Where to go after Mealime shuts down on 21 October
Mealime is shutting down on 21 October 2026 — its own site confirms Albertsons is folding it into Meals Hub, a feature inside the Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco and Albertsons family of grocery apps, and that personal data is deleted once Mealime closes. If you don't want a grocery-chain login, you need a replacement with simple weeknight plans, an automatic shopping list, and sharing with a partner, working with any store rather than one chain. GetLadle has the planner, an auto shopping list on paid plans, and household sharing — but no curated recipe library like Mealime's; you plan from recipes you save or import yourself.
Mealime closes 21 October 2026. Its recipe library moves to Albertsons' Meals Hub; your own saved meal data does not.
What Mealime does well
Mealime's own site is built around being fast and free: "over 200 personalisation options" for plan type, allergies, dislikes and serving size, and a shopping list with "all your ingredients auto-sorted into categories" so it's ready before you leave the house. Users on r/mealplanning back that up in practice — one wrote it was "the best meal-planning app out there — simple, functional, and it works with ANY grocery store," and said they'd recommended it to "100,000+ followers." App Store reviewers describe similarly fast results ("10 minutes and I have my week planned") and credit it with years of real behaviour change, not just a novelty week or two.
The shutdown, and why people are worried
Mealime's own shutdown notice is short but specific: the app closes on 21 October 2026, Albertsons is moving its recipes into Meals Hub — a feature inside the Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco, ACME and other Albertsons-family store apps — and "all personal data will be deleted when the Mealime application is shut down." Pro features are free to everyone until then, but there's no export tool for your own meal plans, notes or list history.
That's exactly what's rattling long-time users. On the r/mealplanning thread announcing the shutdown, one person wrote: "Thousands of people have been using Mealime Pro for years — we have saved recipes, favorites, and years of meal data in there." Another said, "My fiance and I used mealime for 3 years. We had our gripes with it, but... not finding a replacement I like." The recipes survive, tied to a specific grocery chain's app; the plan you personally built does not.
What a Mealime replacement needs to do
Based on what Mealime users actually relied on, a replacement needs simple weeknight plans you can put together quickly, a shopping list that builds itself from that plan, a way to share the week with a partner rather than keep it on one phone, and no requirement to shop at one particular grocery chain.
How GetLadle compares
GetLadle's weekly meal planner is free to use on any plan; on Sous Chef and Head Chef, a "Fill My Week" auto-fill option can build the week automatically and the shopping list generates from that plan, grouped by aisle (the free Apprentice plan builds both manually). Where GetLadle differs from Mealime: there's no curated recipe catalogue it plans from automatically. You save or import the recipes yourself — from a link, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, or a photo of a printed page — and GetLadle plans, shops and cooks (via step-by-step Cook Mode) from your own library. Household members can see and edit the same plan: 1 on the free plan, 4 on Sous Chef, unlimited on Head Chef.
Who should choose which
Choose Meals Hub if you already shop at Safeway, Vons, Jewel-Osco or another Albertsons-family store and want the closest thing to Mealime's auto-generated plans without switching ecosystems.
Choose Samsung Food or Plan to Eat if you want a similarly self-contained planner-plus-list app not tied to one grocery chain — Samsung Food if you'd rather browse a free public recipe community, Plan to Eat if you want a drag-and-drop calendar and don't mind paying from the start.
Choose GetLadle if you'd rather plan from recipes you've actually saved — including the ones you imported from TikTok or Instagram — and share the plan and shopping list with a partner or household.
What to do before 21 October
- Note what you can't get back. Mealime's notice confirms personal data is deleted at shutdown and there's no export tool, so anything not written down elsewhere — your weekly rotation, notes, favourites — is worth copying out by hand now.
- Re-save the recipes you actually cook. If a Mealime recipe is one you make often, save or re-create it in whatever you switch to before the 21 October deadline, rather than relying on Meals Hub to have kept it exactly as you remember it.
- Decide if you want to stay inside a grocery chain's app or not. Meals Hub is the path of least resistance if you already shop Albertsons-family stores; if not, this is a natural point to pick a planner that isn't tied to one retailer.
How we compared: We used Mealime's own shutdown notice for what's happening to the app, and each other product's own site or App Store listing for pricing and features. Limits are only what those pages state themselves.
| Product | Best for | Strengths | Limits | Pricing note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mealime | Existing users who need to know what happens before 21 October | Over 200 personalisation options for dietary preferences and dislikes, per its own site; Ingredients auto-sorted into a done-for-you shopping list; Free — Pro features made free to everyone as a farewell | Shutting down 21 October 2026; recipes move to Albertsons' Meals Hub, tied to the Safeway/Vons/Jewel-Osco family of store apps; Personal data is deleted at shutdown, and Mealime has no built-in export for recipes or plans | Free (Pro features free to all users until shutdown) |
| Samsung Food | Cooks who want a free app with a large public recipe community | Free with in-app purchases; Shared grocery lists, per its own App Store listing; AI-personalised weekly meal plans on the paid tier | Full AI weekly meal planning sits behind the paid tier, per its own listing | Free with in-app purchases; $6.99/mo or $59.99/yr for the paid tier |
| Plan to Eat | Planners who want a drag-and-drop calendar and don't mind paying from day one | Recipe Clipper saves recipes from any site, per its own site; Planning calendar with reusable saved plans; Shopping list generated automatically from planned recipes | No free tier after the 14-day trial, per its own pricing page | $5.95/mo or $49/yr after a 14-day free trial (no card required for the trial) |
| GetLadle | Couples and households who want the plan and the shopping list shared, not just kept on one phone | Weekly meal planner; 'Fill My Week' auto-fill and auto-generated shopping list on Sous Chef or Head Chef; Shopping list grouped by aisle; Household members share the same plan on Sous Chef and Head Chef | No curated meal-plan recipe library — plans are built from recipes you save or import, not auto-suggested from a catalogue; Auto shopping list generation is a paid-tier feature; the free plan builds the list manually | Free plan (15 recipes/imports a month); Sous Chef $5.99 CAD/mo or $49.99 CAD/yr; Head Chef $11.99 CAD/mo or $99.99 CAD/yr |
Frequently asked questions
When exactly does Mealime shut down?
21 October 2026, per Mealime's own shutdown notice on mealime.com. Pro features are free for everyone until then, and Albertsons is moving Mealime's recipes into Meals Hub, a feature inside its grocery-store apps such as Safeway and Vons.
What happens to my Mealime data?
Mealime's own notice says all personal data is deleted when the app shuts down. Its recipes move into Meals Hub, but the notice doesn't mention your own meal plans, notes, or shopping-list history transferring, and the app has no built-in export.
Does GetLadle have a meal-plan library like Mealime's?
No. GetLadle doesn't auto-generate weekly plans from its own recipe library the way Mealime does. You build the plan from recipes you save, import from a link, TikTok, Instagram, or a photo, or write yourself — GetLadle turns that week into a shopping list.
Related
- Samsung Food alternative for shared meal planning
- Paprika alternative for families who share recipes
- AnyList alternative for recipes, not just lists
- Meal Planning Apps for Couples, Compared for 2026
- Meal Planning App for Couples
- How to meal plan as a couple without one person doing it all
- Meal Planning as a Couple Without One Person Carrying It All
- Compare GetLadle
Sources
- Mealime: Mealime is closing
- Mealime App Store listing
- r/mealplanning: Albertsons is shutting down Mealime on October 21
- Plan to Eat
- Samsung Food App Store listing
Last reviewed 2026-09-15 · GetLadle