Hello everyone. This update covers our last two releases. Chat and the AI apps you connect through the Recall MCP server are now smarter at finding and reading your content.
Chat has always searched your cards by meaning to find the passages that best match your question. Now it has new tools too. It can find exact words and phrases, and read whole cards from start to finish. Apps like Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor get the same tools through MCP, and you can now see and manage which apps are connected. Saving from Gmail works better too, and we fixed age-restricted YouTube videos, which some of you have been asking about for a while. Plus, we've smashed lots of bugs, from syncing and exports to better support for larger knowledge bases, and more.
But first, a story we loved. Recall power user Fernand Schroell wrote a whole book with Recall as his research assistant, and he shows how in our new video. He's also doing an
AMA on Reddit r/getrecall this Wednesday, 4 November
, so bring your questions.Writing a book with AI, not by AI
Fernand, a telecom engineer of 30+ years turned AI consultant, wrote his book Human, Power, Machine with Recall as his research assistant. He dictated every chapter in his own words, then used his library of 4,000+ saved videos, podcasts and papers to find who agreed with each of his theses and, more importantly, who disagreed.
In his conversation with Nicole on our YouTube channel, Fernand walks through his whole workflow. One highlight is how a single prompt checked the entire book against his 2,384 cards on AI and found real counter-voices for 12 of his 14 theses in about three minutes.
Ask Fernand anything
: He's doing an AMA on r/getrecall on Wednesday 4 November. Come along and ask him about writing, research or how he uses Recall.Smarter ways for Chat to find your content
Chat already finds the most relevant passages across your cards by meaning. Now it has more tools to pick from, so it can choose the best way to find what you're asking about - this works across both the global chat in Recall and the Recall MCP.
- Exact matches: Chat can find a specific word or phrase across all of your cards. This helps when you remember a quote, a name or a number word for word.
- Pull the full transcript / full card: Chat can read a whole card from start to finish when a question needs the full picture, such as summarising a long article, PDF or transcript.
- A wider view of your library: Chat can look up your tags, the websites you've saved from, and the cards linked to a card. This is useful when you ask how your knowledge fits together.
- Clearer steps: The steps under each answer now show what Chat looked for and what it found, such as the phrase it searched for, how many matches came back, and which card it read.
Improved content support
Recall now does a better job with emails and YouTube.
- One card per Gmail email: Each email you save from Gmail now gets its own card. Every message is easier to find, read and come back to on its own.
- Age-restricted YouTube videos: A handful of you kept running into failures every time you tried to save an age-restricted YouTube video. Recall can now transcribe these videos, so you can use them in your Reader, in summaries and in Chat.
- Helpful guidance for new YouTube uploads: If YouTube is still processing a new upload or the recording of a livestream that just ended, Recall tells you to try again a bit later.
Apps connected through MCP
The Recall MCP server lets AI apps like Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor search and read your knowledge base. Those apps now get the same new tools as Chat, and you have more control over which apps are connected.
- The same tools as Chat: Connected apps can find exact text, read long cards page by page, list your tags and sources, and see related cards.
- Connected apps overview: Go to Settings → API & MCP → Connected apps to see which apps you've connected, when you connected them, and when they were last used.
- Disconnect at any time: Disconnect an app when you no longer want it to access Recall. Its access ends within an hour.
- Clearer approvals: Before you allow a new connection, you'll see where access will go and what the app can read or change. You can cancel or switch accounts before you continue.
- Connecting from mobile: Connecting Recall from your phone or tablet now finishes in your browser, so the approval step no longer fails inside the Recall app.
- Updated developer guides: The Recall API and MCP server guides now explain the new tools, paging through long results, rate limits and error messages.
Improvements and Bugs
Signing in and your account
- When you request a sign-in code, you may sometimes be asked to confirm you're human before the code is sent. Most people won't notice a difference.
Sync and large libraries
- Large libraries recover better when their first download is interrupted, so your cards, tags and connections finish loading.
- Sync uses less data, and saving your changes now retries after temporary connection problems.
Saving
- Bulk imports skip connections that appear more than once.
- Threads links that were copied with the post's title now save correctly.
PDFs on Android
- Fixed an issue where PDFs picked from your phone failed with "We couldn't reach our PDF processing service."
Notebook on phones and tablets
- The Notebook responds faster on phones and tablets.
- Fixed swipe typing on Android joining the first two words of a new paragraph.
- On Android 10, the keyboard no longer covers most of the screen while you type. This fix comes with the latest app update from Google Play.
Exports
- Exporting libraries with PDFs and EPUB books uses less memory, so exports are less likely to slow down or fail when you have many documents.
- If your disk fills up during an export, Recall now tells you clearly.
- Exported file names now work on Windows.
Listening, Chat & Reader
- Fixed read-aloud sometimes stopping early on iPhone and iPad.
- When you regenerate a summary in Chat, the new version is saved and will still be there when you come back to the card.
- Fixed TikTok posts in the Reader showing an error instead of the video.
Coming Next
A faster, smoother mobile experience
: We're still improving Recall on mobile, with less waiting and a smoother flow between saving, reading and coming back to your cards. Remember to sign up as a beta tester!