Instead of binders, consider scanning them and saving as PDF files.

I took two fair sized boxes full of cookbooks we really didn't need to keep to a charity's thrift store. I scanned the ones we like and use (it took awhile as a low priority task done in many sessions) but then I could get rid of all the books and discard the clipped pages.

In digital image form, they're much easy to keep (and access) and easy to categorize by putting like things in their own folders.

I almost never clip a recipe but I do save a lot on Pinterest, in many categories. I don't save anything unless it sounds like something I would actually cook. I can't cook very much here right now, and most kitchen stuff....cookware, utensils and dishes...are packed up, but I hope to get back to cooking eventually.

I don't think I drift towards any certain type of recipe. I tend to look for a certain recipe i want to make rather than pick up random ones I see. I have a binder that I made with typed versions of our family recipes. I don't need them but I have 15 nephews and nieces,most of whom love these recipes but really show no interest in learning them now,they are all still so young. So I put them together for later. I also printed out the recipes I use for white bread,cookies,and biscuits because I prefer to read a recipe from paper over reading them from my kindle or phone while I am cooking it. I am not sure why,but there you go. I have some cookbooks that I read for fun. The Two Fat Ladies cookbooks are amusing even if the recipes in them are......questionable. And I have some of the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks as well. And I have a random church cookbook that I bought for 20 bucks from a truck driver who was selling them to raise money for some mission trip or something. Not a whole lot of stuff I would want to make (think tons of weird casseroles and cakes) but I did make a yeast roll recipe from it that both SO and I really like.

We share and access recipes in the cloud. Easy as pie.

Friends and family can share.

Perfect for us.

I love finding new recipes, and have a huge "Keeper" binder of our favourite recipes. Another binder of baking, desserts.

Every recipe is hand-written or printed, in a page protector. I will never use a phone or laptop to read a recipe. Too aggravating, and don't want to get gunk in my laptop!

I also have binders of "to-try" recipe.......recipes from cooking shows on PBS, (ATK, Cook's County, Nick Stellito, etc etc.

I've lost my interest in cooking, I hope to get it back again. I absolutely loved cooking and baking for my sweetie.

A few years ago I went thru stacks of papers I'd boxed up over the yrs for moving and sorted thru a ton of it. almost all of the recipes clippings were tossed. I don't cook that much anymore and tend to stick with things I've made over and over and don't use a recipe. I suspect I'll find more clippings when I go thru more boxes and will toss those also. I do need to write down the old family recipes for my kids. I'm also converting some of those to make in the IP.

I'm weeding out my cookbooks and will probably take them to GW.

Honey, where do you live and what time is dinner? We’ll all come over and vote on what recipes you keep.

I have until recently almost a thousand cookbooks and depending on the era of the recipe I can find the same recipe in many of the cookbooks so I stopped clipping long ago. Some ethnic recipes with special ingredients I have kept but with so much being on line if I did decide to make something that would be where I would look. I also know that the ingredients change. Not just from year to year but from season to season so duplicating something is almost impossible. This is one of the reasons that when people try a recipe from their childhood it does not taste the same. A simple example is wheat flour. The variety of wheat that was grown in my childhood is no longer grown. Each variety tastes just a little different along with the amounts of moisture in the product.

I have that many because I like those that explain the foods not just do this, add that.

I love binders. Have plastic sheet protectors, and slide my recipes in them.

When I pared down, I actually made ALL the recipes I wanted to keep, and thus, tossed some more... as they didn't make the cut for one reason or other.

The only book I regret getting rid of, is my German Cook Book I brought with me in 72.

But, I did find some of the recipes online, and thus, even that is ok.

Good luck with your paring down the collection.

Moni

We don't read a recipe from a laptop or phone, we cast it to the TV screen and read it from the kitchen.

You could either scan them or you could take a photo of them. My sister was telling me that she started taking a photo of them with her phone and saving them as a document. If you save them on your computer, you can easily search for a recipe if you name it an easy name like if it's a chicken recipe, be sure and write chicken in the name of the file and you can search for all your chicken recipes and easily find something that sounds interesting to make.

