You Can Now Test Recall, the Controversial Artificial Intelligence Feature in Windows
Back in June, Microsoft announced a new feature called Recall for Windows , which will let you see your computing history just as easily as your web browsing history. Whenever you need to retrace your steps or revisit something from the past on your computer, Recall can help.
Here’s how it works: Recall quietly takes regular screenshots (called snapshots) in the background, which are then analyzed by Copilot’s AI. If you need to return to a document, photo, web page, or any other object from your computing past, you can simply describe it in natural language to get the relevant results. It’s a lot like the Screenshots app available on Pixel 9 phones .
When Recall was first released, it caused a wave of criticism and complaints: many users were not particularly happy with all their computer activity being recorded, and it raised questions about who could access the data. Screenshots of everything you do on your personal computer are not something you want Microsoft or computer hackers to gain access to, or even for family members to accidentally stumble across.
Now, after a delay and rework , Recall is back. To test it out right now, you’ll need a PC with Windows Copilot+ (for the necessary AI processing), and you’ll also need to be running the developer edition of Windows 11 through the Windows Insider program—it’s free to switch, and you can do so. here , but expect a few bugs and crashes. I tested this feature this week and here’s what I found.
Getting started with Windows Recall
Microsoft is keen to emphasize that Recall is fully on board (even though it obviously wasn’t the original idea). You’ll be asked if you want to turn it on during the standard Windows setup process, and after that, you can turn it on or off by going to Windows Settings and selecting Privacy & Security > Feedback & Snapshots .
The options you’ll find here give you a reasonable level of control over how the refund works. You can set how long snapshots are stored and the maximum amount of memory they can occupy on your system. You can also manually delete snapshots based on the time range or delete everything that was ever saved.
Here you can turn on the privacy filter, which means that snapshots containing information such as credit card details and passwords will not be stored. You can also specify certain apps and certain websites that you want to exclude from the review, for example, you can add your banking website.
Based on the time I spent with Recall, it follows these rules, although you need a compatible browser for it to work properly (Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Opera are supported , as well as other Chromium-based browsers). . However, it appears that AI is quite easy to fool when it comes to getting credit card numbers and passwords past the sensitive information filter. This is clearly far from infallible.
If you want to use Recall, you’re probably better off pausing it when you’re doing something you don’t want to be recorded, like working through an online checkout. You can pause a call and access other call settings by clicking the Restore button in the notification area to the right of the taskbar—it looks like a pair of squashed arrows with a star in the middle.
Every time you open Recall, you need to verify your identity using a PIN, fingerprint, or face, just like you do when you sign in to Windows. All information is encrypted and stored locally on the device, so Microsoft or anyone else cannot access it. The only way for someone else to see these snapshots is to bypass the login mechanisms and encryption on your computer.
And there are a lot of snapshots that need to be there if Recall is going to remember everything you did on your computer. Microsoft doesn’t specify how often screenshots are saved, but it appears to depend on how often you switch between apps and make changes (for example, there’s no need to take identical screenshots if you’re just reading a website).
Search for pictures and decide whether to use Recall
You can access the return interface from the Start menu or taskbar, and once you’ve verified your identity, you’ll be taken to the most recent snapshot on your timeline. You can scroll back in time manually and move one snapshot at a time in any direction. Below each screenshot you will see a timestamp as well as the name of the app you were in.
Recall’s search capabilities are quite impressive: you can search text and images on captured screenshots, so “lifehacker” will take you to snapshots from the Lifehacker website, and “sunset” will show you the time you had a photo or video of a sunset on your screen. This feature can also handle more complex searches, so you can simply describe what you’re looking for.
When you get to the snapshot, you can remove it from the recording, bring it into the Windows Snipping Tool, copy it to the clipboard, and extract the images and text from it. You can also search the web (via Bing, of course) based on the text and images in the screenshots if you want more information about what you’re looking at.
There’s a Click to Do feature that scans photos for useful sections of images, such as graphics or text blocks. You can then click on any of these sections to do more with them (for example, copy them to the clipboard or open them in another program). You can also launch apps and links directly from the Recall interface.
It’s not perfect by any means, and at this point Recall still has the “preview” label applied to it. For example, there’s no easy way to filter photos by app, although you can do so using search results. The AI, as you’d expect from an AI, doesn’t always correctly identify what’s in your saved screenshots, although it’s reliable enough to be useful.
There’s no shortage of people on the Internet and social media telling you whether you should or shouldn’t use Windows Recall, but I’m not going to add to all that noise: it’s your choice whether you’re happy with it or not. what security and privacy measures Microsoft has put in place, and whether you find the search and retrack features useful. It’s at least easy to turn on and off, so you won’t have a hard time trying it out quickly when it finally arrives on Windows.
Personally, I’ll leave this enabled – being able to remember everything you’ve recently done on your computer can be incredibly useful sometimes, whether I’m researching histories or trying to find lost files. This doesn’t seem to have a significant impact on performance, and even if the AI filtering isn’t perfect and the occasional credit card number or password is captured, it will be difficult for anyone else to find that screenshot.