Mealime has announced it will shut down on October 21, 2026, and its users' data will be deleted: save your recipes before then. Popotam brings them over for free, with your diet and your allergies, translated into French and converted to grams. And the complaint people had about it was almost always the same: the tool works, but it doesn't count in your units and doesn't know your aisles. Here's how to replace Mealime in France, free or not, on Android, on iPhone or on a computer.
Prices and features change. Everything here comes from the services' official pages, checked on that date. Nothing is copied from a comparison site or a blog.
Looking for a Mealime alternative before it shuts down? Popotam puts together your week of meals and its grocery list for free, in French, in grams and in euros, and its Android app is available on Google Play. On iPhone or on a computer, it runs in the browser, with nothing to install. And your Mealime recipes, your diet and your allergies come along in one click from a computer, or by dropping in their PDFs from a phone.
Mealime has no export button, and its data will be deleted when it shuts down. So Popotam does the move for you, for free and with no account: your recipes land in “My cookbook”, translated into French and converted to grams, and your diet, your allergies, the foods you refuse and the number of people prefill your settings.
On a computer, a “Bring to Popotam” button, which you drag into your browser's bar, does it all in one click from my.mealime.com, until October 21. On a phone, the Mealime app still prints its recipes as PDFs, and Popotam reads those PDFs, even after the shutdown.
The top reason is now simple: Mealime is shutting down. The service has announced it will shut down on October 21, 2026, personal data will be deleted, and the Pro plan hasn't been billed since the announcement. The team points to Meals Hub, in the Albertsons stores' apps, an option that only concerns their customers in the United States. Replacing Mealime is no longer a matter of taste, but of timing.
Even before the shutdown, people using it in France ran into the language, and it gets in the way more than it seems. The official site doesn't state the app's languages, so we won't claim it is or isn't translated. What's certain is that the service is North American: the recipes are written for that audience, and cooking vocabulary isn't always easy to guess.
Second snag, more concrete: units. A recipe in cups and ounces doesn't convert well in front of a French aisle, where everything is in grams and liters. The conversion can be done, but it has to be redone for every dish, and it ends up weighing more than the service it provides.
Third snag: the ingredients themselves. A catalog designed for North America suggests products you can't find everywhere in France, and sorts the grocery list into categories that aren't those of a French supermarket.
Then there's what made it worthwhile, and that's what you need to keep when you replace it: Mealime is free, doesn't tie you to any store chain, and announces more than 200 customization options. Those three qualities are rare, and an alternative that lost one of them wouldn't be an improvement.
A meal planner that puts together your week, or your month, plus the grocery list that goes with it, with no account and no subscription.
You're looking for the same profile, but in French: free, no account, no required store chain, and your groceries wherever you want. Popotam builds menus in French, counts in euros and sorts the list by the aisles of a French supermarket. It adds AI generation, which Mealime doesn't announce, and a check of every dish to make sure a stated diet is really respected. Its Android app is available on Google Play; on iPhone and on a computer, it runs in the browser. Your Mealime recipes come along, with your diet and your allergies. What it doesn't have: an iPhone app, and any grocery ordering.
A recipe app that turns the menu you pick into a grocery cart at a partner store chain.
You want to stick with a recipe catalog, like Mealime, but in French and going all the way to the cart. Jow puts the menu together then fills the cart at Auchan, Carrefour, Chronodrive, Courses U, Intermarché or Monoprix. The point that changes everything compared to Mealime: you gain the ordering step, you lose the freedom to pick your store, which was exactly one of Mealime's strengths.
A meal kit: pre-portioned ingredients and recipes are delivered to your home or picked up via click & collect, you cook.
What you really wanted wasn't a better planner, it was to stop grocery shopping. Quitoque delivers pre-portioned kits from €7.74 per serving, with more than 40 new recipes a week and a no-commitment subscription, changeable up to seven days before delivery. You no longer pick the store, but there are no ingredients left to finish.
