Recall
An AI knowledge base that saves, summarizes, and lets you chat with everything you read, watch, and listen to.
Overview
Recall is a personal AI knowledge base founded in 2022 in Amsterdam, with roughly 700,000 users including people at Bloomberg and Harvard per its own site. Save an article, YouTube video, podcast, or PDF with one click and Recall auto-tags it into a self-building knowledge graph, generates a summary, and lets you chat with everything you've saved using your choice of AI model.
It borrows ideas from Notion, Obsidian, NotebookLM, and Perplexity but focuses specifically on retention: spaced-repetition quizzes nudge saved content back into memory instead of letting it sit there just searchable. The free tier allows unlimited saves and notes but caps AI summaries at 10 a month; paid plans unlock unlimited summaries, personal AI chat, and bulk actions.
Key Features
Universal capture (YouTube, podcasts, PDFs, articles, Google Docs, one click)
Auto-tagging into a personal knowledge graph, no manual folders
AI summaries (e.g. a 2h47m video into a 90-second summary, readable or listenable)
Multi-model chat over your saved content (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek)
Spaced-repetition quizzes on a retention-optimized schedule
Augmented browsing that resurfaces relevant saved content
API/MCP access available even on the free plan
Pricing
Starting price
$10/mo
Free: $0/mo, unlimited saves/notes, knowledge graph, API/MCP access, 10 AI summaries/mo. Plus: $12/mo ($10/mo billed annually), unlimited summaries, auto-tagging, personal AI chat, listen mode, augmented browsing, quizzes, bulk import, multi-language. Max: $48/mo ($38/mo billed annually), everything in Plus, plus 1:1 onboarding, choice of AI model, bulk AI actions on up to 100 items.
Pros
Broad capture across formats
Model choice (5 LLMs) rather than lock-in
Real retention tooling (spaced repetition/quizzes, not just search)
Usable free tier
Local-first/no-training privacy stance per their FAQ
Cons
Free tier's 10-summary/mo cap is tight and doesn't reset by deleting old summaries (a recurring complaint)
Knowledge graph view described as cluttered by reviewers
No offline support
Extension opens as a popup, not a docked panel
Thin independent review coverage (no G2/Trustpilot/Capterra listing found, sentiment is mostly Product Hunt and a couple of blog deep-dives, not a large sample)
One-at-a-time PDF upload, uneven language support flagged by users
What Makes It Unique
Recall's real differentiator isn't the save-and-summarize part, plenty of tools do that. It's pairing that with spaced-repetition quizzes and a self-building knowledge graph, so saved content gets nudged back into memory instead of just sitting there searchable. Letting you pick the underlying AI model (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek) instead of locking you into one is also unusual for a tool this size.
Kay Score
7.3
/ 10
