Organise around the moment you will need a recipe

Start with the questions you ask before cooking. What fits into a busy evening? What can I bring for lunch? What is worth making when friends visit? Collections built around these decisions are easier to use than a complicated filing system that needs maintenance after every save.

Choose three or four collections to begin with. Weeknight dinners, Lunches and Weekend baking cover different situations without demanding a perfect category for everything. Add another collection when you repeatedly look for the same kind of meal, rather than creating empty categories in advance.

Make the two recent collections useful

Forkeep shows the two most recently edited collections as shortcuts. Their order reflects recent changes, so those shortcuts will move as you organise your library. Open the full collections view when you need another collection; its absence from the shortcuts does not mean it has disappeared.

Use those recent entries as a working area. If you are gathering ideas for this week, edit that collection while planning. Keep longer-term favourites in the library without trying to keep every collection at the top. Choose names that describe the contents clearly even when you have not opened them for a month.

Name recipes for the way you search

A title such as Lemon chickpea salad tells you more than Best lunch ever. Keep the main ingredient and dish type visible in the name. When saving a variation, use one meaningful detail such as mushrooms, spicy or oven-baked instead of a string of dates and abbreviations.

Forkeep library search checks recipe titles, cuisine, ingredient names and your notes. Search for a useful ingredient when you are deciding what to cook from what you have. If a search returns nothing, try a simpler word and check whether a category or favourites filter is narrowing the results.

Keep notes that change the next attempt

After cooking, write down the detail that would help you repeat the dish. A short observation about the pan you used or the amount of sauce is more useful than retelling the whole recipe. Separate what you actually changed from what you want to try next.

  • Record the serving count you cooked and any quantity changes.
  • Note a substitution and whether you liked the result.
  • Record a useful timing adjustment for your own oven or hob.
  • Keep an unclear step visible until you have checked the original source.

Tidy a little when you choose the next meal

You do not need a separate afternoon to organise everything. When planning dinner, rename one unclear recipe, review one duplicate or move one recipe into a useful collection. Small changes made in context are easier to maintain than a large sorting project.

Keep favourites for dishes you want to return to, and leave room for untried ideas elsewhere. Before deleting a duplicate, check which copy contains your notes. A helpful library makes the next choice easier; it does not need to look perfectly symmetrical.