A weekly meal kit: pre-portioned ingredients and recipe cards arrive at your door, you cook.
Same switch as above, with a bigger catalog: HelloFresh announces more than 64 new recipes a week, most under thirty minutes, and a no-commitment subscription. Its price per serving depends on the number of people and meals, and goes down as either one goes up. Worth a look if the weekly choice matters more to you than the entry rate.
Mealime and its alternatives, on the five criteria that describe what each service is.
| Criterion | MealimeCloses 10/21/2026 | Popotam | Jow | Quitoque | HelloFresh |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan your mealsOrganize the week's meals ahead of time, day by day. | Yesthe whole week in a few minutes | Yes14 meals a week, lunch and dinner, up to four weeks | Yes | Partlyyou pick your recipes for the week | Partlyyou pick your recipes for the week |
| Grocery listGet the list of ingredients to buy, grouped for the store. | Yessorted by category | Yessorted by aisle, with checkboxes | Yesturned into a cart | Nothe ingredients arrive pre-portioned | Nothe ingredients arrive pre-portioned |
| Shop wherever you wantBuy at any store, with no required retailer and no partnership. | Yes | Yesno partner store chain | Partlysix partner store chains listed | No | No |
| Ingredients deliveredGet the ingredients delivered to your door without going grocery shopping. | No | No | Partlyby the store chain, not by Jow | Yesto your home or via click & collect | Yesit's the service itself |
| Usable without a subscriptionUse the tool for its main purpose without paying for a subscription. | Yesuntil it shuts down, on October 21, 2026 | Yes | Yesby linking a store; optional subscription from €2.92/month | No | No |
How to read this table. “No” means “not offered according to the service's public info as of the check date”: you can't prove a feature doesn't exist, but you can say so honestly. “Not verified” means we couldn't find an official source, and we'd rather say so than guess.
Say what you like, get your week and its grocery list, and keep it all in one link. No account, no credit card.
Yes. Mealime announces on its site that it will shut down on October 21, 2026. Its users' personal data will be deleted, and the Pro plan hasn't been billed since the announcement. The team points to Meals Hub, built into the Albertsons stores' apps, in the United States: for anyone cooking in France, another solution needs to be found by then.
Yes. Popotam is available for free on Google Play: it puts together your week of meals, the grocery list sorted by aisle and step-by-step recipes, in French, with no account, no subscription and no ads. On iPhone, it runs in the browser and can be added to your home screen.
Take them with you before October 21, 2026: after that date, the data will be deleted. Popotam offers a “Bring to Popotam” button to drag into your browser's bar (Popotam's “Bring your Mealime recipes” page shows everything, step by step): one click on my.mealime.com, and the meal plan recipes, favorites, diet and allergies land in “My cookbook”, in French and in grams. On a phone, the Mealime app no longer shares anything but still prints: “Print”, then “Save as PDF”, and Popotam reads those PDFs, even after the shutdown.
Yes, as soon as the quantities are in cups, ounces or degrees Fahrenheit. The conversion isn't hard, it's repetitive: it comes back for every dish and every grocery list. A tool that counts in grams, liters and euros from the start gets rid of that work instead of making it easier.
Two things worth facing squarely: its mobile apps, and its hands-free mode for following a recipe while you cook. On Android, Popotam has its free app on Google Play. On iPhone, it doesn't: it runs in the browser and can be added to your home screen, which isn't quite the same thing. For cooking, its recipes have a step-by-step mode with timers, which isn't a hands-free mode.
It all depends on what it does with the diet. Asking a model isn't enough: it often forgets. Popotam turns the diet into a list of forbidden foods, then checks every suggested dish and throws out the offenders before showing them to you. That check is what separates a stated diet from a diet that's actually followed.
Yes. Popotam has no sign-up at all: a meal plan opens with a secret link that acts as a key, and the email address is optional. The trade-off needs saying: lose that link without having left an address, and you lose your meal plan.