Google Pixel Screenshots App Isn’t the Privacy Nightmare Like Microsoft Recall

The incoming slate of Pixel 9 phones and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold will be up to their gills in AI features. Of all the Magic Editor and Gemini mumbo jumbo, the one AI capability that stood out is a mere app to store your screenshots. Pixel Screenshots is a Google phone-exclusive application that will let you search through your screengrabs with some AI assistance. After watching it in action, I see it as a simplified version of Microsoft’s maligned Recall feature, and so much for the better.

My screenshots are like barnacles adhered all over my organized Google Photos app. I take screen grabs as a catch-all for events, notes, and receipts I need to remember. I could remove them from Photos, but that would mean I might miss out on something I’ll need later. Pixel Screenshots solves this issue by offering a specific app to search through my screen grabs. The feature uses Gemini Nano to identify text and comprehend images in the app. If I ask it to search for how much my friend owes me in drinks from last night, it should be able to pull up that info.

Google told Gizmodo the entire process works on-device and doesn’t require any cloud-based work. Every time you take a screenshot, the app generates a title and summary for the image. You could add a note to the screenshot to help the AI-enhanced search find your content. Best of all, you can create categories for your various screenshots.

What Makes Pixel Screenshots Different from Microsoft’s Recall?

When Microsoft shared details on Recall for its initial wave of Copilot+ PCs earlier this year, it created a wave of concern from privacy-minded consumers. Some were hesitant to buy a PC that, from the get-go, would start screenshotting everything they did on their computer—including passwords and financial information—every few seconds and then storing that on their drive. Microsoft pulled the feature off the initial release of Copilot+ after researchers found the screenshots were easy to access without any real security layer.

Both Google and Microsoft claim that all the AI screenshot analysis happens on-device, whether Recall or Pixel Screenshots. Google’s benefit is that users can choose what they screenshot and when. It also works with other Google apps. If it picks up that there’s a date or location in a screenshot, I can hit a button to add a location to Maps or an event to Calendar.

Recall is supposed to be the always-on remembrance machine for when you forget what you were searching for the other day. But that feature automatically eats up a not-insignificant chunk of your storage to fill it with junk screenshots. Microsoft promises the feature won’t be enabled by default once they finally bring it to Copilot+, but I’d still be hesitant to allow it out of fear it will pick up some sensitive information while I scroll. 

Pixel phones will still save your screenshots into Google Photos, at least for now. My photos are for experiences, while my screenshots are useful as a tech reporter, so I’d like to keep them separate if possible. We’d also need to use the app more ourselves to offer a full impression, but as it stands, it’s one of those features that makes far better use of AI than dull AI-generated text or awkward, empty AI art.