According to Google:
Microsoft announced Windows Recall in May 2024 and initially rolled it out as a preview in June 2024 for Copilot+ PCs. Following major security and privacy backlash, Microsoft delayed the broad release, re-engineered the tool with added encryption and opt-in controls, and re-released it to Windows Insiders in late 2024 before making it widely available in April 2025. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]Timeline of Windows Recall
- May 2024: Officially announced by Microsoft during a surface and AI event. [1, 2, 3]
- June 2024: Pulled back from its initial public preview release after security researchers exposed severe vulnerabilities regarding unencrypted plaintext data storage. [1]
- Late 2024: Reintroduced to Windows Insider preview testers with mandatory Windows Hello biometric security and encrypted local databases. [1, 2, 3, 4]
- April 2025: Formally rolled out as an opt-in feature for users with compatible Copilot+ hardware running Windows 11 (version 24H2 and later). [1, 2]
Researching further, I discovered settings in Local Group Policy Editor, which are confusing because they are named with a negative context, as you have to "Enable" the configuration to disable the feature.
The settings are listed under User Configuration | Administrative Templates | Windows Components | Windows AI.
- "Turn off saving snapshots for use with Recall" - they claim if it's Not Configured that it will not store screenshots. I don't trust Microsoft so I "Enable" the settings to tell it I don't want screenshots being saved. Backwards, but whatever. I still don't know that I trust that Windows isn't saving them, but it's better than leaving it not configured or disabled.
- "Disable Click to Do" - the description on this says: "... By default, Click to Do is enabled for users." So you must "Enable" this one to disable it.
- "Remove Copilot app" - I hope to high heaven that this actually stops Windows Updates from reinstalling Copilot every time Windows Updates happen. I also hope that these settings don't revert to "Not Configured" or even worse "Disabled" after Windows Updates, especially major ones.
Another thing I discovered was a command line to uninstall Recall. I couldn't find that options in the "Turn Windows features on and off" so I ran the command line and it acts like it worked. Again I don't know how to verify.
The command is:
dism /online /disable-feature /featurename:Recall
If I'm missing settings please help us fill in the gaps.
