Which? reviews ZipList recipe clipping app

Looking for a way to clip a scrapbook of recipes from across all of your favourite websites? The Which? team takes a look at the ZipList app and browser plug-in.

Read our app reviews to find more applications worth downloading.

What is ZipList?

There’s no shortage of websites that can instantly offer you mouthwatering recipes from every cuisine on earth. And many of those sites let you create an account so you can clip your favourite recipes within that site. But how about keeping an all-in-one scrapbook with recipes from across multiple websites?

ZipList is a handy app that lets you keep recipes from multiple websites in one scrapbook.

You get started by creating a free ZipList account at the ZipList website, then installing the Ziplist Recipe Clipper plug-in to your browser. This creates a one-click button in your browser’s shortcut bar.

Now, when you’re viewing a recipe online no matter which website, you can click the Ziplist Recipe Clipper shortcut and a new window will open which lifts the recipe directly from the page and into your ZipList account.

This account will automatically sync with the ZipList app, which is free to download for both Apple and Android users.

Five reasons to try ZipList

All of your recipes in one place
For me, this is the headline feature of ZipList, though it’s not even the app’s main selling-point (more of that below). With ZipList, you don’t need to juggle multiple website accounts to save recipes online; no matter what the site is, you can add its recipes to ZipList’s all-in-one scrapbook.
Planning shopping lists
Putting the ‘list’ into ZipList, this is arguably the app’s core feature. You can create a shopping list based on the ingredients from your clipped recipes, so you know exactly what to buy when you head down to the shops.
Plan meal calendars
If you’re particularly organised, you can set out a calendar of meals. ZipList can even help you plan your weekly shopping lists based on what’s coming up in your calendar.
Search recipes using the ZipList app
You don’t even need to rely on adding recipes from other websites – the ZipList app has its own library of recipes to browse through, letting you clip favourites to your scrapbook.
Auto-syncing
If you’re browsing recipe sites on your computer and you see a dish you fancy trying out, you can clip it in an instant using ZipList’s browser plug-in. The next time you open your ZipList app on your smartphone, there it is, waiting for you.

Rich’s impressions of the ZipList app

I’ll say this from the off: it’s fiendishly addictive. Once you’ve made a start clipping recipes you’ve previously collected on individual sites, you may find it hard to stop yourself creating a lovingly-crafted all-in-one recipe super scrapbook.

Saying that….it’s not perfect. The instant recipe import tool doesn’t work with all sites – for example, I found that it struggled to read recipes from the Guardian’s Lifestyle website. This doesn’t require a tough fix, you can simply copy and paste the text directly yourself, which hardly takes a moment.

Perfectionists will want to save a photo of the recipe to go with each clipping – these aren’t always instantly imported by ZipList when you’re using it from a web browser. Saving a picture yourself can take a few stages, and it isn’t immediately obvious how to add an image on the ZipList website, but when you’ve done it once, you’re good to go.

The one function of ZipList I’ve had no interest in using, however, is the shopping list feature. I’m more of a ‘scribble it on a scrap of paper’ shopping list maker, myself. And further functions like finding nearby grocery stores seem, for now, to be intended for American users first and foremost.

Despite a handful of unused or unusable features, for me, ZipList is an addictive and genuinely useful app that I’d recommend to foodies everywhere.