Lyfify Cloud Replaces Google Drive Sync
Lyfify no longer syncs through your Google Drive. Recipes, meal plans, grocery lists and photos now sync through Lyfify Cloud, encrypted at rest on servers in Frankfurt. Here is what changed, what you need to do, and what it means for your data.
Written by Simon Gravgaard · 9 min read
Lyfify no longer syncs through Google Drive
Until now, signing in with Google let Lyfify sync your cookbook through a private app folder inside your Google Drive. That is gone. Syncing now goes through Lyfify Cloud: Lyfify's own servers, in Frankfurt, Germany, where your content is stored encrypted at rest.
Three things follow from that, and I want them stated plainly rather than buried:
- Lyfify now stores a copy of your recipes, meal plans, grocery lists, chores and recipe photos. It did not before.
- That copy is encrypted at rest, but it is not end-to-end encrypted. I explain exactly what that means below.
- Your old Google Drive folder is no longer read or written by anything. Your devices now sync through Lyfify Cloud instead.
Nothing on your device was deleted. Lyfify is still local-first: the working copy lives in your browser, the app still runs offline, and you can still use the whole of Cookbook without an account.
Why I moved off Google Drive
Drive sync was clever, and it was the wrong foundation.
It ran into Google's quota. Drive access is metered per project, not per user. A handful of people with large libraries could saturate the quota for everyone, and no amount of code would fix that. Only fewer users would.
The first sync was slow. Signing in on a new device meant a blocking modal while Lyfify reconciled a folder full of files. Now a new device paints your recipe titles in seconds, and bodies and photos stream in behind them.
It was fragile. A change feed, a snapshot accelerator, adaptive concurrency, orphan reconciles, and a conflict dialog asking you to pick "use Drive" or "use local". That dialog is gone, because conflicts are gone. The server orders every change, so an edit made on the current version simply lands.
Where your recipes live now
Your content sits in a database in Frankfurt, Germany (DigitalOcean's FRA1 region), behind Cloudflare.
Every recipe, meal plan, grocery list, collection, chore and settings entity is sealed with AES-256-GCM before it is written, using a data key that belongs to your account alone. Recipe photos are sealed the same way as files on disk. Your display name is sealed too. That account key is itself wrapped by a master key, which is never stored in the database, and on the production server does not sit on the server's disk at all. It lives on separate storage that is left out of every server backup.
This is not end-to-end encryption, and I will not call it that. Lyfify can decrypt your content, because it has to. That is how a new device gets your library, and how an AI feature you start can read the recipe you pointed it at. What encryption at rest protects against is a stolen disk, a leaked database dump, or a backup that ends up somewhere it should not.
I looked seriously at end-to-end encryption and decided against it. It cannot work for people who sign in with Google unless they also memorise a second secret that Lyfify cannot recover, it would break hosted AI, and it costs several times as much to run. Pretending otherwise would have been a better marketing line and a worse product.
The full detail is in the Privacy Policy.
What you need to do
Sign in, if you are not already. If you were signed in before, you still are. Google sign-in now asks for less than it used to: email and profile only, with no access to your Drive.
Open the device that has your library first. Lyfify can no longer read your old Drive folder, so your library comes from whichever device still holds it. Sign in there, leave the app open a moment, and it uploads. Then sign in anywhere else and it comes down.
Then delete the old copy in your Drive, if you want it gone. In Google Drive settings, open Manage apps, find Lyfify, and choose Options → Delete hidden app data. Removing Lyfify at Google Account → Connections takes away its old access, but does not delete that copy on its own. Do this after your library has uploaded, not before.
If you never signed in at all, none of this touches you. Your cookbook has always been on your device and still is.
You no longer need a Google account
Lyfify now has its own accounts: email, password, display name. Google is still there, permanently, as an option. It is just no longer the only door.
Every account email carries a 6-digit code, never a login link. It is good for 15 minutes, gives you five tries, and only works in the browser that asked for it. That last part matters: it means someone who knows your email address cannot start a signup and have you confirm it for them.
The same code flow covers confirming a new account, resetting a forgotten password, and changing the email on your account. An email-change code goes to the new address and works only in your signed-in account, and the old address is told about the change.
