Recall — User Guide

Recall is a privacy-first browsing memory. It runs quietly as a Chrome extension, remembers the pages you visit, and (optionally) writes a short AI summary for each — all saved on your own device. You can browse your history any time in the extension, the desktop offline reader, or the mobile app, and export a backup you can open anywhere.

Upgrading is simple and needs no account with us. Subscribe to Recall Pro through the checkout (handled by our payment provider, Lemon Squeezy) and you'll receive a licence key by email. Paste it into Settings → Recall Pro → Activate Pro to unlock everything on this device. You can activate the same key on more than one device (up to the limit shown at checkout); use Remove licence from this device in Settings to free a slot.

Managing or cancelling: use the Manage subscription link in Settings (or the link in your purchase email) to update payment details or cancel. If you cancel, Pro keeps working until the end of the period you've paid for, then the extension returns to the free state (your saved pages stay viewable and exportable). The extension checks your subscription periodically, so Pro needs to connect occasionally — it keeps working offline for a grace period in between.

1. Install the extension

Requirements: Google Chrome 88 or newer (Windows, macOS, Linux).

• Open the Recall listing on the Chrome Web Store.
• Click Add to Chrome, then Add extension.
• The Recall icon appears in your toolbar — click the puzzle-piece icon and pin it for easy access.

On first install, Recall opens a short consent screen — review what it records and click Enable Recall to begin. Nothing is recorded until you accept.

After that Recall works immediately. Adding a Claude API key (next section) is optional and unlocks richer AI summaries.

2. Add your Claude API key (Recall Pro)

AI summaries are a Recall Pro feature and use your own Claude API key. On the free trial, pages are saved as basic records (title, URL, time spent, highlights) with no AI summary and no automatic categorisation. With Pro and a key, each page also gets an AI-written summary, key highlights, and an automatic category.

• Go to console.anthropic.com and create an account.
• Add a payment method (Billing), and optionally set a low monthly usage limit to cap spend.
• Create an API key (it starts with sk-ant-) and copy it.
• Click the Recall icon → Settings & API key → paste the key → Save settings.

3. What Recall captures

Recall saves a page when you leave it — when you close the tab or navigate away. There is no minimum time on a page; even a quick visit is remembered, so you can find it again weeks later.

For each page it stores, locally: the title, URL, domain, time spent, a category tag, any text you highlighted, and (if you set an API key) an AI summary.

Recall does not capture:

• Incognito windows (skipped by default — you can change this in Settings).
• Domains you add to the excluded list in Settings.
• Non-web pages such as chrome:// pages, the New Tab page, or local files.

Highlights: select text on any page and Recall attaches it to that page's entry.

With Recall Pro, pages are automatically sorted into categories: research, shopping, reading, news, work, social, entertainment, finance, travel, learning, and other — chosen by AI when you've added a key, otherwise inferred from the site. On the free trial, automatic categorisation is off and pages are filed under "other".

4. The popup

Click the Recall toolbar icon to open the popup:

• Saved / Today / Top tag — quick stats for your vault.
• Export vault to file — downloads your vault as a JSON file (encrypted if you've set a passphrase — see below).
• Open offline reader — opens the built-in reader, pre-loaded with your live vault.
• Settings & API key — opens the full settings page.
• Clear vault — permanently deletes everything Recall has saved.

5. Encrypting & exporting your vault

Your live vault is stored on your own device in Chrome's local storage, which is private to the extension. Encrypted export is a Recall Pro feature: with Pro, a passphrase adds AES-256 encryption to the backup files you export, so you can safely store them in the cloud or move them between devices — the Recall readers will ask for the passphrase to open them. On the free trial, exports are unencrypted.

Setting a passphrase

• Click the Recall icon → Settings & API key → Vault passphrase lock.
• Enter a passphrase (the strength meter shows weak → strong) and confirm it.
• Click Set export passphrase. From now on, exports are encrypted with it.

Exporting

• Click Export vault to file in the popup.
• If a passphrase is set, you'll be asked to type it; the file downloads as recall_vault_YYYY-MM-DD_encrypted.json.
• If no passphrase is set, it downloads as a plain recall_vault_YYYY-MM-DD.json.

Removing the passphrase

In Settings, click Remove passphrase and confirm with your current passphrase. Future exports will no longer be encrypted.

