# Recall

> Recall is a personal AI knowledge base that saves, summarizes, organizes, connects, and lets you chat with your articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, PDFs, and notes. Get answers from your own knowledge, the open web, or both, using the AI model of your choice, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Beyond analysis, Recall enhances long-term memory using active recall and spaced repetition quizzes, on a schedule optimized for retention.

See also: [llms.txt](https://www.recall.it/llms.txt) for a curated index of pages.

## About

Recall is a self-organizing personal AI knowledge base that saves, summarizes, organizes, and lets you chat with your content, including articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, PDFs, and personal notes, all in one place. Recall gives you answers from your own knowledge, the open web, or both, using the AI model of your choice, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Related ideas are automatically connected and visualized in a knowledge graph and resurface as you browse, helping you discover relationships in your knowledge you otherwise would have missed. Beyond analysis and understanding, Recall enhances long-term memory using active recall and spaced repetition quizzes, on a schedule optimized for retention.

Used by over 500,000 people worldwide, including professionals at Bloomberg and Harvard, Recall is available on web, iOS, Android, Chrome, and Firefox. It combines Notion's editor, Obsidian's knowledge graph, NotebookLM's source-chat, and Perplexity's research depth, without the manual setup, source limits, or missing personal context. One product replacing many, grounded in your knowledge, with the most powerful AI models at your fingertips. Recall turns your knowledge into your edge.

## Audience

Researchers, students, founders, writers, and lifelong learners.

## Use cases

Recall users include:

- Researchers managing literature, papers, and field notes
- Founders and operators tracking competitive landscapes and industry knowledge
- Students preparing for exams with summaries, quizzes, and spaced repetition
- Writers and creators building reference libraries and research archives
- Lifelong learners who read, watch, and listen to more than they can remember

## Features

- YouTube video summarizer
- Podcast summarizer
- PDF summarizer
- Capture any online content (articles, web pages, blogs, recipes, TikToks, tweets, and more)
- Spaced repetition
- Active recall
- AI chat with your knowledge base
- Multi-model AI (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini)
- Auto-generated knowledge graph
- Augmented browsing (resurfaces saved content while you browse)
- Smart auto-tagging
- Block-style notebook editor
- AI quiz generation
- Browser extension save (Chrome, Firefox)
- Search across your knowledge, the open web, or both

## Key Facts

- **Users:** Over 500,000 worldwide
- **Notable users:** Professionals at Bloomberg and Harvard
- **Founded:** 2022
- **Headquarters:** Amsterdam, Netherlands
- **Founders:** Paul Richards (CEO), Igor Gligorevic (CTO), Sankari Nair (COO)
- **Platforms:** Web, iOS, Android, Chrome, Firefox
- **Supported AI models:** ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and other frontier models
- **Content types:** Articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, PDFs, tweets, TikToks, recipes, and personal notes
- **Free plan:** 10 AI summaries per month, unlimited saves and notes
- **Plus plan:** $10/month billed yearly or $12/month billed monthly — unlimited AI summaries and chat
- **Max plan:** $38/month billed yearly or $48/month billed monthly — frontier AI models and bulk actions

## Pricing

- **Free** — Free. For personal note-taking.
- **Plus** — $12/month billed monthly, or $10/month billed yearly. For your lifelong AI knowledge base.
- **Max** — $48/month billed monthly, or $38/month billed yearly. For power users and complex workflows.

## Reviews

- **Fernand, Head of Technology:** "I run two parallel careers, which means staying current across rapidly evolving topics. Recall is the front door to my entire knowledge workflow."
- **William Peltier, Senior Director at Moody's:** "Recall has revolutionized how I manage information! As a power user, its AI-driven summarization and storage capabilities have boosted my productivity tenfold."
- **Roses, Human Rights Worker:** "I use Recall on a daily basis to cultivate and build a hand-picked database of information. The end result is like having a personalized AI loaded with sources pre-screened for quality."
- **Jason Patel, Co-founder at Open Forge AI:** "I use Recall every day. It helps me quickly condense important information from thought leadership articles and educational YouTube videos. I've greatly developed as a founder and leader thanks to Recall."
- **Dave Katague, AI Educator:** "I've been building several second brains for years. Recall is a drastic improvement on what I was already using."
- **Maire, Student, Data Analyst:** "Recall has become an essential part of how I learn, think, and explore the world."

