I'm always on the lookout for the perfect note-taking tool. I've gone hands-on with practically every tool I hear people raving about, and the sad part is that there's little variety. The tools are either overbloated with features that simply aren't necessary, or they're so barebones that you end up wishing for just a bit more.
And even though my bar for a good note-taking tool isn't necessarily high, I've ended up ditching most of the ones I've tried simply because they don't offer enough value to keep using. In the end, to get the workflow I actually need, I've found myself juggling a dozen different apps. Thankfully, I came across a tool called Recall that replaces three of the tools I relied on the most.
What is Recall, anyway?
Your all-in-one AI assistant
Recall is an AI-powered personal knowledge management tool, and it's built to help users "save, summarize, and chat" with content they find online. The tool claims that it's trusted by over 500,000 learners at top-leading colleges like Harvard, Stanford, NYU, and more. When reading through the tool's description, I immediately thought of NotebookLM. Both NotebookLM and Recall are working toward a similar goal of helping users turn information overload into something you can actually work with.
Recall achieves this by letting you save any content you come across online while browsing (YouTube videos, podcasts, articles, guides, anything!). It has a Chrome and Firefox extension designed to let you clip the content you'd like to add to your Recall knowledge base. It then organizes everything and automatically links it with content you've saved before.
Now, given that the tool offers a lot and is essentially replacing three tools, that's a very brief overview of what it does on the surface -- we'll go more in-depth below. The tool also claims it can help you save over 10 hours weekly and that it doesn't use your data to train AI.
Recall organizes your stuff in an Obsidian-like graph view
All your notes connected in one graph
As I mentioned above, Recall lets you add any content you'd like to save into your knowledge base using its extension. Now, saving content you want to remember in one unified place is something thousands of tools already do. There's nothing original there. Where Recall differs from the thousands is in how it handles that content once you've saved it. When you're saving content to Recall using the extension, there's a dedicated Connections tab that highlights keywords found in whatever you're adding.
Sometimes, you'll notice a number next to a keyword -- this number shows how many other cards (meaning the pieces of content you've already saved) also mention that same keyword. This helps you instantly see where your ideas overlap. Now, here's where things get really impressive: Recall's Graph View. This works similarly to Obsidian's graph view and provides a visual representation of all your connections.
Until NotebookLM, I never believed AI could be this game-changing for productivity
It transformed my view of AI, for the better.
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By Mahnoor Faisal
May 26, 2025
Within your graph view, you'll notice two types of links connecting all your nodes: Backlinks and Outgoing links. The Backlinks are the links that point to the current card and indicate that other pieces of content in your knowledge base mention or reference the topic of the card you're viewing. The Outgoing links are the links that point from the current card to other content and indicate that the current piece of content mentions, references, or links out to other related topics or cards in your base.
While Obsidian's graph view requires you to create links manually, meaning the graph essentially represents intentional links, Recall's view is automatically generated. Every time you save something new, the system instantly scans it, detects shared concepts, and builds the connections for you. This makes the graph feel alive rather than static, and gives you a constantly updating map of what you're learning without any extra effort on your part.
With Recall, you get NotebookLM's best feature anywhere you want
Source-grounded context, anywhere
NotebookLM has a lot of incredible learning tools like Audio Overviews and Mind Maps, and we've talked about them a lot over at XDA before. However, that's not the focus of this piece. I think NotebookLM's best feature is its ability to give source-grounded answers. When you upload a source to a NotebookLM notebook, you'll immediately get a summary of the content included in the source.
You can then ask any questions, and NotebookLM will give you responses that are directly grounded in the material you uploaded. Any claim NotebookLM makes also references the source, so you always know where the information came from. Recall offers similar functionality, which is exactly why I've been so addicted to the tool.
For instance, I use NotebookLM a lot to determine if a long YouTube video is worth watching. I do that by creating a new notebook, uploading the YouTube video's URL, and then asking NotebookLM for a summary to see whether the key points match what I'm looking for, saving me hours of unnecessary watching.
With Recall, this same workflow that would previously take several steps can be performed just by clicking the extension's icon. A summary of the video is immediately generated, and it includes only insights relevant to the topic you're exploring. Similar to a tool I've tested out before called Gistr, Recall displays clickable timestamps next to each key point, so you can jump directly to the exact moment in the video where that insight is discussed.
5 NotebookLM tips I use to supercharge my productivity
Enjoy efficient knowledge management
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By Parth Shah
Mar 30, 2025
Beyond the summary that's generated, you can also ask Recall follow-up questions about the video, request deeper explanations on specific points, or explore related concepts. Again, all the responses will be fully source-grounded, meaning every answer ties back to the original content.
Interestingly, it doesn't end here. Unlike NotebookLM, Recall lets you chat with all your saved content in your knowledge base. When you head to the Recall website, you can switch to its Chat section and simply ask queries related to the content you've saved before. If you'd like to reference a particular source, simply type a @ followed by the name of the saved item, and Recall will pull in information specifically from that source to answer your question.
You can also reference multiple saved items at once by typing @ followed by each source you want to include. Recall will then synthesize information from all the selected sources to provide a comprehensive, source-grounded answer. This makes it easy to compare insights, identify connections across different materials, or get a broader understanding of a topic.
These are all things you can't do with NotebookLM, since it only lets you query your sources uploaded within a specific notebook. Recall, on the other hand, lets you bring together content from multiple sources across your entire knowledge base.
Recall also has smarter Anki-like flashcards
Smarter quizzes for long-term memory
I'm a college student currently, and ever since I was little, I've struggled with committing information to memory. I memorize something, remember it for a while (usually until my exam), and then it just... fades. So, I've always relied on flashcards anytime I want to actually retain information long-term. I've alternated between tools like Anki and Quizlet, which are both dedicated flashcard creators.
While Recall doesn't have a Flashcard capability, it lets you generate quizzes from content you save within your Recall knowledge base. While flashcards and quizzes are both vastly different, the way Recall treats them makes the experience just as effective for learning. To generate a quiz, all you need to do is head to the saved content on the Recall website, switch to the Quiz tab, and then hit Generate AI Quiz. Recall then has a Review tab that lets you begin a Recall Review session.
Please stop using NotebookLM as a note-taking app
Stop treating NotebookLM like a...notebook.
Posts 5
By Mahnoor Faisal
Nov 2, 2025
Once you start a session, the tool automatically curates a set of 10 cards from your entire knowledge base. Instead of just choosing cards at random, Recall selects specific cards based on a spaced repetition algorithm. When you're in a Recall Review session, if you answer questions incorrectly, it keeps those cards in the rotation within the same session, giving you another chance to reinforce the information immediately.
Since I started using Recall, it has completely changed the way I study. Although NotebookLM also has a Quiz and Flashcards feature, Recall is unmatched in the way it integrates these learning tools with your entire knowledge base. I don't need to go through the hassle of clicking between different notebooks or manually adding content to my notebooks.
I wish I started using Recall earlier
I've tried practically every AI tool out there, and Recall is among the very few that I've actually found myself using and integrating into my daily routine. The only drawback is that the free version is extremely, extremely limiting.
With the free tier, you can only summarize 10 sources in total -- I hit that cap in a day! Though you can save as many sources as you want and create as many personal notes, you need to subscribe to Recall's premium tier for every other feature. Nonetheless, given Recall's other features and the time it saves, upgrading feels absolutely worth it.
