Privacy and Security Enable or Disable Recall Snapshots in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable saving Recall snapshots for your account or all users in Windows 11 on Copilot+ PCs.

Recall is an experience exclusive to Copilot+ PCs that will help you easily find and remember things you've seen using natural language. To help provide you with that "photographic" memory, you can opt in to saving snapshots of your screen periodically. You can quickly search your snapshots to find things on your Copilot+ PC. For example, you can search for content you've seen in apps, websites, images, and documents. Recall doesn't record audio or save continuous video. It also doesn’t save game video when Game Mode is active on platforms that support it.

If you opt in to the feature, then as you use your PC, a snapshot of your active screen will be saved every few seconds and when the content of your active window changes. Snapshots are also protected with Windows Hello, so that you are the only signed in user can access Recall content. Recall allows you to search for content, including both images and text, using the clues you remember. Trying to remember the name of the sustainable restaurant you saw last week? Just ask Recall and it retrieves both text and visual matches for your search, automatically sorted by how closely the results match your search. Recall can even jump back into the content you saw.

You're always in control of what's saved as a snapshot. You can disable saving snapshots, pause temporarily, filter apps and websites, and delete your snapshots at any time.

You can choose how long snapshots can be saved on your device. In the Maximum storage duration for snapshots setting, select either 30, 60, 90, 180 days, or unlimited. Once snapshots reach the age limit, they are deleted from the device. If you don’t set the maximum storage duration, then snapshots aren’t deleted until the Maximum storage for snapshots limit is reached, and then the oldest snapshots are deleted first.

To help maintain your privacy, Recall processes your content locally on the Copilot+ PC and securely stores it only on your device. Snapshots are encrypted by Device Encryption or BitLocker, which are enabled by default on Windows 11. Recall doesn't share snapshots with other users that are signed into Windows on the same device. Microsoft can't access or view the snapshots.

Starting with Windows 11 build 26100.3915 (24H2), You work across so many apps, sites, and documents it can be hard to remember where you saw something you want to get back to. Recall (preview) saves you time by offering an entirely new way to search for things you’ve seen or done on your PC securely. With the AI capabilities of Copilot+ PCs, it’s now possible to quickly find and get back to any app, website, image, or document just by describing its content. To use Recall, you will need to opt-in to save snapshots, which are images of your activity, and enroll in Windows Hello to confirm your presence so only you can access your snapshots. You are always in control of what snapshots are saved and can pause saving snapshots at any time. As you use your Copilot+ PC throughout the day working on documents or presentations, taking video calls, and context switching across activities, Recall will take regular snapshots and help you find things faster and easier. When you need to find or get back to something you’ve done previously, open Recall and authenticate with Windows Hello. When you’ve found what you were looking for, you can reopen the application, website, or document, or use Click to Do to act on any image or text in the snapshot you found.

Your PC needs the following minimum system requirements for Recall:

• A Copilot+ PC that meets the Secured-core standard
• 40 TOPs NPU (neural processing unit)
• 16 GB RAM
• 8 logical processors
• 256 GB storage capacity
  • To enable Recall, you’ll need at least 50 GB of storage space free
  • Saving snapshots automatically pauses once the device has less than 25 GB of storage space
• Users need to enable Device Encryption or BitLocker
• Users need to enroll into Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security with at least one biometric sign-in option enabled in order to authenticate

Starting with Windows 11 build 26200.5661 (Dev 24H2) and build 26120.4452 (Beta 24H2), Microsoft is making it easier and faster for you to find and reconnect with the apps and websites that matter to you by introducing a new personalized homepage to Recall. The new homepage brings your recent activity and top-used content front and center, enabling you to easily get back to your previous tasks. After you opt-in to snapshot collection, your homepage becomes your personalized productivity portal, displaying:

• Recent Snapshots: Your most recent snapshots captured by Recall, helping you quickly pick up where you left off.
• Top Apps and Websites: A curated view of the top three applications and websites you have spent the most time on in the past 24 hours.

References:





EXAMPLE Recall on Copilot+ PC







1 Open Settings (Win+I).

2 Click/tap on Privacy & security on the left side, and click/tap on Recall & snapshots on the right side under "Windows permissions". (see screenshot below)



3 Under Snapshots, turn on or off (default) Save snapshots for what you want. (see screenshot below)


4 If you turned on Save snapshots, then click/tap on OK when prompted by Windows Security to approve. (see screenshot below)


5 You can now close Settings if you like.

You must be signed in as an administrator to use this option.

The Local Group Policy Editor is only available in the Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, and Education editions.

All editions can use Option Three to configure the same policy.

1 Open the Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc).

2 Navigate to the location below in the left pane of Local Group Policy Editor. (see screenshot below)



3 In the right pane of Windows AI, double click/tap on the Turn off Saving Snapshots for Windows (old name) or Turn off saving snapshots for use with Recall (new name) policy to edit it. (see screenshot above)

4 Do step 5 (enable) or step 6 (disable) below for what you want.

This is the default setting to allow using Option One.

This will override Option One.

7 You can now close the Local Group Policy Editor if you like.

You must be signed in as an administrator to use this option.

1 Do step 2 (enable) or step 3 (disable) below for what you would like to do.

This is the default setting to allow using Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

This will override Option One.

(Contents of REG file for reference)

4 Save the REG file to your desktop.

5 Double click/tap on the downloaded REG file to merge it.

6 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

7 You can now delete the downloaded REG file if you like.


That's it,
Shawn Brink