How the Recl app works
Recl turns the videos, articles and posts you save into summaries you can scan, topics that sort themselves, key ideas that come back before you forget, and a library you can ask questions of. Here is the whole loop, step by step.
Sign in
Go to app.recl.app and sign in with Google or Apple. Those are the only sign-in methods — no passwords and no magic links. You land on an empty library, ready for your first save.
Save anything
There are three ways in. Paste a URL into the dashboard, click the Recl Chrome extension on any page, or use your phone's share sheet to send something straight to Recl. It accepts a lot more than links:
- YouTube videos and whole playlists, and other long-form video
- Articles and newsletters
- X and Instagram posts, TikToks, and podcasts
- Bookmarks, selected text saved as a quote, and your own notes
Recl- Tap Share, then pick Recl.
- Recl’s scan sheet opens on top of YouTube: Saving to Recl, Reading the video, Pulling out the key ideas, Ready.
- Add it to a folder if you like, tap Done, and you’re back in the video.
What this video shows
A silent screen recording in the Recl Android app: a YouTube video shared to Recl is read, summarised and ready to file in a few seconds.
- 0:00 After a YouTube video (Sintel, the Blender Foundation open movie) is shared to Recl, a sheet opens over the library: “Saving to Recl…”, then “Reading the video…”. It says there is no need to wait: close it and it keeps saving.
- 0:02 “Pulling out the key ideas…”
- 0:04 “Ready”, with a one-line summary: “A lone hunter’s desperate quest reveals how close he truly is to the dragon he seeks.” Below it: Add to folder (New folder, Unsorted and your folders), Add a note, and Done.
New to saving? The Chrome extension guide covers one-click saving from the browser in detail.
Recl reads it and writes the summary
Recl reads the whole thing — the transcript of a video, the body of an article — and writes a structured summary: a one-line overview, then the key takeaways as short points. For video and audio, each point carries a timestamp that jumps you back to the exact moment, so the summary is a map of the source, not a replacement you have to take on trust. You can read it short for the gist, or as a deeper read when you are studying.
See a worked example in What a Recl summary actually looks like.
It sorts into topics automatically
As it reads, Recl decides what the save is about and files it under the matching topics — Neuroscience, Startups, Philosophy, and so on — from a fixed set, so your whole library speaks one vocabulary. A save can carry more than one topic, and you never choose a folder.
What this video shows
A silent screen recording of the Library in the Recl Android app: saves sorted into topics automatically, shown as a grid or a list, then by folder.
- 0:00 The Library’s Topics tab shows a three-column grid of topics with their save counts: Self-Improvement, Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, Engineering & Hardware, Business & Marketing, Film & Media, Neuroscience, Productivity and more.
- 0:01 The view menu opens: List, 2 columns or 3 columns, sorted by Recently added, Oldest first, A–Z or Z–A.
- 0:02 The topics switch to two columns, then to a list.
- 0:06 The Folders tab shows folders by source (Videos, x.com, instagram.com, substack.com, wikipedia.org) and Unsorted, first as a list, then as a grid.
- 0:09 Back on the Topics tab, in the grid.
How the sorting decides: How Recl auto-sorts everything you save into topics.
It brings the key ideas back on a spaced schedule
A saved summary is not yet a remembered idea, so Recl brings it back. Each save returns as a recall card on a fixed, expanding schedule — a day after you save it, then after 3 days, a week, two weeks, a month and two months, after which it graduates. Read it, tap Mark reviewed, and the next gap begins; there is nothing to grade. With notifications on, a morning review reminder opens the app's Today screen with the cards that are due, and every save has the same Mark reviewed button on its own page. Each also has an optional quick quiz if you like to test yourself.
- Increasing your luck surface areaRecallLuck grows with how much you care, times how widely you share itcodusoperandi.com (opens in a new tab)saved 3 days ago
- How to start a startup — Lecture 1RecallGreat startups begin with something a few users love intenselyYouTube (opens in a new tab)saved a week ago
- The forgetting curveRecallWithout a second look, most of what you learn fades within dayswikipedia.org (opens in a new tab)saved a month ago
3 ideas coming back today
Why this works: How spaced recall makes what you save actually stick.
Explore the graph and ask your library
Two things reward a growing library. The knowledge graph (on the web) draws your saves as a map and links any two that share a topic, so you can see how your ideas cluster and jump between related saves. And Ask your library lets you put a question to everything you've saved and get an answer drawn only from your own material — with citations back to the saves it used.
What this video shows
A silent screen recording of Ask in the Recl Android app: a question about your own saves, answered from three saved videos with their sources.
- 0:00 The Ask screen opens with “Ask Recl about anything you’ve saved” and suggested questions such as “What are the main topics in my saves?”.
- 0:01 The question “What did I save about startups?” is typed and sent.
- 0:04 Recl shows “Thinking…” while it looks through the saves.
- 0:06 The answer appears: “You have saved three videos that focus on startups.” It lists Lecture 1 – How to Start a Startup (Sam Altman and Dustin Moskovitz), Peter Thiel – Competition Is For Losers, and How to Start a Business, each with the date it was saved, a one-line summary and a numbered source marker.
- 0:11 The Sources row under the answer scrolls through the saved videos it used.
Go deeper: Your knowledge graph and Ask your library.
Start remembering what you save
Save one video today and see if you still have it next month. Recl is a paid memory system — every plan unlocks every feature, and you can cancel anytime.