How can wehelp?

No. There’s no sign-up and no password. Open AllergenLens, choose the allergens and diets that matter to you, and scan a label.

The FDA’s major 9: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans and sesame.

The rest of the EU’s 14: cereals containing gluten, celery, mustard, lupin, molluscs and sulphites.

Diets: vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free and lactose-free. You can also add ingredients of your own.

Printed ingredient lists on packaged food, in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Polish and Swedish. Good light and a steady, flat label give the best reading.

AllergenLens for iPhone requires iOS 18 or later. Check Google Play for Android availability.

• Contains: something from your profile appears in the ingredients or a “Contains” statement.
• May contain: the label warns of possible cross-contact.
• Not found in the text we read: nothing from your profile was matched in the text that was read. It isn’t a guarantee.
• Couldn’t read clearly: part of the label was blurry, cut off or too small. Scan again or read it yourself.

When in doubt, AllergenLens errs toward flagging. It matches other names too — whey and casein count as milk, tahini as sesame — and marks E-numbers that can come from more than one source for you to check. Tap a result to see the highlighted words that triggered it.

It shows how much of the label AllergenLens read and how confident the reading is. Low coverage means you should take a closer look yourself.

Claims printed on the package are shown for information only. They don’t change the result, which is based on the ingredients and allergen statements.

No. It shows what it found in the text it read, so you can check faster. The decision stays with you: always read the label, ask the manufacturer when unsure, and follow your doctor’s plan if you have a severe allergy.

Yes, as a first look. On the Scan tab, tap Menu and take a photo, pick one, or paste the text. Dishes whose name or description mentions something on your profiles are marked. Menus leave out most ingredients, sauces and oils, so ask staff about every dish, including ones with nothing marked. Ask staff questions shows short questions in the staff’s language with Yes, No and Not sure buttons; some translations are still drafts and are marked as such.

Turn them on in Settings. AllergenLens then downloads the Food Standards Agency’s public allergy alerts when you open the app and now and then in the background, and matches them on your phone to your profiles and saved products. A match by product name is only a hint: open the official notice and compare the pack size, batch and dates with yours. Nothing about you is sent, and when alerts are off no request is made.

Open the profile and tap the share button: send it as a file, show a QR code for the other phone’s camera, or make a one-page PDF summary. The other person opens it in AllergenLens and checks it before it’s added. Allergens their version of the app doesn’t know yet are listed so nothing is dropped silently. Adding it as an extra profile needs Plus; on the free version it can replace an empty profile.

Explain in plain words uses Apple Intelligence on supported iPhones to explain a match, on the device, and marks the text as AI-generated. Ask AI shows you a prompt with the ingredient text and what was found, never your name or profile, and hands it to the AI app you choose, such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. AI can be wrong: always read the label and ask staff or the manufacturer.

Family profiles (up to 6) with a Whole family mode that checks everyone at once, scan history and saved products, and travel allergy cards in 9 languages that work offline and export as image or PDF. Plans: $14.99 per year with a 7-day free trial, $2.99 per month (new subscribers pay $1.49 a month for the first 3 months), or $29.99 once for lifetime. Prices are in USD; your store shows your local price.

The yearly plan includes a 7-day free trial for eligible users. If you don’t cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends, the yearly subscription starts and your Apple ID or Google Play account is charged.

On iPhone, open the Settings app, tap your name, then Subscriptions, choose AllergenLens and tap Cancel Subscription.

On Android, open the Google Play Store, tap your profile picture, then Payments & subscriptions, then Subscriptions, choose AllergenLens and tap Cancel.

Cancel at least 24 hours before the renewal date to avoid the next charge. You keep Plus until the end of the period you’ve paid for.

Purchases are processed by Apple or Google, so refunds are handled by them. For App Store purchases, request one at reportaproblem.apple.com. For Google Play purchases, see Google Play’s refund help.

Purchases are tied to your Apple ID or Google account. Sign in to the store with the same account on your new phone, open AllergenLens and tap Restore Purchases.

Your profiles, scans and history are stored on your phone. There’s no account and no cloud sync, so we can’t see them — and we can’t restore them for you.

There’s no cloud sync. Depending on your settings, your data may be included in your device backup and restored with it. Otherwise, share each profile to the new phone as a file or QR code, or set it up again — it only takes a minute.

Open Settings in AllergenLens and switch off Share anonymous usage. We never collect your allergies, diets, profile names, label photos or results. See the Privacy Policy for details.

Open Settings in AllergenLens and tap Erase all data. This deletes everything AllergenLens stores on your phone and can’t be undone. Deleting the app does the same.