Install or Remove the Recall Component with PowerShell

2 min
Notes

When I got my PC, I thought Recall would be of little use to me, so I used a tool whose name I no longer remember to turn it off. Later, I wanted to try it and could not find it.

I found an old article that said Recall should appear under Turn Windows features on or off, but I could not see it. Microsoft’s documentation lists PowerShell commands for installing or removing the Recall optional component in certain managed environments. These commands are not ordinary on/off switches for snapshot saving, and they cannot make an ineligible PC support Recall.

For the hardware, security, and Windows Hello requirements, see my companion note: Enable Recall on a Windows 11 Copilot+ PC.

Install or remove the component in a managed deployment

Microsoft says that in some commercial environments the Recall package is not deployed automatically. Only after an administrator has allowed Recall through policy and confirmed that the device is eligible might an administrator need to run this command in elevated PowerShell:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName "Recall"

Microsoft also documents this command to remove the optional component:

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName "Recall" -Remove

Removing the component is different from merely pausing snapshot capture. Follow Microsoft’s current Manage Recall for Windows clients documentation and the organization’s policy before running either command.

Control snapshot saving as a personal user

Recall is available only on eligible Copilot+ PCs. On an unmanaged personal device, the user chooses in Recall settings whether to save screen snapshots. If you only want to stop future snapshots, turn off snapshot saving in Recall settings; you do not need to remove the optional Windows component.

Recall is disabled and removed by default on commercially managed devices. Ask your administrator whether policy allows it. Installing the component does not bypass the device requirements or enable snapshot saving without the user’s choice.

See Microsoft’s Recall management documentation, including its system requirements.