How to set up Mealie

Save, organize, and plan your recipes. This guide covers how to access it, log in for the first time, configure the basics, and where its data lives so you can back it up.

1. What is Mealie?

A self-hosted recipe manager and meal planner. Import recipes from any website, organize them with tags and categories, plan your meals for the week, and generate shopping lists.

2. How to access it

Once it's enabled, Mealie runs on your SparkBox at:

http://<your-NAS-IP>:9925

Paste any recipe URL to import it automatically with photos and instructions

3. First login

Default admin: changeme@example.com / MyPassword. Change this immediately on first login.

If it instead asks for a password you didn't set, check Settings → Passwords in your SparkBox dashboard — every auto-generated credential is listed there.

4. Tips

• Paste a recipe URL to instantly import it with ingredients and instructions
• Use the meal planner to organize your week and auto-generate shopping lists

5. Where your data lives

Mealie's config and persistent data are stored on the SparkBox host under:

/opt/sparkbox/modules/mealie/config/

Backups via the SparkBox dashboard's Backup tile include this directory by default, so a single restore brings Mealie back to its current state on a fresh install.

Next steps