See your own note when you sit back down
Recall is a Mac productivity tool. When you step away and lose the thread, it shows any note you left, then what one click reopens.Recall is a productivity tool, not a treatment. It has not been studied for ADHD. For ADHD care, talk to a clinician.
Rewriting step 6, roof panels
“Fixing step 6: roof panels go before the door frame. Then I ask Tom for a photo.”
Project · 8x6 shed assembly guide
- Google ChromeThe tab you were on: 8x6 assembly guide in Google Docs
- ObsidianThe vault and the note: Shed parts fact check
This card is Smart Return. Example: Northfold, a flat-pack shed company we made up, along with its people and projects.
Vitaliy V.Co-founder · GTMAlex G.Co-founder · Engineering“We built Recall from our own days: a meeting lands at the worst moment, a message pulls us sideways, and by evening the file is still open but the thread is gone.”
You sit back down and the thread is gone
You got up for coffee with step 6 half rewritten. Ten minutes later it is still half rewritten in the doc, nineteen tabs sit open behind it, and the one thing missing is what you were about to do.
- When you step away
- Recall shows any note you left, then what one click reopens. Everyone gets the same app.
- What it asks of you
- Nothing to create, tag or start. A note is optional: without one, the card shows an open question or a short summary.
- What it is not
- A treatment. Nothing in it is ADHD-specific, and it has not been studied for ADHD.
One made-up workday with Recall running
An invented Wednesday at Northfold, a few days after install, while you rewrite a shed assembly guide.
You search for the right screw size for step 6 and end up four tabs away. About five minutes in, one small card says the thread is still open. Recall me shows what will reopen, Not now dismisses it, and left alone it hides itself. Every Recall user gets the same card, and one switch in Settings turns it off.
Drift reminderone small card, with Not now
His Slack message lands before you finish the line. You switch to Slack, and a small pill appears at the top right with your thread's name: Leave a note? You click it and type “Fixing step 6: roof panels go before the door frame. Then I ask Tom for a photo.” You send Tom the list and go to lunch. In a hurry? Ignore the pill, keep typing, and it goes away.
Leave a note?Enter saves the line on your thread
The panel is already at the bottom right, headed Where you left off, 1h ago. Your line comes first, then what will reopen: Google Chrome and Obsidian. You click Return to where you were, and both come back with the Google Doc in front. Choose lets you untick one first, and closing the panel opens nothing.
Smart Returnyour line on top, nothing open until you click
Still in the guide, you press ⌥⌘B and type what comes first tomorrow. In the morning that line leads the card, and ⌥⌘R brings the card up from anywhere. When the guide is finished, press Done, show next, and the card moves to the next thread you left a note on, however old the note is.
Your notestays on your list of open items until you press Done
Your own words first, then one click.
After a break, or when you press ⌥⌘R, the Smart Return card puts your note first and names what one click brings back.
With no note, it offers the question you left open or a short summary instead.
Press ⌥⌘B before you switch, type one line and press Enter, and the note goes on the work in front of you.
Already switched? After work you stayed on for at least five minutes, a small Leave a note? pill can offer to take it. Ignore it and it goes away.
A clear detour gets one small card after about five minutes: Recall me shows what will reopen, and Not now dismisses it.
Work that looks like research gets more time. Switch these cards off in Settings, under Nudges.
The animation is an illustration with made-up data. The other screens are from the real app, on a developer's demo day.
Where it stops, and what it keeps.
- Treatment
- Recall does not treat ADHD and is not a medical device. It has not been studied for ADHD. For ADHD care, talk to a clinician.
- ADHD features
- None. Everyone gets the same app.
- Planning
- Recall does not plan your day or run timers.
- Returns
- Browser tabs, Obsidian notes, Xcode files and Claude Code or Codex chats come back exactly, a Codex CLI chat as its terminal window. Figma, Slack and other apps only open. Sharper returns are in active development.
- Reminders
- A long video can slip past a drift reminder, and some fire wrongly. Smarter detection is in active development.
- Misreads
- A thread name or summary can be wrong, and work can be grouped with the wrong project. Overleaf projects and Jupyter notebooks on one server read as one site, so you sort those by hand, and a project per document may need Move to project from you. Your corrections stick.
- First days
- First threads within the hour, your day on the Today page tonight, Smart Return tomorrow after a break.
- Mac only
- macOS 14 or later on Apple silicon (M1 or newer), with Screen Recording and Accessibility permissions. Setup asks before a download of about 1.9 GB. Windows has no date.
Setup never asks about a diagnosis, and there is no team view or manager dashboard, so nobody at work sees your day through Recall. What is on your screen stays on your Mac: Recall reads it about every 15 seconds, discards the image, and keeps short descriptions, window titles, timings and your notes in a folder there. One exception to discarding the image: when a chat message becomes a task, Recall may keep a small picture of that chat on your Mac, only while the task is open.
Recall takes nothing from the microphone, camera, keystrokes or clipboard. Usage analytics and crash reports are on by default, never carry anything from the screen, and one switch turns them off. Diagnostics sharing is off by default.
When it is on, screenshots redacted on your Mac can be sent to us. Before anything you would rather keep out of it, such as a health site or a telehealth call, pause from the menu bar. You can also exclude any app, or erase your Recall history with Forget history.
Questions about Recall and ADHD
Is Recall a treatment for ADHD?
No. Recall is a productivity tool, not a medical device or treatment, and it has not been studied for ADHD. Everyone gets the same app, and nothing in it is ADHD-specific. Talk to a clinician about ADHD care.
Do I have to remember to leave notes?
No. With no note, the card falls back on an open question or a short summary, then what will reopen. Recall writes those lines from your screen, so they can be wrong. A note is your own words, and the Leave a note? pill can offer to take one when you switch away from work you stayed on for at least five minutes.
Can I turn off everything that speaks up?
Nearly all of it. Settings, under Nudges, has three switches: Drift reminder, Smart Return after a break, and Breadcrumb prompt, which is the Leave a note? pill. ⌥⌘R still works with them off. Reminders about tasks from your chats come at most once a day for each, never more than one an hour, and Snooze holds one until the task wakes. The nudge for a blocked Claude Code session exists only with the optional hooks on. Pause in the menu bar stops Recall watching altogether.
Is this one more system I have to keep up?
Mostly no. Nothing needs creating, tagging or starting before a return works, and there are no timers or streaks. Recall runs without a note from you, though your notes are what lead the card. If it files something wrongly, Move to project fixes it and the fix sticks. It does count your hours. One card on your first evening shows where your day went, once. After that, your active time sits in the menu bar tray and on the Today page, and your breaks on the Today page, only if you open them.
Does Recall count as a workplace accommodation?
No. Nobody has assessed Recall as an accommodation, and we do not offer it as one. For what your workplace can provide, ask your employer or HR team. In the US, the Job Accommodation Network at askjan.org gives free, confidential advice.
Will the trial charge me when it ends?
No. The 30-day free trial needs no card, so there is nothing to charge. If you keep Recall, it is one plan on one device at $14 / month, or $9 / month billed annually at $108, and every charge has a 7-day money-back guarantee.