What to eat?
Where to eat?
Decide on meals, cuisines, restaurants or your own custom list. Go solo, pass one phone around, or invite people to vote from separate phones.
Your choices. One decision. Meal decided.
Contact support
For help, bug reports, feedback, feature suggestions or privacy questions, email us.
Email MealDecide supportmealdecide@gmail.comReporting a problem?
These details help us understand what happened:
- Your phone model and operating system
- Your MealDecide app version
- One-phone or separate-phone mode
- What happened and how to reproduce it
- A screenshot, if helpful—hide anything private
Together in the room, or from anywhere.
Pass one phone
1–4 people · One deviceChoose the group size and enter the names. Go solo, or take private turns selecting the options you would enjoy and optionally starring favourites before passing the phone. The decision flow works offline.
Use separate phones
2–12 people · Including the hostThe host creates a round and shares an invitation link or code. Each person uses MealDecide on their own phone and votes privately. Everyone needs an internet connection.
Bring the options
Choose Specific Meals, Type of Food, a Custom List or Restaurants. Restaurants uses a shortlist of places you enter.
Make private choices
See the options together, select up to eight you would happily choose, and optionally star favourites from those selected choices. Confirm your choices when you finish.
Reveal the decision
The most selections wins. Favourite stars break ties only between selection leaders; remaining ties go to an equal-chance wheel. In separate-phone rounds, the host starts the shared reveal.
Want a surprise? In one-phone mode, choose Let Fate Decide to skip voting and spin all the options in your list.
These instructions cover the updated MealDecide experience. Features may differ in older installed versions. If a choice is missing, check your app version or contact support.
Frequently asked questions
Does everyone need to install MealDecide?
One-phone rounds need just one installation for 1–4 people. For separate-phone rounds, each of the 2–12 participants uses the MealDecide app on their own phone. Both Android and iPhone can take part in the same remote round.
Can I use MealDecide on my own?
Yes. Choose one phone and then 1 person. Pick the options you fancy, or use Let Fate Decide to spin the full list without voting.
How is the final decision chosen?
The option selected by the most people comes first. If several options share the highest selection count, favourite stars break the tie between those leaders only. Any remaining tied leaders get an equal chance on the wheel. If everyone explicitly confirms that none of the options work, the wheel chooses from the full list. Unfinished ballots are not counted as “none”. Results explain the decision; wheel colours distinguish options, not people. Existing rounds created under the older Yes/No rules keep their original rules.
Why can I choose only eight options? Do I have to star one?
The eight-choice limit applies to each person’s ballot, not the number of options in the list. You can accept several choices equally. Stars are optional and can be added only to selected choices; removing a choice also removes its star. If nothing works for you, confirm with no selections.
Can I be notified when everyone has voted?
In a separate-phone round, the host can enable “Notify me when everyone has voted” and allow notifications on their phone. One alert is sent when everyone has finished, so the host can reveal the decision. This is host-only; guests do not receive the alert. The host can turn off an unsent alert in the round preferences. Phone notification settings also apply.
How do invitations and shared reveals work?
The host counts everyone, including themselves, and shares the invitation through a messaging app or another channel. Open the link, or choose Join with a code inside MealDecide. Each participant submits private choices. Before the reveal, the group can see who has finished, but not another person’s individual votes. After the reveal, everyone can see who selected the winning option and anonymous totals. Individual favourite marks and choices for other options stay private. Once everyone has submitted, the host starts the reveal. Keep the waiting screen open to watch together; returning later shows the same result, and a replay does not pick a new winner.
Can the host add another option after invitations go out?
Yes, until the host starts the reveal. Everyone’s existing choices are kept, and everyone must review the new option and submit again before a full-group reveal can start.
What if someone closes the app or loses their connection?
Separate-phone drafts are saved on that phone. Submitted votes are stored with the remote round. Return to Your recent rounds in the same app on the same phone to continue. Clearing app data or reinstalling can remove your access. If the voting deadline passes, the host can extend voting or explicitly decide using completed ballots; the result is labelled as a partial round. Remote rounds expire within seven days. Closing the app may end an unfinished one-phone round.
Do I need an account or an internet connection?
No account or login is needed. One-phone decisions, saved local lists and local history work offline. Separate-phone rounds, optional Google restaurant searches and ads need an internet connection.
Can I make my own lists or scan a menu?
Yes. Restaurants and Custom List open with Add items first and optional saved-list reuse underneath. Type or paste several items, or scan a menu in Custom List using a new or existing menu photo. Text recognition happens on your device; review and edit the detected names before adding them. Saving a named list is optional. Reusing one makes a round copy; editing that copy does not silently change the saved original. Open My saved lists from Choices to manage lists. New list names must be unique across categories, ignoring capitals and extra spaces.
Can I attach my own food photos?
Items use built-in MealDecide artwork. Recognised foods get a suggested category image, and other items use consistent fallback artwork. You can choose another built-in image. Gallery and camera photos cannot be attached to items. Photos are available only for menu text recognition.
Do we have to find a nearby restaurant?
No. Choose “We’ve got it — done ✓” whenever the meal or restaurant decision is enough. Eligible meals and cuisines can offer an optional Google nearby search. Restaurant shortlists can look up the selected place. Your own one-phone items only offer nearby search when you enable it and choose a suitable search term in the item editor.