## Comparisons

Recall gives you the best of the leading knowledge management tools in one place. Instead of juggling separate apps, Recall combines what each category does well:

- **From Notion:** a block-style editor for your own notes, with tables, to-do lists, and code blocks, without the complexity of team databases and workspaces.
- **From NotebookLM:** deep interaction with online content, with AI chat grounded in what you have saved, across your full library instead of separate notebooks.
- **From Obsidian:** connections and visualizations through an automatic knowledge graph that links related ideas as you save.
- **From read-it-later apps:** a save-for-later workflow for articles, podcasts, and videos that actually helps you use what you saved, not just store it.
- **From ChatGPT and Perplexity:** chat with the internet or your own knowledge, choose your AI models, and run deep research across everything you have saved.

### Recall vs Notion

Notion offers a block-style editor, templates, and an AI agent. Recall offers a similar block-style editor with a focus on your own notes, without the complexity of databases and tables. Where Notion is built for team workspaces and manual structure, Recall is built to capture, connect, and resurface personal knowledge automatically.

- **Notion is best for:** teams and taking your own notes in a shared workspace with templates, databases, and structured workflows.
- **Recall is best for:** individuals taking their own notes who also want to save, summarize, and connect online content in one personal knowledge base.

### Recall vs NotebookLM

NotebookLM excels at chatting with uploaded sources in focused notebooks. Recall captures content from across the web and lets you chat across everything in your knowledge base, without splitting knowledge into separate notebooks. You get unlimited sources, chat across everything you have saved, and the freedom to use any AI model of your choice, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

- **NotebookLM is best for:** researchers who want to upload sources into focused notebooks and chat within those boundaries.
- **Recall is best for:** lifelong learners who want to save all the content they care about over a lifetime and chat across all of it in one connected knowledge base.

### Recall vs Obsidian

Obsidian is a powerful, local-first markdown note-taking app where you build connections yourself. Inspired by Obsidian's graph view, Recall generates connections automatically as you save content, so related ideas surface without manual linking.

- **Obsidian is best for:** people who want a powerful, local-first markdown workspace and are willing to invest time learning the tool and building connections manually.
- **Recall is best for:** people who want the connections Obsidian provides without the manual effort. Recall generates your knowledge graph automatically as you save.

### Recall vs read-it-later apps

Read-it-later apps like Instapaper and Matter are built to save articles for later. Recall acts as your read-it-later app too, but goes further: it saves articles, podcasts, videos, PDFs, and notes, summarizes them automatically, and turns them into a searchable, chat-ready knowledge base instead of a queue you never get to.

- **Read-it-later apps is best for:** saving articles to read later when your primary goal is simply getting through a reading queue.
- **Recall is best for:** people who want to chat with, interact with, and better understand their content, not just store it.

### Recall vs Perplexity

Perplexity is an answer engine for the open web. Recall is an answer engine for your own knowledge, with the option to query the open web alongside it. Recall builds a personal knowledge base that gets richer the more you save. When Perplexity runs deep research across the internet, Recall helps you research and synthesize answers across your own saved knowledge.

- **Perplexity is best for:** researchers who are primarily interacting with online content and want fast answers from the open web.
- **Recall is best for:** researchers, lifelong learners, and anyone who wants to bring their own knowledge to the forefront, with the option to query the open web alongside it.

### Recall vs ChatGPT

ChatGPT is a general-purpose AI assistant trained on public data. Recall lets you chat using ChatGPT-class models alongside Claude, Gemini, and others, but grounds every answer in the articles, notes, and research you have personally saved. You get frontier-model intelligence with context only your knowledge base can provide.

- **ChatGPT is best for:** general-purpose AI conversations grounded in public training data, without a persistent knowledge base built from everything you read, save, and write across the web.
- **Recall is best for:** people who want AI answers grounded in their own saved articles, notes, and research. Recall lets you chat across your knowledge base using the AI model of your choice, including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini, and switch models mid-conversation.

