Microsoft’s New ‘Recall’ AI in Windows 11 Tracks Every Action on Your PC
Microsoft has introduced ‘Recall,’ an AI feature in Windows 11 that records and indexes all user activities. It allows users to search and access past content from applications, websites, or documents through a timeline of snapshots using natural language queries.
- Microsoft’s Windows 11 feature ‘Recall’ records user activities via periodic screenshots, enabling search through historical data.
- Recall needs specific hardware requirements to operate, including a Copilot+ PC with a 40 TOPs NPU, a Snapdragon X chip, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage.
Microsoft has unveiled a new AI-driven feature for Windows 11, ‘Recall,’ designed to record and index all user activities on a PC, facilitating search through historical actions using natural language queries. Acting like a digital photographic memory, Recall enables users to access past content from any application, website, or document by scrolling through a timeline of snapshots.
To operate Recall, specific hardware requirements include a Copilot+ PC with a 40 TOPs NPU, a Snapdragon X chip, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. The feature periodically captures screenshots of active windows, compiling these into a semantic index that can be searched using human language. This index includes URLs, text, and images, allowing interactive retrieval of information.
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The snapshots, encrypted with Bitlocker and tied to the user’s account, remain local and are not shared, even with other users on the same device. Microsoft emphasizes that data is stored locally on the device, not in the cloud, and users retain full control over what Recall records. They can delete snapshots, adjust time ranges, pause recording, and filter apps and websites from being saved. The feature excludes content from Microsoft Edge’s InPrivate windows and DRM-protected content by default.
Recall is set to launch in June with initial support for English, Chinese (simplified), French, German, Japanese, and Spanish, with additional languages to follow. Yusuf Mehdi from Microsoft highlighted that Recall ensures privacy and control, with settings allowing users to manage the recording process directly from the System Tray on the Taskbar. Microsoft has also acknowledged that Recall performs no content moderation, potentially capturing sensitive information such as credentials and banking details.
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