I can NOT read a recipe from a screen, and every time I do I remember how frustrating I find it. I only have one binder but it’s packed full of handwritten and printed recipes. I started out with such good intentions of putting each recipe in a plastic sleeve, but somewhere/somehow that fell off and I resorted to cramming papers in the side pockets. I should go through and reorganize, I’m sure if I put them all in plastic sleeves again I’d have two to three binders. I originally thought I’d photocopy each recipe for all five of my kids and give them their own binder when they reached adulthood... I had that idea when they were all still young... now my youngest ones are 17 and my oldest daughter (21) started typing up her favorite recipes of mine on her laptop recently as she’s getting ready to move out in the next year. She doesn’t want a binder, she wants it all electronic. LOL! Oh well, I guess if they really want a binder I’d still make it for them. When friends ask for recipes I just text them a picture of it from my binder.

I have pared down the Cook Books pretty well...but still have a box of old

recipes..some in my Grandma's and my Mom's handwriting. There is no way

I am going to just throw those away and put them on PDF files, phone

or computer. Doesn't make sense to me to throw away a piece of paper

and replace it with files and then, of course, save them in case of computer/phone failure. Just keep them neatly...box,binder or whatever.

But...if they mean nothing to you...by all means throw them in the trash.

Rocket science, it's not.

Yeah, I'm like that: a lot more saved recipes than I will ever have time to make. Most of mine are now saved electronically, in a "food" folder on my laptop. I love the 'foodgawker' website for random inspiration. And every so often, I'll get inspired to find the perfect Pumpkin Cake recipe (for example) so I'll search and save a dozen versions. Then I'll print out a combined recipe to try, but do I go back to my dozen electronic versions and weed them out? No. That's what I really "should" do. Someday.

What works relatively well for me, is to file my printed out recipes in pocket folders. I have a folder each for meats & mains, breads, veggies, and desserts. (Desserts is the thickest, lol.) "Tried and true" go on one side, "Try Someday" go on the other. The rare "Yuck did not work" goes to the back of the "try someday" side.

Eventually I will go through my late MIL's physical recipe folder. Her collection is a typical jumble of newspaper or magazine clippings, neat 3x5 cards from family friends, handwritten scrawls on envelopes, etc. Sort of fun to see what was trending in the 60's & 70's.

I understand the space saving advantage of saving recipes on the computer, but I find that when I save something there I tend to forget about it. I like having the physical book or page to leaf through and prop in front of me.

I have scanned and saved the recipes handwritten by my mother, as well as making photocopies.

OklaMoni, I like your suggestion about making the untried recipes that I am considering keeping. This sounds like a nice activity with my DD, every few weeks perhaps!

I have one of those photo album-type binders; it works really well for me. I always try a recipe before saving it, and if I decide to save it, I often rewrite it onto a 4 x 6 card before sticking it in the binder, but I do have some clippings in there, too, that I've tested and are worthy of saving. New clippings or recipes off the net go into a folder that's in my home office, and when I'm in the mood to try something new I choose something from the folder.

I have a bookshelf in the great room adjacent to the kitchen where I keep most of my cookbooks (I don't have a large collection), but I do have a couple stored out of sight under the counter (much as I love my old tattered Betty Crocker cookbook from when I first got married, it really isn't nice enough to be on display LOL!).

I am another one who doesn't want to read off a screen while in the kitchen, and like an above poster, will forget about things saved on the computer -- so no use of tech for me outside of searching for a recipe off the net and printing it off if I wan to find a recipe for a particular purpose (like if I'm in the mood for something or want to find a recipe for a particular ingredient).

My tastes have changed over the years as my cooking skills have increased and my palate has expanded. I enjoy all sorts of foods and flavors, and it's not so much that I gravitate towards any certain type of recipe; rather, I gravitate away from recipes with certain ingredients or taste profiles that I don't like (e.g. I really dislike any sweetness with animal proteins) or seem overly complicated to prepare. I only clip recipes I am actually interested in making, though.