Privacy and control over your Recall experience

User choice from the start

For each new user on the device, the user can opt in to saving snapshots using Recall. If you don’t choose to opt in, it will be off by default and snapshots will not be saved. You can also remove Recall by using Turn Windows features on or off in Windows. 

If there are multiple users that sign in on the PC with different accounts, each user needs to opt in by doing one of the following:

• Launching Recall and going through the setup

• By moving the toggle switch to On for the Save snapshots option under Windows Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots

Each user will see Recall pinned to the taskbar when they reach their desktop. Each user will have a Recall snapshot icon on the system tray letting them know when snapshots are being saved and allowing them to quickly pause saving snapshots. The system tray icon will change its appearance when snapshots are being saved, paused, or when filtering is occurring. The system tray icon is absent if the Save snapshots option is set to Off in Recall & snapshots settings. 

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​​​​​​​ You can turn on or off saving snapshots at any time by going to Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots. You can also pause snapshots temporarily by selecting the Recall icon in the system tray on your PC and selecting the pause option. When changing settings for Recall, you will be prompted to authorize this change using your Windows Hello credentials.

Filtering apps, websites, and sensitive information from your snapshots

You can filter out apps and websites from being saved as snapshots. You can add apps and websites at any time by going to Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots on your PC. For sensitive information, you can use the Sensitive information filtering setting, which is enabled by default, helps filter out snapshots when potentially sensitive information is detected—for example, passwords, credit cards, and more.

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To help maintain your privacy, Recall has the following filtering features:

• Filtering out specific websites will only work in supported browsers such as ​​​​​​​Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Google Chrome. You always have the option to filter out all browsing activity by adding an app filter for a browser. To add support for website filtering, developers need to implement Recall activity APIs.

  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Be aware that websites are filtered when they are in the foreground or are in the currently opened tab of a supported browser. Parts of filtered websites can still appear in snapshots such as embedded content, the browser's history, or an opened tab that isn't in the foreground.

• Your private browsing activity will not be saved as snapshots when you're using Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, or other Chromium-based browsers.

• Windows treats material protected with digital rights management (DRM) similarly; like other Windows apps such as the Snipping Tool, Recall will not store DRM content.

• Sensitive information filtering is on by default and helps reduce passwords, national ID numbers, and credit card numbers from being stored in Recall. Your sensitive information remains on your device at all times, regardless of whether the Sensitive information filtering setting is on or off. For more information about the types of sensitive information that’s filtered, see Reference for sensitive information filtering in Recall.

• Snapshots won't be saved when some remote desktop connection clients are used. The following remote desktop connection clients are filtered from snapshots:

  • ​​​​​​​​​​Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc.exe)

  • VMConnect.exe

    •  Microsoft Remote Desktop from the Microsoft Store is saved in snapshots. To prevent the app from being saved in snapshots, add it to the app filtering list.​​​​​​​

  • ​​​​​​​Azure Virtual Desktop (MSI)

    • Azure Virtual Desktop apps from the Microsoft Store are saved in snapshots. To prevent these apps from being saved in snapshots, add them to the app filtering list.

  • Remote applications integrated locally (RAIL) ​​​​​​​windows

  • Windows App from the Microsoft Store is saved in snapshots. To prevent the app from being saved in snapshots, add it to the app filtering list.

• If you realize that a snapshot contains a website or app that you haven’t filtered yet, you have an option to Delete all the content from the currently saved snapshots for an app or website in your search results for Recall or while viewing a snapshot.

• When you select the Now option in Recall, a snapshot is taken that filters your private browsing windows, filtered apps, and filtered websites. These snapshots are only saved if you’ve enabled saving snapshots. When saving snapshots isn’t enabled, a notification appears at the bottom of the Recall window to let you know that the snapshot from the Now option won’t be saved.

• You can verify that the filter is active by checking whether the Recall icon in the system tray has a filter badge on top of it when you are on a filtered app or website, or when you have a private browsing window open.

• Filtering does not prevent browsers, internet service providers (ISPs), websites, organizations, or others from knowing that the website was accessed and tracking your activity.

• ​​​​​​​By default your app and website filter lists aren’t shared. You can help improve Recall capabilities for filtering apps and websites by sending your list of app and website filters to Microsoft anonymously. If you’d like to opt in to sharing this information, set the Help improve Recall snapshots filtering setting to On.​​​​​​​

Snapshot storage: content stays local

We built privacy and security into Recall's design from the ground up. With Copilot+ PCs, you get powerful AI that runs locally on your device. No internet or cloud connections are required or used to save and analyze snapshots. Snapshots and associated data are stored locally on the device. Recall does not share snapshots or associated data with Microsoft or third parties, nor is it shared between different Windows users on the same device. Windows will ask for your permission before saving snapshots. You are always in control, and you can delete snapshots, pause or turn them off at any time. Any future options for the user to share data will require fully informed explicit action by the user. Like any Windows feature, some diagnostic data may be provided based on the user’s privacy settings. For more information about diagnostic data, see Diagnostics, feedback, and privacy in Windows.

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. Recall requires you to confirm your identity before it launches and before you can access your snapshots, so you’ll also need to enroll into Windows Hello if you haven’t already enrolled. You must have at least one biometric sign-in option enabled for Windows Hello, either facial recognition or a fingerprint, to launch and use Recall.  Before snapshots start getting saved to your device, you’ll need to open Recall and authenticate. Recall takes advantage of just in time decryption protected by Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS). Snapshots and any associated information in the vector database are always encrypted. Encryption keys are protected via Trusted Platform Module (TPM), which is tied to your Windows Hello ESS identity, and can be used by operations within a secure environment called a Virtualization-based Security Enclave (VBS Enclave). This means that other users cannot access these keys and thus cannot decrypt this information. Device Encryption or BitLocker are enabled by default on Windows 11. For more information, see Recall security and privacy architecture in the Windows Experience Blog.

You can delete your snapshots at any time by going to Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots on your PC. Windows sets a maximum storage size to use for snapshots, which you can change at any time. Once that maximum is reached, the oldest snapshots are deleted automatically. You can also choose how long snapshots can be saved on your device.

​​​​​​​Built-in security

The security protecting your Recall content is the same for any content you have on your device. Microsoft provides many built-in security features from the chip to the cloud to protect Recall content alongside other files and apps on your Windows device.

• Secured-core PC: all Copilot+ PCs will be Secured-core PCs. This feature is the highest security standard for Windows 11 devices to be included on consumer PCs. For more information, see Secured-core PCs.

• Microsoft Pluton security processor will be included by default on Copilot+ PCs. For more information, see Microsoft Pluton.

• Copilot+ PC devices with compatible hardware will ship with Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS), which enables more secure sign-in using biometric data or a device-specific PIN. For more information, see Windows Hello Enhanced Sign-in Security (ESS).

Our goal remains simple: make it easy to stay safe and have trust in Windows. The Windows Security Book is available to help you learn more about what makes it easy for users to stay secure with Windows.

Related articles

• Retrace your steps with Recall

• Update on Recall security and privacy architecture | Windows Experience Blog

• Manage Recall (for IT admins)