## What Recall is not

Recall (recall.it) is often confused with two other products that share a similar name. We are a separate company and product.

**We are not Microsoft Recall.** [Microsoft Recall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Recall) is a Windows 11 feature that periodically captures screenshots of your screen. Recall (recall.it) does not record your screen or desktop. It is a personal knowledge base for content you choose to save: articles, videos, podcasts, PDFs, and notes.

**We are not Recall.ai.** [Recall.ai](https://www.recall.ai/) records and transcribes meetings, often for sales workflows. Recall (recall.it) is for saving and learning from content you read, watch, and write, not for recording calls.

If you were looking for screen capture or meeting recording, those are different tools. If you want a self-organizing library you can chat with, you are in the right place.

## FAQ

### About Recall

**What is Recall?**

Recall is a personal AI knowledge base that saves, summarizes, organizes, and lets you chat with your articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, PDFs, and notes, all in one place.

**What Recall is not?**

Recall (recall.it) is not Microsoft Recall, the Windows 11 screen capture feature, and is not Recall.ai, the meeting recorder. Recall is a personal AI knowledge base for articles, videos, podcasts, PDFs, and notes you save.

**Who built Recall?**

Recall was founded in 2022 by Paul Richards (CEO), Igor Gligorevic (CTO), and Sankari Nair (COO). The team is headquartered in Amsterdam.

### Getting started

**Does Recall offer refunds?**

Yes. If you are not satisfied with Recall within the first 30 days, we will issue a refund. Email us at support@recall.it.

**Does Recall offer student discounts?**

Yes. Email us at support@recall.it from your student email address for a 20% student discount.

**What platforms does Recall support?**

Recall is available on the web at https://app.recall.it, as Chrome and Firefox browser extensions, and on iOS and Android. Web app: https://app.recall.it. Chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/recall-web-extension/ldbooahljamnocpaahaidnmlgfklbben. Firefox extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/getrecall/. iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/recall-summarize-save/id6445893722. Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.recall.wiki.

**Is the Recall Free tier really free?**

Yes, Recall is free forever. No credit card is required. You can save unlimited read-later content including articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, and PDFs, and write unlimited notes. You also get 10 AI summaries per month to try the AI features. With API and MCP access, you can connect Recall to the AI model of your choice and chat with your knowledge there.

**Where can I get Recall support?**

For the quickest responses, join our Discord channel. Alternatively, email support@recall.it for a response within 24 hours (usually faster). Our documentation answers most common questions.

**Why use Recall?**

Recall automatically summarizes content, organizes it, and connects related ideas so you can resurface knowledge when you need it instead of forgetting what you learned.

### Plans, pricing & billing

**Where can I see Recall pricing and plans?**

Visit the Recall pricing page for Free, Plus, and Max plan details at https://www.recall.it/pricing.

**How do I choose between Recall Plus and Recall Max?**

Choose Plus if you want a daily AI knowledge base. Choose Max if you want to push Recall to its limits with bulk actions and your choice of AI model. Plus is perfect for your daily knowledge base. Save the content you care about (YouTube videos, podcasts, PDFs), take personal notes, recipes, and journals, and have it all summarized, organized, connected, and ready to chat with. Max is for power users who want full control. It's built for people who understand which AI model to use when, and who run complex, high-volume workflows with bulk actions.

**What AI model does Recall Plus use?**

Recall Plus automatically picks the best AI model for each task. It chooses between frontier models, open-source models, and Gemini Flash based on what you're doing, so you don't have to think about it. Just trust that the right model has been used for your specific output.

**What does unlimited mean on Recall paid plans?**

Plus and Max include unlimited saves and AI summaries for typical use. We may pause, review, or adjust a subscription if usage significantly exceeds reasonable levels. See our Fair Use Policy for details: https://www.recall.it/legal/fair-use-policy.

**What payment options does Recall support?**

Recall supports debit and credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, WeChat Pay, and Link.

**Can I cancel my Recall subscription anytime?**

Yes, you can cancel anytime. You'll keep access to your paid plan until the end of your current billing period, and your saved content stays in your account.

