Memory Recall

Check there is nothing to keep. If your old Memory Recall still opens, look at the Recordings page and the People page. Starting fresh removes transcripts, summaries and confirmed speaker names. If you see anything you want to keep, stop here and email support@memoryrecall.ai. If the old version does not open at all, that is fine — carry on.

If Memory Recall is open, close its browser tab and the black window titled Memory Recall (or Memory Recall server). Something may keep running in the background; the restart in the next step takes care of it.

Click Start, open Settings, then Apps, then Installed apps. Type Memory Recall in the Search apps box — the one just under the words Apps › Installed apps, not the Find a setting box at the very top of the window (that one says No results). Click the three dots ··· on the right of Memory Recall and choose Uninstall. Windows says This app and its related info will be uninstalled; click Uninstall again.

A User Account Control box asks Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device? Click Yes.

Newer versions of the uninstaller first ask Also forget my passphrase and connections (your recordings stay)? For a clean start click Yes: the new copy then asks you to choose a new passphrase and to connect Plaud again. No keeps them for the next install. Either way, your library of transcripts, summaries and speaker names is saved to a backup file in the Backups folder inside your recordings folder and then removed, so the new copy starts with an empty library. The version you are removing today may not ask this at all — that is fine; see If this computer had Memory Recall before in Part F.

Memory Recall Uninstall asks Remove Memory Recall from this computer? and lists what is removed and what is kept (your recordings folder is kept unless you choose Delete everything). Click Yes. After a few seconds it says Memory Recall was successfully removed from your computer. Click OK.

Leave PostgreSQL and Ollama alone if you see them in the list. The new version uses them.

Then restart the computer (Start → Power → Restart). Parts of the old version can keep running in the background after it is uninstalled; a restart clears them before you install the new one.

Your recordings folder is kept when you uninstall, unless you choose Delete everything. If you ever pulled recordings from Plaud, the new copy asks before bringing any of them in — it never processes them all at once.

Go to memoryrecall.ai and click Download at the top right, then the create an account link. Use your usual email address and choose a password that meets the three rules shown under the password box — at least 10 characters, includes a number or a symbol, and does not contain your email address. Each rule turns green as you meet it; the Create account button works once all three are green.

Open the email Confirm your Memory Recall account (from noreply@memoryrecall.ai — look in Junk or Spam if it is not in your inbox after a few minutes) and click the link in it. The website opens its sign-in page with a message at the top:

• Your email is confirmed. Your account is waiting for approval… — we approve it, and you get a second email, Your Memory Recall account is approved. You do not need to wait for it to carry on with Part D.
• Your email is confirmed. Sign in to download the app. — your account was approved straight away; no second email comes.

If it says That confirmation link did not work, try signing in anyway (you may already be confirmed). If signing in says your email is not confirmed, email support@memoryrecall.ai.

When you sign in at memoryrecall.ai (click Download, then Sign in to download), the download page shows one of two things:

• A Download Windows installer button. The file is called MemoryRecall-Setup-<version>.exe.
• The message Your account is approved. The installer is not on this page yet — for now, we send it to you directly by email, together with the install guide. Nothing is broken. Use the link in our email instead — that is Part D.

On the website, click Download Windows installer. (If we sent you a link by email instead, open that link and click its Download button.) The file is called MemoryRecall-Setup-<version>.exe, where <version> is a number such as 0.3.0.

What you will see

Memory Recall is new, so your browser has not seen this file many times before and asks you to confirm. Nothing is wrong with the file.

• Edge: choose Keep, then Keep anyway.
• Chrome: if it says the file isn't commonly downloaded, open Downloads (Ctrl+J) and choose Keep.
• If a blue 'Windows protected your PC' screen appears, click More info, then Run anyway.

If Windows says Smart App Control blocked this app, don't turn Smart App Control off.

If your antivirus removes the file, don't restore it.

The file goes to your Downloads folder.

Open your Downloads folder and double-click MemoryRecall-Setup-<version>.exe.

What you may see: Windows protected your PC (a blue box, from Windows SmartScreen). If it appears, click the small More info link under the message; the name of the file appears, and a Run anyway button appears at the bottom. Click Run anyway. Windows shows this for any program it has not seen many times before. It is not a virus warning. If it does not appear, go straight to the next step.

If Windows says Smart App Control blocked this app, don't turn Smart App Control off. Stop here and email support at the address on the download page with a photo of the message.

User Account Control: Do you want to allow this app from an unknown publisher to make changes to your device? It names MemoryRecall-Setup-<version>.exe. Click Yes. The installer window, Setup - Memory Recall version <version>, opens a few seconds later. Each page shows Step N of 13 under its title.

What we found on this computer — a summary of your computer. Click Next.

How would you like it to run? — leave Full (recommended) selected. Click Next.

License Agreement — the terms. I accept the agreement and Next stay gray until you reach the last line. The quickest way: click once anywhere inside the text, then press the End key on your keyboard. Now click I accept the agreement, then Next.

Select Destination Location — where the program goes (C:\Program Files\Memory Recall). Leave it as it is. Click Next. (If you are running the installer a second time, this page is skipped.)

If you do choose another folder, pick an empty one. The installer will not install into a folder that already has your own files in it, because uninstalling later removes what it installed there.