How much you can store
Lyfify Cloud has two separate pools, so a big photo library never crowds out your recipes:
| Plan | Data | Photos | | --- | --- | --- | | Free | 25 MB | 25 MB | | Basic | 100 MB | 100 MB | | Plus | 250 MB | 250 MB | | Max | 500 MB | 500 MB |
Recipe text is small. A detailed recipe is a few kilobytes, so 25 MB holds thousands of them. Photos are the pool you will actually notice, at roughly 400 KB each after Lyfify compresses them. Plans are on Pricing, and Settings → Storage shows both bars for your account.
Reaching a limit only stops new uploads. It deletes nothing. The one time Lyfify Cloud removes its copy is described next, and it never happens without two emails first.
If a plan ends while you are over the limit
If your plan ends or shrinks and your cloud copy is larger than the new limit, you get 14 days, an email when the clock starts and a reminder at least three days before it ends. The clock only starts once that first email has gone out, and nothing is removed until the reminder has too. Get under the limit in that window and the clock stops.
If the deadline passes, the cloud copy is reset. Your devices are untouched. Every device keeps its full library, and each one uploads again up to the free limit. Nothing is deleted from the device you are holding.
Backups, and deleting your account
There are two kinds of backup, both kept for 7 days, both in the same Frankfurt data centre: a daily copy of the whole server, and a separate nightly copy of the database and photos. That second one is what lets me restore a single account's data if you ask, say for recipes you deleted by mistake.
Deleting your account destroys your account's encryption key, which makes the live copy of your content unreadable rather than merely marked deleted. Backups roll over within 7 days. A deleted account is never restored from one.
You can delete your account yourself in Settings → Account, or email [email protected] from your account address and I will do it. Both are valid routes, and both are in the Terms.
What did not change
- Cookbook is still free. Recipes, meal plans and grocery lists cost nothing and need no account.
- It still works offline and signed out. Your device holds the real copy, and the cloud follows it.
- AI still runs only when you start it. Smart Add, Smart Fill, Smart Sort, Adapt Recipe and Estimate Nutrition never run in the background, and you review every draft before it lands.
- Your own API keys never leave your device. If you bring your own provider key in Settings → Advanced, it stays in that browser's local settings. It is stripped before sync, and never reaches a Lyfify server, a backup, or a log. That is also why you set it up separately on each device.
- Share links still work the same way. A shared recipe is a snapshot inside the link itself. It never points back at your library.
Questions
Does Lyfify store my recipes on its servers now?
Yes. That is the change. Recipes, meal plans, grocery lists, collections, chores, settings and recipe photos are stored on Lyfify's servers in Frankfurt, encrypted at rest with a key that belongs to your account. Before this change, a signed-in account synced through your own Google Drive and Lyfify kept no copy.
Is Lyfify Cloud end-to-end encrypted?
No. Your content is encrypted at rest and in transit, but Lyfify holds the keys and can decrypt it. That is what makes cross-device sync and hosted AI possible. End-to-end encryption was considered and rejected, because it cannot work for Google sign-in without a second secret you would have to memorise, and it would break the AI features.
What happened to the data in my Google Drive folder?
It is still sitting in your Drive, and nothing reads or writes it anymore. Once your library has uploaded from a device, you can delete it in Google Drive settings: Manage apps, then Lyfify, then Options → Delete hidden app data. Removing Lyfify at Google Account → Connections ends its old access but leaves that data in place.
Do I have to sign in with Google?
No, not anymore. You can create a Lyfify account with an email address and a password instead. Google sign-in stays as an option, and now asks only for your email and profile. It has no access to your Drive or any other Google data.
Do I lose my recipes if I do nothing?
No. Your recipes are on your device, in the browser's own storage, exactly where they have always been. Signing in copies them up. Not signing in leaves them where they are.
Why is my sync progress bar gone?
Because sync no longer needs one. Changes push as you make them and pull when the app regains focus, so there is nothing to watch. If something genuinely fails, Lyfify tells you.
Can I get deleted recipes back?
Sometimes, within 7 days, if you ask. The nightly backup lets me restore one account's missing rows and photos. It is a favour I can do by hand, so please do not rely on it. The dependable version is Settings → Storage → Download Backup, which gives you a ZIP with your photos in it.
Nothing to do but sign in
Open Lyfify on the device that already has your cookbook, sign in, and give it a moment. Everything else on this page is detail you can come back to.