**How do I cancel, change plans, or update payment for Recall?**

You can manage your subscription from the "Manage Subscription" section found in the main app menu.

**What happens to my content in Recall if I downgrade?**

Your content stays in your account. If you downgrade from Plus or Max to Free, you keep all of your saved articles, videos, podcasts, PDFs, and notes. You'll return to the Free plan limits on AI summaries going forward, but nothing you've already saved is deleted.

### Privacy & security

**Is my Recall data private? Does Recall train AI on my content?**

Your data is private and we do not train AI models on your content. Your saved content is yours, used only to power your personal knowledge base and the AI features you use inside Recall. Read more in our Privacy Policy at https://www.recall.it/legal/privacy-policy.

**How is my Recall data stored?**

Recall is a local-first application, which means your data is primarily stored on your device. Queries and database operations run locally for speed. For backup and syncing between devices, data is stored on Google Cloud in Belgium (europe-west1).

**Can I export my Recall data?**

Yes. Open the main app menu, go to Settings, then Export to download all your data as zipped markdown files.

**How can I delete my Recall account?**

Open the main app menu, go to Settings, then Delete Account. This cannot be undone and permanently removes your data locally and from our servers.

**What happens if Recall shuts down?**

We are fully committed to Recall for the long haul. If Recall ever did not succeed, we would give users ample time to export their data and open-source the project so you could host it yourself.

**Where can I find Recall's Terms of Service and Fair Use Policy?**

Read our Terms of Service (https://www.recall.it/legal/terms-of-service) and Fair Use Policy (https://www.recall.it/legal/fair-use-policy) for details on usage, payments, and service policies.

### Features & how Recall works

**What content can Recall summarize?**

Recall works best on YouTube videos (up to 10 hours), PDFs (up to 300 pages), articles, Google Docs, blogs, and recipes. We are quickly expanding the content we support. See all supported content in our docs: https://docs.recall.it/supported-content/all-supported-content

**What are Recall AI summaries?**

AI summaries use fine-tuned models and proprietary methods to produce concise or detailed summaries of your content. The best way to create summaries is with our Chrome or Firefox browser extensions.

**What are unlimited personal notes in Recall?**

You can use Recall like any other note-taking app and create unlimited personal notes. Start from an empty note in the Recall app menu. You can also generate quiz questions from your personal notes. Learn more about note-taking in Recall: https://docs.recall.it/deep-dives/note-taking-in-recall

**What is Recall Augmented Browsing?**

Augmented Browsing is a Recall feature that surfaces relevant insights from your personal knowledge base while you browse. Recall detects keywords and concepts on the page and shows connections to content you have saved, so you can recall past knowledge without interrupting your workflow. Processing is local-first on your device for privacy and security. Learn more about Augmented Browsing: https://docs.recall.it/deep-dives/recall-augmented-browsing

**What is automatic categorization in Recall?**

When you save an AI summary, Recall adds an automatic tag that categorizes the card in the left panel. Tags are unique to you and align with tags you already use. Learn more about tagging in Recall: https://docs.recall.it/deep-dives/tagging

**What is automatic knowledge graph creation in Recall?**

When you save AI summaries, Recall extracts keywords and links related content so you can discover connections you might otherwise miss. Learn more about the knowledge graph: https://docs.recall.it/deep-dives/graph/overview

**What are Recall AI quiz questions?**

For every card you save in Recall, you can generate a quiz to reinforce long-term retention. You can customize questions manually or edit the answers. Learn more about quizzes and spaced repetition: https://docs.recall.it/deep-dives/quiz-and-spaced-repetition

**What languages does Recall support?**

You can translate AI summaries and your quiz questions to English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Russian.

**What is Active Recall in Recall?**

Active recall stimulates memory by challenging you to retrieve information without looking at the source. In Recall, generate quiz questions from your saved summaries to test knowledge and improve retention.

**What is Spaced Repetition in Recall?**

Spaced repetition reviews information at increasing intervals over time. In Recall, review saved summaries on a spaced repetition schedule via the web app or weekly email digest.

**Can I edit Recall summaries and notes?**

Yes. After you save a summary to your knowledge base, edit it with the built-in text editor.

