Recall is an upcoming AI feature of Windows 11. It takes captures of the screen every five seconds and saves them on the local system. Users may then interact with AI to look up information or process data that has been captured.
Most current Windows 11 PCs won’t get Recall functionality, as a Copilot+ PC is required. These PCs have specific requirements that include a neural processing unit and 16 GB of RAM.
The first iteration of Recall will only be available for specific Snapdragon ARM processors on top of that. With time, Recall will become available for AMD and Intel PCs as well.
Recall Criticism
Windows 11’s Recall feature is not without criticism. Here are the main points:
- It records a user’s entire activity on the Windows PC, with a few exceptions. This makes it the holy grail for law enforcement, spammers, malicious actors, advertisers and marketers.
- Recall snapshots require lots of storage. The default is 25 GB on a 256 GB hard drive. While you can drop that to 10 GB, it is still a lot of space. On 1 TB+ drives, the default is 150 GB of storage.
Disabling Recall in Windows 11
There are three options to disable Recall on PCs that support it.
- Via the Settings app.
- Via the Group Policy Editor.
- Via the Registry (not yet available)
Settings app
- Open the Start menu and select Settings.
- Go to Privacy & security > Recall and snapshots.
- Toggle Save snapshots to off.
This is all to it. Recall is disabled from that moment on for that user account.
Turn off Recall in the Group Policy Editor
Note: The Group Policy Editor is only available in Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions. Home systems may disable Recall in the Registry, which is explained in the next section.
- Open the Start menu.
- Type gpedit.msc and press the Enter-key to load the Group Policy Editor.
- Use the hierarchy on the left to go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows AI.
- Double-click on Turn off Saving Snapshots for Windows.
- Change the statues from Not Configured to Disabled.
- Restart the PC.
Disable Recall in the Registry
Information not yet available, will update once it becomes available.
Windows 11’s Recall records a user’s entire activity on the Windows PC, but to the extent of the ‘Maximum storage for snapshots’, be that the default value or the one set by the user.
As I understand it, if all activity is indeed recorded, not all is permanent, perhaps the scheme is FIFO (first in, first out)?
Whatever, should I ever run a Windows 11+ OS with ‘Recall’ available that I wouldn’t use it, and your documentation, Martin, to disable it is most welcomed of course.
You are right Tom, it is first in first out. The oldest records get deleted once there is no room anymore to store new ones. Microsoft said that 25 GB should be good for about 3 months worth of activity.
I can smell Microsoft OneDrive automatic uploads for oldest snapshots in future Windows updates.
I can see the gaming forums now… “I get a microstutter every 5 seconds….).