Installing Recall on Windows

Recall supports Windows 10 (22H2+) and Windows 11 on x64 hardware. The desktop app ships as an NSIS installer (.exe) that has no Windows code-signing certificate, so Windows SmartScreen will prompt for confirmation on first run — see section 3 below for the SmartScreen approval dance. From the first signed release on, each release is also signed with Recall's own release key, which you can check yourself (see Verifying your download).

1. Download

Grab recall-{version}-windows-amd64-installer.exe from the GitHub Releases page. That's the file to download — the release also carries a bare recall-{version}-windows-amd64.exe, which exists only for Recall's in-app updater to fetch; you don't run it directly.

2. Install — run the installer

Double-click the downloaded .exe. NSIS walks you through:

• Accept the license (Apache-2.0).
• Pick an install path — the default is %LocalAppData%\Programs\Recall\recall.exe (e.g. C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Local\Programs\Recall). This is a per-user install: no administrator prompt, and it's the location Recall updates itself into (see Staying up to date).
• Click Install and let it copy.

When the installer finishes, Recall is available from the Start Menu and on the desktop (if you left the shortcut checkbox ticked).

Upgrading from an older (pre-per-user) install? Recall used to install machine-wide under C:\Program Files. The new installer detects that older copy and removes it automatically — Windows will ask for administrator permission once during that first upgrade so it can clear the old Program Files copy. Your data is untouched (it lives under %AppData%\Recall, not the program folder). If you decline the prompt, the install still completes; just remove the old "Recall" entry from Settings → Apps when convenient.

3. First launch — approve SmartScreen

Recall's releases carry a build attestation from GitHub and, from the first signed release on, a signature from the project's own release key that Recall's updater checks too. Both let you check where a file came from. Neither is a Windows code-signing certificate, which is what SmartScreen looks for, and the project doesn't have one. So the first time you double-click Recall.exe, Windows will show:

Windows protected your PC Microsoft Defender SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized app from starting. Running this app might put your PC at risk.

To approve it:

1. Click More info in the SmartScreen dialog.
2. A Run anyway button appears — click it.

You only need to do this once per installed version. After Windows has "seen" the binary, subsequent launches skip the prompt.

Verifying the binary before you trust it — section Verifying your download below covers the checksum, the release signature and GitHub's build attestation. They close the "is this really Recall's release?" gap that SmartScreen's prompt opens.

4. Install Tesseract 5.x

Recall needs Tesseract to read text from your screenshots. Download the 5.x installer from UB-Mannheim:

• tesseract-ocr-w64-setup-5.5.0.20241111.exe (or whichever is the latest 5.x in the list)

Run it with the default options. The default install path is:

C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR\tesseract.exe

Recall auto-detects this path on first launch. If you installed Tesseract somewhere else (or earlier installations dropped it under C:\Program Files (x86)\Tesseract-OCR\…), use Settings → Engine → Locate Tesseract… to point it at the binary.

Don't use Tesseract 3.x or 4.x. Those releases predate the Overwatch post-match font and misread "ELIMINATIONS" / "ASSISTS" / "DEATHS" reliably. Recall flags older versions in the Engine row, but the parse-accuracy hit is the real reason to upgrade.

5. Point Recall at your screenshots folder

Recall's first-run Settings hero shows a 2 × 2 picker grid naming each canonical Windows capture source. A green dot on a card means that folder exists on your machine; one click sets it as the watched directory.

If you use something else (a third-party tool, a synced cloud folder, a USB stick), use the Pick a different folder… tile below the grid — opens the standard Windows folder picker.

The Watch Folder toggle on the Parse tab makes Recall auto-parse new screenshots as Overwatch (or your capture tool) writes them.

Staying up to date

Open About Recall (the ⋮ menu → About) to check for updates. It surfaces both Recall releases AND roster patches (new heroes / maps / capture-tool grammars) the parser ships separately from the binary. See Updates & game data for the flow and the checksum and signature checks. No silent on-mount network calls — the check only fires when you open About.

When a new Recall release is available, click Install update right there: Recall downloads the new build, checks it and stages it, then offers Restart now to apply, which swaps it in place under %LocalAppData%\Programs\Recall and relaunches. Open release page is the path when Recall can't update itself, as on a machine-wide install that predates the per-user move, where the program folder isn't writable without elevation. It is not a way around Update not installed (below): don't install a refused release from that page.

Before it installs anything, Recall checks that the update is an official Recall release:

• The release's SHA256SUMS file must list the new build's SHA-256 fingerprint, and the download must match it.
• The build's signature file (.sig) must have been made with Recall's release key, which is built into the copy of Recall you already have. The signature covers the file's name as well as its contents, so an older build can't be passed off as a newer one.

If a release fails these checks, About shows Update not installed and nothing on your computer changes. (A download that arrives damaged shows an error instead, and you can try again.) Don't install that release by hand. Wait for the next release, or check Recall's Security advisories page on GitHub.

Copies of Recall older than the first signed release check only the SHA256SUMS fingerprint, so the signature check applies to every update after that one. SECURITY.md explains exactly what the updater trusts and checks.

