Questions, answered

Can I sign up and start using it today?

Yes. Sign in with a code sent to your email, with Google or with Apple: there is no invitation list and no queue. You do not have to bring anything: two photos a day are recognised on the Snapfork key for free. Why you might still want your own key is the next answer.

Why do I need my own platform API key?

You do not have to. Recognition also works on the Snapfork key — free, 2 photos a day; the photo then passes through our server, where the request is signed, and onward through OpenRouter to the model provider. It is not stored here, and we tell the platform not to route through providers that retain what is sent. Your own key removes both the limit and the extra hops: the photo goes from your device straight to the platform whose key you entered, bypassing us. There are nine such addresses — from Google Gemini and OpenAI to Mistral and OpenRouter. Keys the app understands are ten: the tenth, Claude, takes nothing from a browser. The full list is in the privacy policy. The app starts on your key and moves to ours only after yours has failed; a checkbox in settings turns even that off.

What is the difference between the free and paid key tiers?

This is about the Google key: on its free tier Google reserves the right to use what you send to improve its products; on the paid tier it does not. Other platforms divide their tiers differently, and that is to be read at the source. The application works on either, and the choice is yours — but it is worth making deliberately, because it is about your photographs.

Where is the diary kept?

In your browser's storage on the device. A sealed copy travels to our server as well — the key stays with you, so nothing there can open it. The page on data goes through this in full, including the uncomfortable half: clear that storage and the diary leaves the device together with its key, and only the recovery code you wrote down opens the sealed copy again. Without an export and without the code, the diary is gone for good.

What does a friend see if I invite them?

One thing: whether you logged that day or not, and how many days in a row you have logged. If you shared it separately — one more fact, whether you stayed within your own goal, a plain yes or no. Not what you ate, not how many calories, not your weight, at any level of sharing; and no rankings, leaderboards or comparisons, because other people's goals are not something to measure yourself against.

Sharing is the same in both directions and cannot be made one-sided. We cannot read any of it: the contents travel sealed with a key we do not have. But the server does see the connections and the update times — what exactly, and why, is set out in the friends section of the privacy page, together with how to check us: eight digits you and your friend read out to each other.

You can undo it any day, and there are two buttons: “stop sharing” keeps the friendship, “delete friendship” erases both the connection and what each of you saw of the other.

Does it work without an internet connection?

Reading and editing the diary does. Recognising a new photograph does not: that request leaves for the platform whose key you entered, or for ours if you entered none. You can always add a meal by hand.

Can I scan the barcode on a package?

You can, and nothing leaves the phone while you do. The product reference is downloaded once and searched on the device, so neither the code nor what you eat is sent anywhere — the same promise the diary gets.

The data comes from Open Food Facts, an open database filled in by its own contributors. Plenty of packages are simply not in it: what you get is what people scan most often, and a shop shelf is wider than that. No match means photographing the label or typing the numbers, as before.

Where does the product score come from, and when is it wrong?

It is worked out on the device from the same downloaded reference: nothing goes to the network for it. Three parts add up — the ready Nutri-Score letter, the risk level of the additives from our own list, and the organic mark; every risk level on that list names its sources, which is a condition rather than a decoration: we will not speak about risk without one.

It goes wrong wherever the reference itself does. Open Food Facts is filled in by its own contributors, and for a share of the products there is no letter or no parsed composition at all — then there is no number, and we say so instead of inventing one. Russian products carry the letter markedly less often than European ones. And above all: the score judges the product on the shelf, not you and not what you ate. It is neither a diagnosis nor a ban, only a reason to turn the pack over.

How accurate is it?

Accurate about what is on the plate, approximate about how much of it there is. The page on the counting explains why that second part cannot be fixed by a better model, and what you are expected to correct. The daily target and the macros are a separate matter: where every number came from, including the ones with nothing behind them but a decision of ours.

What do you do with my email address?

Send the six-digit sign-in code to it, and nothing else: no newsletter, no announcements, nothing to unsubscribe from. The address itself is not kept — the server stores a fingerprint of it, which is enough to recognise you at the next sign-in and useless for writing to you.

I cannot sign in. Where do I write?

To hello@snapfork.app. It is the same person who answers inside the app, where there is a “Support” section in settings. But if signing in fails, that section is out of reach, and the address is the only way left. Describe what exactly happens: without that, a broken sign-in looks the same as an address that is not on the list.

Is there an app in the App Store or on Google Play?

No. It is a web application you add to the home screen, which is also why there is no store review standing between a fix and your phone.