6. The desktop offline reader

The reader lets you browse and search your vault — fully offline, on any device.

• From the extension: popup → Open offline reader. It opens pre-loaded with your live vault and updates as new pages are captured.
• From a backup file: open Recall-Offline-Reader.html in any browser, click Load vault file, and choose an exported .json. If it's encrypted, you'll be prompted for the passphrase.

Features: full-text search across titles, summaries and highlights; filter by tag; sort by newest, oldest, or most time spent; click any entry to expand its summary, highlights and source link.

Read saved page (offline) — Recall Pro. For pages captured with Pro, the expanded entry shows a Read saved page (offline) button that opens a clean, distraction-free reading view of the archived page — the article's title and text, properly spaced and easy to read, with the images, and no internet connection needed. A small original layout link next to it opens the full archived page exactly as it looked instead. (Offline copies live in the extension, so these appear in the reader opened from the extension popup.) The plain source link still opens the live page when you're online.

Combining devices. Loading more than one vault file merges them and removes duplicates (matched by entry ID). So you can export from several computers, keep the files in your cloud, and load them together for one combined history — no account or sync server needed.

7. The mobile app

Recall is also a Progressive Web App you can install on your phone.

iPhone (iOS)

• Open recall-pro.net in Safari (required on iOS).
• Tap Share → Add to Home Screen → Add.

Android

• Open recall-pro.net in Chrome and tap the Install / "Add to Home Screen" prompt.

Loading your vault on mobile

• Export your vault from the extension on your computer.
• Move the file to your phone (iCloud Drive, Google Drive, or email it to yourself).
• Open Recall from your home screen → Load vault file → pick the .json → enter the passphrase if it's encrypted.

Open the app once while online so it caches itself; after that it works fully offline.

8. Settings reference

• Claude API key — enables AI summaries and tagging. Optional. Stored locally only.
• Vault passphrase (Pro) — AES-256 encryption for your exported backup files. Recommended if you share or sync backups.
• Excluded domains — one per line; Recall never saves pages from these.
• Save highlights only — when on, only pages where you highlighted text are saved.
• Skip incognito — on by default; never records private windows.
• Automatic backup — save a dated copy of your vault to a folder inside your Downloads on a daily/weekly schedule, plus a Back up now button and a "last backup" indicator. Automatic backups run only when a vault passphrase is set and unlocked for the session — they're always AES-256 encrypted and never save unencrypted (they pause while locked). Back up now works any time: encrypted with your passphrase (type it in when locked), or unencrypted if you haven't set one. A safety net against losing your history if the extension or browser data is cleared.

9. Vault file format

A plain (unencrypted) export is a JSON object: exportedAt, version, totalEntries, and an entries array. Each entry has:

• id, url, title, domain — page identity
• summary — AI memory note (or a simple "You visited…" without an API key)
• highlights — array of text you selected
• tag — one of research, shopping, reading, news, work, social, entertainment, finance, travel, learning, other
• timeSpent (seconds), savedAt (timestamp), dateGroup

An encrypted export instead contains recall_encrypted: true, the algorithm (AES-256-GCM), key-derivation details (PBKDF2-SHA256, kdf_iterations: 600000), a random salt and iv, and the ciphertext — unreadable without the passphrase.

10. Troubleshooting

• Nothing is being saved: remember pages are saved when you leave them (close the tab or navigate away), not while open. Check the domain isn't excluded and that you're not in an incognito window. Only http/https pages are tracked.
• No AI summaries (entries say "You visited…"): add a Claude API key in Settings and make sure your Anthropic account has a payment method.
• Reader shows nothing: opened from the extension it loads your live vault automatically; opened as a standalone file it starts empty — click Load vault file.
• A page won't open offline: the source link opens the live page and needs internet. With Recall Pro, expand the entry and use Read saved page (offline) for the stored copy (or original layout for the full page). Free-trial entries keep only the link.
• Passphrase rejected: it's case-sensitive (check Caps Lock). After 5 failed attempts the reader locks — reload the page to try again. There is no passphrase recovery.
• "Add to Home Screen" missing on iPhone: you must use Safari; other iOS browsers can't install PWAs.

11. Privacy

Recall is local-first: your vault never leaves your device except the optional page excerpt sent to Anthropic for summarisation (only when you've added an API key). Recall operates no servers and collects no analytics. See the full Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.