Where should your recordings live? — leave the suggested folder (it ends in \Memory Recall inside your user folder, not in Documents) unless it contains the word OneDrive. (If your user folder is on OneDrive, the installer already suggests a folder on this computer instead, ending in AppData\Local\Memory Recall\Recordings — that is fine.) The database is kept in a separate folder that no sync app reaches. If this computer had Memory Recall before, the page shows the folder it already uses — keep that one. Click Next.

Where should audio backups live? — choose a folder on a second drive: a USB drive or a second disk that stays connected to this computer (for example E:\Memory Recall Backups). Each night Memory Recall copies your recordings there, so a dead disk cannot take your only copy. A cloud-synced folder (OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox) also works, but only when it is on a different drive from your recordings — on the same drive the installer refuses it, because one dead disk would take both. If you have no second drive today, leave the box empty and add one when you can. Click Next.

Connect an AI service (optional) — leave all four boxes empty and click Skip for now - add this later in Settings. Empty means Memory Recall uses the AI that installs on this computer, which is what you want.

Background processing — leave Process waiting recordings in the background (recommended) ticked. Click Next. (It runs when you sign in to Windows and then every 15 minutes, processes what is waiting, and stops. It does not download from Plaud.)

Select Start Menu Folder — leave it as Memory Recall. Click Next. Then Select Additional Tasks — leave Create a shortcut on my Desktop ticked and click Next. (On a second run, the Start Menu page is skipped.)

Ready to Install — click Install.

Installing — this is the long part, about 8 GB of downloads. A black window shows each download's progress, and during a long one it prints still working on … N min so far every few minutes. Leave it alone and let it finish. Setup keeps the computer awake while it works, but keep a laptop plugged in with its lid open.

Completing the Memory Recall Setup Wizard — leave Open Memory Recall now ticked and click Finish.

If setup stops instead, a box says Memory Recall was copied to this computer, but setup could not finish installing it and names a log file. Take a photo of it, click OK, then Finish on the page that says Memory Recall is NOT ready to use yet. Nothing is lost. Run the installer again; it continues from where it stopped.

A black window titled Memory Recall server opens, and a few seconds later your web browser opens Memory Recall at localhost:3001.

Memory Recall — First-run setup — choose a local passphrase (at least 10 characters). (It says Sign in instead? See the box above.) Type a passphrase in Passphrase and again in Confirm passphrase, and click Create passphrase. It signs you in straight away.

Write the passphrase down somewhere you will find it. It never leaves this computer, and there is no email reset.

Before you use Memory Recall — read the short summary. Tick I have read and accept the End User License Agreement and I am responsible for obtaining consent from the people I record. Type your name in Your name (required). Click I Agree.

Connect your services — two cards, Google Calendar and Plaud, each marked Recommended. Do Calendar first (step 27), then Plaud (step 28). Underneath, Ready to pull recordings? shows a short checklist; it turns to Ready as you connect each one.

Google Calendar. Click Connect Google Calendar. Google opens in the same tab:

1. Choose an account — click your Google account.
2. Google hasn’t verified this app — this is expected while Memory Recall is new. Click Continue.
3. Memory Recall wants access to your Google Account — it asks only to see your calendars, never to change them. Tick the box if there is one, and click Continue.

You come back to Memory Recall (you are not asked for your passphrase again). The Calendar card now says Connected as your email.

Plaud. Have your Plaud email and password ready first: the sign-in has to be finished within 5 minutes of clicking the button. Click Connect Plaud. Plaud’s sign-in page opens in a new tab. Sign in the way you normally do. (If the tab says This site can’t be reached, the 5 minutes ran out — close it and click Connect Plaud again.) The tab then says Plaud is connected. You can close this tab. — close it; the Memory Recall tab updates by itself.

Already says Plaud is connected? That is a returning computer — see the box above step 24.

Back on the first tab, Memory Recall asks How much should Memory Recall bring in? Choose The last 10 recordings and click Import. Please do not choose one of the Last … days or Last 12 months options: they have no limit, and processing hundreds of recordings at once ties the computer up for days.

From then on, new recordings come in from Plaud every hour while Memory Recall is open. To get them right away, press the pull button on the Processing page. Disconnecting Plaud in Settings stops it.

Click Continue at the bottom. You are now on the home page of Memory Recall. (If you would rather connect later, Skip connecting for now also takes you there, and both buttons are in Settings.)

Memory Recall works fully for 30 days without a license (on a returning computer the 30 days count from the first install — see the box above step 24). To activate it: click Settings in the left-hand menu. The first section is License (it says Trial and how many days are left). Under Your machine code, click Copy machine code, paste the code into an email to support@memoryrecall.ai, and send it.

We reply with a license key — a block of text, not a short code. Copy all of it, paste it into the License key box, and click Activate. It says Activated.

Click Processing in the left-hand menu to see what Memory Recall is working on. Each recording moves through Transcribing, Diarizing (telling speakers apart), Matching and Summarizing; the page updates by itself. A one-hour recording takes about an hour. When it is done it appears under Recordings with its transcript and summary.

To add an audio file by hand, use Import → Choose files. The word Processing… next to the file there means it is still being copied in; the Processing page shows the real progress.

If the Processing page says Speaker separation cannot run until a Hugging Face token is added, the speaker models were not installed on this computer: run the installer again to put them back, or go to Settings, click Privacy & data at the bottom, paste your token in the Hugging Face token box, and click Check my access.