Privacy and Security Exclude a Website from Recall Snapshots in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to add or remove websites to filter out of your Recall snapshots for your account in Windows 11.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You can select which websites you want to exclude, such as banking websites. You will need to use a supported browser for Recall to filter websites and to automatically filter private browsing activity. Supported browsers, and their capabilities include:

• Microsoft Edge: blocks websites and filters private browsing activity
• Firefox: blocks websites and filters private browsing activity
• Opera: blocks websites and filters private browsing activity
• Google Chrome: blocks websites and filters private browsing activity
• Chromium based browsers: For Chromium-based browsers not listed above, filters private browsing activity only, doesn’t block specific websites

If Recall gets launched, or the Now option is selected in Recall, then a snapshot is taken even when InPrivate windows, blocked apps, and blocked websites are displayed. However, these snapshots are not saved by Recall. If you choose to send the information from this snapshot to another app, a temp file will also be created in C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Temp to share the content. The temporary file is deleted once the content is transferred over the app you selected to use.

Starting with Windows 11 build 26120.3281 (Dev 24H2), Recall filtering options are now easily accessible via the Recall system tray flyout instead of having to set filtering directly in Settings.

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.

References:








1 Open Quick Settings (Win+A), and click/tap on the Recall button. (see screenshot below)


2 Click/tap on the Add or Remove button for the current site. (see screenshots below)







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 Do step 4 (add) or step 5 (remove) below for what you want.














6 If prompted by Windows Security, click/tap on OK to approve. (see screenshot below)


7 When finished adding or removing websites for the filter list, you can close Settings if you like.


That's it,
Shawn Brink