"Recall" is a new feature of Windows 11 24H2 that records your PC usage by taking screenshots of your active windows every couple of seconds. This is supposed to allow you to use natural language-based searches to look through your past PC usage. It also includes visual search using AI to locate what you need from that huge library of screenshots.

Didn't Microsoft deprecate a feature called "Timeline" due to low usage numbers? "Recall" seems to be "Timeline" on steroids. Another version of "Cramming AI down our throats."

Microsoft seems to believe that we want access to our recent data. Forcing recent documents in the Windows 11 Start menu is another case.

There are definitely privacy concerns. MS says Recall data will reside locally on your PC, and they will not have access to your data. This is all well and good, but in a situation where someone gains access to your PC, either locally or remotely, this becomes a potential nightmare. I believe this is the reason BitLocker encryption is turned on by default in Windows 24H2 Home and Pro versions.

Then there is the impact on a users storage. Not only does "Recall" data use a huge amount of space on your local drive. You need at least 50 GB of free space for Recall. I'm curious what impact this has on SSD's. If data is being written to your SSD every few seconds, this will increase the TBW (Terabytes Written) exponentially, and in my opinion causing premature failure.

You have to have a Copilot + PC with a 40 TOPs NPU in order to run Recall, so I won't be able to use it even if wanted to, and believe me I don't.

I'm interested in hearing others opinions on this controversial new feature of Windows 11 24H2.

pelaird