### Recall vs other tools

**Can Recall replace ChatGPT for me?**

If you use ChatGPT to ask questions about content you've read or watched, then yes, Recall can replace it. Recall brings your saved knowledge into every conversation. The Recall co-founders personally use Recall daily as their primary chatbot for questions, content generation, and writing. Learn more about the team on our About page: https://www.recall.it/about.

**What's the difference between Recall and NotebookLM?**

NotebookLM is built for research projects. Recall is built for lifelong learning. NotebookLM limits you to chatting with a single notebook of sources you've defined upfront, which makes it great for focused research on a specific topic. Recall has no such limit. Everything you save (articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, PDFs, and your own notes) becomes part of one growing, connected knowledge base you can chat with anytime. Recall also isn't tied to a single AI model the way NotebookLM relies on Gemini. It automatically picks the best frontier model for your question, whether that's from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or open-source.

**What's the difference between Recall and Obsidian?**

Recall is an AI-first knowledge base that captures and connects content for you automatically. Obsidian is a manual, local-first note-taking app where you build links yourself. Recall saves articles, videos, podcasts, and PDFs, summarizes them, organizes them with smart tags, and builds the knowledge graph automatically. Obsidian gives you full manual control over your notes and links but does not capture web content or summarize it for you. Many people use Recall as the AI layer on top of the kind of linked thinking Obsidian made popular.

**What's the difference between Recall and Notion?**

Recall is a personal AI knowledge base. Notion is a workspace for documents, databases, and team collaboration. Recall is built around saving and chatting with content you read, watch, and listen to, with AI summaries, automatic organization, and a knowledge graph. Notion is built around manually creating and structuring documents and databases, primarily for work and team use. Recall includes a block-style editor for personal notes, but it's designed for your lifelong knowledge, not team project management.

**How is Recall different from a read-later app like Readwise?**

Recall is an AI knowledge base. Readwise is a read-later and highlights app focused on resurfacing what you've read. Both let you save articles and content for later, but Recall automatically summarizes, organizes, and connects everything you save into a knowledge graph you can chat with. Readwise focuses on highlights and spaced repetition of what you've already read. Recall includes spaced repetition too, but it sits inside a broader AI-first knowledge base that covers articles, YouTube videos, podcasts, PDFs, and your own notes.

### Referrals & affiliates

**Does Recall have a referral program?**

Yes. For each unique user you invite who signs up and verifies their email, you receive an additional 10% discount on Recall Plus, up to 50% off. Find your invite code in the top right corner of your profile page.

**Does Recall have an affiliate program?**

Yes. Learn more on the Recall Affiliate Program page.

### Roadmap & feedback

**What is on the Recall roadmap?**

Recall has an ambitious public roadmap with planned features for the coming months.

**Can I request a Recall feature?**

Yes. Submit and upvote feature requests on our feedback board.

## Links

- [About Recall](https://www.recall.it/about): What Recall is, who built it, and how it works
- [Pricing](https://www.recall.it/pricing): Free, Plus (from $10/mo), and Max (from $38/mo) plans
- [FAQ](https://www.recall.it/faq): Common questions about plans, features, privacy, and comparisons
- [Compare](https://www.recall.it/compare): Compare Recall with NotebookLM, ChatGPT, Notion, Obsidian, Perplexity, and other AI knowledge tools
- [Summaries Library](https://www.recall.it/summaries): Public, browsable library of AI-generated summaries across topics and channels
- [Blog](https://www.recall.it/blog): Guides, feature deep-dives, and product updates
- [YouTube Video Summarizer](https://www.recall.it/youtube-video-summarizer): Free AI summaries for any YouTube video
- [ChatGPT Alternative](https://www.recall.it/chatgpt-alternative): Why Recall is the best ChatGPT alternative for research, writing, and lifelong learning, with chat grounded in your own sources
- [Privacy Policy](https://www.recall.it/legal/privacy-policy): How Recall protects your data
- [Terms of Service](https://www.recall.it/legal/terms-of-service): Account responsibilities, fair use, payments
- [Fair Use Policy](https://www.recall.it/legal/fair-use-policy): Reasonable-use limits that apply to unlimited plans