple one such as “Rice (boiled)”.

That’s fine: Dal is another name for Lentils, so GapPlate uses the values of Lentils but keeps your name. Your Diary shows Dal with Lentils in small grey text underneath. Recipes, photo logging and recipes from the Market Place work the same way.

Foods added on the GapPlate website, with full nutrient values, that anyone can add to their own foods without an API key. On the Foods tab, tap Get a food from the GapPlate website under the search box (or the online library icon at the top), then search and tap Add.

Tap Ask us to add it. Give the food’s name and, for grains and dals, the form you want, for example “Moong dal (uncooked)”. Add an optional note, such as the brand. The food is added to your foods straight away, marked with a warning sign, and you can log it at once. It will be live soon: its values then arrive by themselves, your diary entries on every date get them, and recipes that use it are recalculated. Until then, Show and the Nutritionist’s report say how many entries are waiting for food data and leave them out of the totals. You can also ask at gapplate.com/recipes/request-food.

On the food’s page, tap Share this food with the GapPlate website. It sends the food’s details and its nutrient values per 100 g, with an optional note. It can then be added to the online library, so people without an API key can get it too.

Yes. In the Diary, tap +: the barcode, camera and microphone icons sit just under the search box. Barcode scanning works without a key. Logging by photo, or by saying what you ate, needs an API key with AI allowed: GapPlate identifies the foods and estimates amounts, and you review and correct everything before it is saved.

A recipe is a dish made from several foods. GapPlate works out its nutrition from your own ingredients and amounts.

1. Open the Recipes tab and tap New recipe.
2. Type a name for the recipe, for example “Dal Palak” or “Vegetable Soup”. If the name is already used, it will be saved as “… (2)”.
3. Tap Add Ingredient, search for the first ingredient and pick it. You can search in English or in your own language.
4. Enter the amount, in grams, cups, spoons, servings or another unit, and tap Add. Repeat for every ingredient, including oil, butter, salt, spices and sauces, which add up quickly.
5. Add the steps with Add Step, if you like. You need at least one step to share the recipe.
6. Under Cooked weight, enter what the finished dish weighs: in grams, as servings × grams per serving, or as a yield % or weight change. With an API key, Estimate with AI suggests one. If you don’t know, leave it as “Not adjusted for cooking”.
7. Tap Save Recipe at the bottom, or ✓ at the top right. A recipe needs at least two ingredients.

The recipe now appears on the Recipes tab, with its nutrients per 100 g of the cooked dish and its nutrient score. In your diary it is logged in servings and starts at 1 serving: one serving is the grams per serving you entered, or the whole dish.

To change a recipe later: on the Foods tab, tap the Edit Recipe icon next to it. Tap an ingredient to change its amount, tap ✕ to remove it, tap Add Ingredient, or change the steps or cooked weight, then tap Save Changes. Nothing changes until you save. Once a recipe is in your diary, its ingredients are locked so your past entries stay right; to make a changed version, tap the copy button at the top (Copy as new recipe). Foods used in a recipe are never removed by GapPlate.

Cooking changes a dish’s weight: water boils off, or rice and lentils soak it up. A pot of dal made from 400 g of ingredients might weigh 900 g once cooked. If GapPlate knows the cooked weight, a 250 g bowl counts the right share of the pot. Weigh the empty pot first, then the full pot after cooking, and subtract.

For a dish you make regularly, save it once as a recipe: on the Recipes tab tap New recipe, add each ingredient with its amount, set the cooked weight, and Save. After that, log it in your diary like any other food, in servings or in grams. For a one-off meal, you can simply log each ingredient separately.

Create the recipe (Recipes tab → New recipe), add every ingredient with its amount — including oil, butter and sauces — and Save. Then tap the recipe on the Recipes tab to see its nutrient values and nutrient score, calculated from your ingredients. You don’t need to log it in your diary.

Recipes shared by home cooks from every cuisine, each with its nutrition and nutrient score. Open it at the top of the Recipes tab, or at gapplate.com/recipes, and add a recipe to yours in one tap. To share one of your own, tap it on the Recipes tab and tap the share button. Your email address is never shown, and you can hide or delete your recipes yourself at gapplate.com/recipes/my.

On the Graph and Trend views, the first section is Alerts. It lists the nutrients you’re short of where being short is bad, and those you’re over where being over is bad, most important first. They still appear under Deficient and Excess as well.

GapPlate tracks what you eat, not what your body absorbs; no app can measure that. Each nutrient’s page explains why it matters, which foods are the best sources, and how to help your body absorb more of it, such as which foods to pair it with. To find out whether you’re really getting enough of something, talk to your doctor: a blood test is the reliable way to check, and a Nutritionist’s report gives them a clear picture of what you’ve been eating.

Some nutrients, mainly food additives such as certain preservatives, dyes and sweeteners, have no official recommended daily intake. GapPlate shows 0 rather than guessing. You can enter your own target on that nutrient’s page at any time.

Most of the data in GapPlate was generated by AI, even if you never add an API key. This includes the built-in food library, the online library, your nutrient targets, cooked weights and food names in other languages. Some foods and recipes were sent by other users. Every value is an estimate. For anything important, check the food’s label, and talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian.

Yes. Open that food or nutrient and edit any value yourself, then tap its lock so it stays that way. With an API key, AI Prefill on the same page fetches a fresh lookup.

Yes. On the Show tab, pick the date you want the report to run up to and tap Nutritionist’s report. It shows your nutrient status for the day, week, month and year, your trends, the foods you eat most often and the best food sources for what you’re short of. You can share it as text or as a PDF (view, share or download). With an API key and AI allowed, the report also includes recommendations on what to eat more or less of. A week appears once you’ve logged at least 4 days of it, a month from 15 days, and a year from 150 days.

Thank you! On Android, go to Settings → App → Rate GapPlate to open GapPlate’s Google Play page. After you’ve logged food on a few different days, Google Play’s own rating card may also appear once; your rating goes to Google Play, not to us.

No. GapPlate is a nutrition tracking tool: it shows what you eat against general daily targets. It isn’t medical advice. Talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian about any health decision.

Yes — your profile and food diary are stored on your own device, not on our servers; we have no copy of it. If you add an API key and allow AI, only the details needed for an AI feature are sent from your phone directly to Google’s Gemini service using your own key; your name and email address are never sent. See our Privacy Policy for full details.

Yes. Settings → Data → Backup Data saves your foods, nutrients, recipes, diary entries and profile to a file (on Android, in the Download/GapPlate folder). Keep it private: if you’ve added an API key, the file contains it in plain text. Settings → Data → Restore brings everything back, replacing what’s currently in the app.

Make a backup first (Settings → Data → Backup Data) and copy the file somewhere safe, such as your email or cloud storage. Install GapPlate on the new phone, copy the file to it, then use Settings → Data → Restore, or Restore from Another Location if your file isn’t listed. Without a backup, uninstalling deletes your data and we can’t recover it, because we never have a copy.

Email us at [gapplate @ gapplate . com] or use Settings → App → Send Feedback in the app, and we’ll get back to you.