Disabling Recall Feature (AI Timeline) in Windows 11

• To deactivate the Recall function on Windows 11, navigate to Settings > Privacy & security > Recall & snapshots, then toggle off the “Save snapshots” option.
• You can also turn off Windows Recall AI via the Registry Editor or the Group Policy Editor.

With Windows 11 version 24H2, users have the option to disable the Recall feature either permanently or temporarily. This guide will walk you through the necessary steps to perform this adjustment. While the Recall feature is designed to help you easily retrieve various activities conducted on your computer—such as documents, images, websites, emails, and applications—using a locally running AI model, not all users may find it suitable due to concerns about privacy.

The timeline functionality effectively takes ongoing screenshots of your actions on screen, which may capture sensitive information, including private images and videos. Fortunately, Microsoft has enhanced this feature to automatically identify and prevent the capture of sensitive data, including passwords and credit card numbers.

Furthermore, many users may have reservations about the potential impact on system resources and battery life, despite the AI being primarily processed by the Neural Processing Unit (NPU). Ideally, this feature should not severely affect performance or battery usage.

Additionally, trust issues may arise, as even though the AI technology operates locally on the machine, numerous users may worry about corporate surveillance, which should not be a concern.

Regardless of these considerations, Microsoft has provided options within the Settings app to disable the Recall function entirely or temporarily from the Taskbar. You can also execute this through the Group Policy Editor or Registry settings.

This guide will detail how to turn off the Recall function on Windows 11.

• Completely disable Recall AI on Windows 11
• Completely deactivate Recall AI via Registry
• Completely turn off Recall AI using Group Policy

Completely disable the Recall feature on Windows 11

To turn off Recall on Windows 11, follow these steps:

1. Open Settings on your Windows 11 device.
2. Select Privacy & security.
3. Access the Recall & snapshots section.

   

4. Disable the “Save snapshots” toggle switch.

   

5. (Optional) Select the Delete snapshots option.
6. Click on the Delete all button to remove all snapshots.

   

Once you finalize these steps, the Recall feature will be turned off and no longer capture screenshots of your activities.

If you prefer a temporary shutdown of the feature, simply click the “Recall” icon on the Taskbar and select “Pause until tomorrow” .

After doing this, the AI timeline will pause capturing snapshots until you reactivate the feature.

To re-enable Recall, simply repeat the instructions above, but in step 4, turn the toggle switch back on.

Disable Recall feature via the Registry

To turn off Windows Recall through the Registry Editor, follow these steps:

1. Open Start.
2. Type regedit in the search bar and select the top result to launch the Registry Editor.
3. Navigate to this path:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\WindowsAI

4. Right-click on the WindowsAI key, choose the New option, and then select “DWORD (32-bit) Value” .

   

5. Label the new key as AllowRecallEnablement and press Enter.
6. Double-click the newly created key to set its value to 0.

   

7. Click OK.
8. Restart your computer.

Upon completing these steps, the Recall feature will be inactive on your Copilot+ PC for all users. This action will also remove all Recall components from the system. If it was previously set up, altering the Registry keys will erase the snapshots stored on your computer.

Deactivate Recall feature using Group Policy

For users operating Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, or Education, the Recall feature can be turned off through the Group Policy Editor, which isn’t an option available in Windows 11 Home.

To disable Recall via Group Policy, follow these steps:

1. Open Start.
2. Search for gpedit and click the first result to access the Group Policy Editor.
3. Navigate to the following path:

   Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows AI

4. Right-click on the “Allow Recall to be enabled” policy and select Edit.

   

5. Select the Disabled option.

   

6. Click on the Apply button.
7. Click the OK button.

By completing these steps, the Recall feature will cease to operate on your system, and its components will be eliminated. If it was already configured previously, changing the policy state will also remove any existing snapshots. You will also need to restart your PC to finalize this process.

Author: Egor Kostenko

My goal is to make complex technical topics simple and accessible. On this site, I gather unique and useful content that not only solves users’ problems but also helps them better understand the capabilities of Windows.