Foodglot questions, answered

Foodglot is a menu translator app. Take a photo of a menu in any language and it translates every dish, shows a reference photo of what the dish usually looks like, lists its likely ingredients, converts the price into your currency and flags anything that clashes with your diet or allergies.

Foodglot is coming soon to Google Play and the App Store. It will be free to download, and you'll be able to scan menus without creating an account.

Yes. As a guest you can scan up to 5 menus a day, with no account and no ads. Sign in with Google or Apple, also free, for 30 scans a day, unlimited questions and saved menus. Daily limits reset at midnight UTC, and opening a menu you've already scanned doesn't use a scan.

No. Open the app and point it at a menu. Signing in is optional. It gives you more scans a day, saved menus and your preferences on every device, and anything you did as a guest moves into your account.

It reads menus in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Arabic, Hindi, Greek, Turkish, the European languages and many more, and translates them into any of 27 languages. It can also show prices in 42 home currencies. Our menu guides explain how menus work in 14 of the most-visited food cultures.

Yes. Add up to 6 photos and Foodglot reads them as one menu. If a page is blurry, cropped or missing prices, it tells you rather than guessing.

No. They're reference photos looked up by the dish's name, mostly from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, to show what the dish usually looks like. Each one is labelled with where it came from. The plate you're served may look different.

Yes. Ask the menu anything, such as "what's vegetarian and filling?", or use Pick for me with a budget, party size and mood to get a short list. Guests get 3 questions to try it; signed-in users can ask as many as they like.

Each dish has a line in the local language you can show your server, with a pronunciation guide and short cultural notes for dishes you've never met.

To scan a menu or ask a question, yes, because menus are read on our servers. Menus you've already scanned stay on your phone and open without a connection, though dish photos may not load.

Tell Foodglot once what you eat and what you can't. Each dish is then marked red if it contains something you avoid, amber if it might or the menu doesn't say, and green if nothing on the menu clashes with your profile. For a severe allergy, "may contain" shows as red. If there isn't enough information to judge, the dish stays grey. The flags are worked out on your phone, from your own profile.

17 allergens, each set as severe or moderate: the 14 that EU and UK restaurants must declare (gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soy, milk, tree nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphites, lupin and molluscs) plus corn, buckwheat and MSG. And 15 diets: vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, halal, kosher, Jain, no beef, no pork, no lamb, no red meat, no alcohol, no raw meat or fish, no offal, gluten-free and dairy-free. You can also list ingredients you'd rather skip and set how much spice you can take.

Use it to narrow down the menu, then always confirm with the restaurant. Foodglot reads menus with AI. It can misread text or miss an ingredient, menus don't always list everything, and kitchens can't always prevent cross-contact. The flags are guidance, not medical advice. Our allergen guides explain where each allergen hides and how to ask about it.

Amber means the dish might contain something you avoid, the menu doesn't say, it has an ingredient you'd rather skip, it's hotter than your spice setting, or Foodglot wasn't sure what it read. Grey means there isn't enough information to judge it against your profile. Either way, ask the restaurant before you order.

Please tell us. Open the dish and tap Report a mistake, or email the photo to support@inventum.com.au. If you have an allergy, always check with the restaurant before you eat.

They're stored on our servers in Australia and deleted after 7 days, unless you save the menu to your account. Camera details such as GPS location are stripped from each photo before upload. To read the menu, photos are sent to Claude, an AI made by Anthropic, which isn't allowed to train its models on them. The details are in our privacy policy.

As a guest, only on your phone. If you sign in, it's stored in your account in our Australian database so it follows you to other devices. It's sent with each scan or question only to tailor that result, and it's never sold or used for advertising.

In the app, tap You, then Account, then Delete account. You can also email us. The support page lists exactly what's deleted and what's kept.

No. foodglot.com sets no cookies and runs no analytics or ads. Fonts are served from our own site. Our host keeps standard server logs to run and secure it.

Foodglot is made by Inventum Technologies Pty Ltd, an Australian company based in Melbourne. You can reach us at support@inventum.com.au. More on the about page.