Where Recall stores its data

Recall organizes everything by profile — each profile (your main account, alts, anything) gets its own settings + match database. The install root is:

%AppData%\Recall\

(typically C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\Recall\)

Inside it, the default main profile's data lives at:

%AppData%\Recall\profiles\main\
  ├── settings.json
  └── db\recall.db

The masthead chip lets you create more profiles + switch between them; each one gets its own sibling directory under profiles\.

One file sits outside the profiles, at %AppData%\Recall\window.json: the app window's size and position. It is shared across profiles on purpose — switching accounts should not move your window. Delete it (or use Settings → 07 / Window → Reset) if the window ever ends up somewhere awkward.

To wipe a single profile: close Recall, delete that profile's folder under profiles\, restart. To wipe everything, delete the whole Recall\ install root. For a guided reset that backs up first, use the script below.

Resetting your database (no migrations yet)

Recall has no schema migrations before 1.0. When an update changes the database layout your existing data can become incompatible — and the fix is to wipe the database. Recall recreates an empty one on next launch and re-parses your screenshots folder, so your matches come back; only data that lives only in the database is lost (table below). You might also want this for a deliberately clean start or a corrupt database.

A helper script does it safely — it backs up the database first, then deletes it once you confirm. Two ways to run it:

• Already installed? Double-click %LocalAppData%\Programs\Recall\Reset-Database.bat — it ships with the app. This is the "clean install" path: no separate download needed.
• Prefer to download it? Grab recall-{version}-Reset-Database.bat from the Releases page and double-click it. It has a checksum and a build attestation like the installer — verify it the same way (see Verifying your download).

Close Recall first. The script warns you if it's still running, backs up the database to …\db\backups\recall-<timestamp>.db, then asks before deleting. No admin rights are needed.

To restore a backup, copy the recall-<timestamp>.db trio from …\db\backups\ back over recall.db (and its -wal / -shm) while Recall is closed.

Run Reset-Database.bat /force to skip the prompt, or /nobackup to delete without a backup.

Verifying your download

Each release lets you check a download up to three ways: releases from before signed updates have no signature, so they skip the second. All three are optional; the first takes a few seconds and needs nothing extra.

Is the file intact? (checksum)

Every release ships a .sha256 companion file. PowerShell can verify the download against it:

$expected = (Get-Content recall-{version}-windows-amd64-installer.exe.sha256).Split(' ')[0]
$actual   = (Get-FileHash recall-{version}-windows-amd64-installer.exe -Algorithm SHA256).Hash.ToLower()
if ($expected -eq $actual) { 'OK' } else { 'MISMATCH' }

OK means the file is intact. MISMATCH means re-download it. A checksum says nothing about who made the file: whoever could replace the installer could replace its .sha256 too. The next two checks cover that.

Did Recall's release key sign it? (signature)

The installer and the updater exe each come with a .sig file: the same signature Recall's updater checks before it installs an update. Releases from before signed updates have no .sig files.

To check a signature you need a bash shell with OpenSSL 3, such as Git Bash or WSL (run openssl version to check). In the folder holding your download and its .sig file:

1. Download Recall's public key for that release and check its fingerprint:

   curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sound-barrier/recall/v{version}/pkg/updatesig/public_key.pem
   openssl pkey -pubin -in public_key.pem -outform DER | openssl dgst -sha256
   

   The output must end with f0a7689b393a24397d4a230e09e53101cdfe401ade3793ab658ebfa9efbf6761, the fingerprint published in SECURITY.md.

2. Check the installer:

   name=recall-{version}-windows-amd64-installer.exe
   { printf 'recall-update-signature-v1\n%s\n' "$name"; openssl dgst -sha256 -binary "$name"; } > msg.bin
   openssl pkeyutl -verify -pubin -inkey public_key.pem -rawin -in msg.bin -sigfile "$name.sig"
   

   For the updater exe, set name=recall-{version}-windows-amd64.exe and run the last two lines again.

Signature Verified Successfully means Recall's release key signed that exact file. Signature Verification Failure means don't run it. The signature covers the file's name, so the file must keep the exact name it was published under: rename a copy your browser saved as recall-… (1).exe back first.

Which workflow built it? (attestation)

GitHub records a build attestation for each release file (all but the attestation bundle itself), naming the workflow and tag that produced it. To check one, install the GitHub CLI 2.68.0 or newer, sign in with gh auth login, and run:

gh attestation verify recall-{version}-windows-amd64-installer.exe `
  --repo sound-barrier/recall `
  --signer-workflow sound-barrier/recall/.github/workflows/release.yml `
  --source-ref refs/tags/v{version}

✓ Verification succeeded! means the file was built by Recall's release.yml workflow running on the v{version} tag.

To skip signing in, download the release's recall-{version}.intoto.jsonl too and add --bundle recall-{version}.intoto.jsonl to the same command. It still needs --repo, and it still downloads Sigstore's trusted root, so it is not an offline check. Releases from before signed updates have no bundle file, so for those you sign in.

An attestation shows which workflow file and tag built a file, but it cannot tell a reviewed workflow from an edited one. The signature check above is the one that needs Recall's release key, which only an approved release run can use.

The checksum and attestation checks work on the reset helper too — swap in recall-{version}-Reset-Database.bat (it ships its own .sha256 and is attested alongside the installer). It has no .sig.