What appears on shared invitations and result cards?
In remote rounds, the round name is always visible inside the group. Including it in shared invitations or results is off by default; including participant names on remote result cards is also off by default. The host controls both settings. Anyone in the round can share the decision and choose a caption. One-phone result cards include the entered participant names. Check the preview before sharing; copies already shared cannot be recalled.
Where are my lists and history saved, and how do I clear them?
Your personalised Specific Meals and Type of Food choices, named lists and decision history stay on your device. Removed default choices stay removed until you explicitly restore starter suggestions. You can remove one item or select several for removal, with Undo available after removal. Saved remote shortlists, access and completed remote history are also kept on the phone where you used them; this is not an account-based backup or sync service. In Help, use Reset one-phone data for local meal lists and history, or Clear remote data on this phone for saved remote access and history. Clearing local remote data does not delete a server round. The host can delete a round from its settings or result screen; otherwise it expires within seven days.
MealDecide Privacy Policy
For the Android and iPhone apps, including local and separate-phone decisions.
MealDecide is developed by Gavin Laws. Contact: mealdecide@gmail.com. Updated 1 November 2026. This policy covers MealDecide on Android and iPhone.
One-phone decisions
Names or nicknames, lists, built-in artwork choices, history and preferences stay on your device for one-phone rounds. Older versions may also have saved profile and statistics data locally; the current app does not offer a Stats screen. These rounds work offline. There are no user accounts or developer analytics tracking individual food preferences.
Separate-phone decisions
When you create or join a remote round, MealDecide sends your entered name or nickname, round title, options, private ballot and shared result to Cloudflare to coordinate the round. Each participant can retrieve only their own full ballot, including their favourite marks. Group members can see participant names, completion status and the aggregate decision. After the reveal, they can also see who selected the winning option and anonymous selection and favourite-star totals. Individual favourite marks and choices for other options remain private. Names are not verified. Anyone with the invitation code may join while places remain, so share invitations only with your intended group. Remote rounds require internet access.
Storage and deletion
Remote rounds expire within seven days and active round data is scheduled for deletion. The host can delete a round sooner. Cloudflare infrastructure, security records and backups follow Cloudflare’s retention policies. Private session credentials are stored on your phone; only their hashes are stored in the round. Losing or clearing app data loses access to those credentials. Local lists and history remain until you remove them or reset/uninstall the app. Clearing remote data on a phone does not delete a round from the server or another person’s phone. Reset one-phone data clears local meal lists and history, including legacy profile data.
Abuse prevention
Cloudflare receives network information, including your IP address. The service uses a server-keyed daily pseudonym derived from that address for short-lived request rate limits; raw IP addresses are not stored in MealDecide’s round database. People sharing an internet connection can share these limits. Provider security processing follows Cloudflare’s policies. The service does not sell demographic or voting data.
Artwork and menu scanning
Items use built-in MealDecide artwork. Camera and gallery photos cannot be attached as item images. Optional menu scanning recognises text on-device using Apple Vision or Google ML Kit. Review and edit detected items before adding them. Raw menu photos are not uploaded to our server, an AI service or a paid OCR service. Reviewed options you choose to use in a remote round are sent to the server.
Advertising
MealDecide uses Google AdMob banners and Google’s User Messaging Platform. The app disables advertising personalization in its request configuration and does not request access to Apple’s advertising identifier. Google’s SDKs may process IP addresses, approximate location inferred from IP, app/device identifiers, ad interactions, diagnostics and performance data for ad delivery, measurement, security and fraud prevention. Entered participant names, ballots, lists and history are not passed to the advertising bridge. Consent messages and advertising privacy options are available when required. Ads are hidden during private voting, sharing previews and reveals. The app contains no full-screen ads.
Optional host notifications
If the host enables notifications, a device notification token is stored with that round so MealDecide can send one alert when all votes are in. Apple or Google delivers the alert. It contains the round code and, only when title sharing is enabled, the round title; it contains no ballot choices. Guests do not receive these alerts. Permission is optional. The host can turn off any unsent round alert in the app or disable notifications in phone settings. Tokens expire with the round or are removed when it is deleted.
Sharing and restaurant searches
Sharing requires your action. In separate-phone rounds, round names are visible within the group; including a round title in shared invitations or results, or participant names on result cards, is off by default and controlled by the host. One-phone result cards can include the entered participant names. Check the preview before sharing. Shared copies cannot be recalled or deleted by MealDecide. Saving a card adds it to Photos when permitted. Optional Google restaurant searches send the selected search query to Google. Google and sites you visit can process search terms, cookies, IP addresses and permitted location under their own policies. MealDecide does not keep a location history. Avoid personal information in names you intend to search or share.
Support and your choices
Emailing support shares your email address and whatever you include. Support messages are retained as needed to resolve requests and meet applicable obligations. Contact mealdecide@gmail.com for assistance, deletion requests or privacy questions. You can use nicknames, decline optional permissions, delete hosted rounds, clear saved local data and reopen advertising privacy options when available. MealDecide is for a general audience and is not designed specifically for children. Providers can process data internationally under their policies. The policy may change as features evolve.
Google Privacy Policy · Cloudflare Privacy Policy
This support website
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