Month: February 2026

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Permanently Disable Microsoft Recall with DISM

Toggling Recall off in Settings leaves the feature installed and eligible for re-enablement via future updates. Removing it at the DISM level is cleaner and sticks.

Requires: Copilot+ PC, elevated prompt.

DISM /online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:”Recall”

Reboot if prompted, then verify:

DISM /online /Get-FeatureInfo /FeatureName:”Recall”

You want State : Disabled with Payload Removed — anything less and the binaries are still on disk.

Enterprise Deployment

Drop this into your Intune remediation, GPO startup script, or Autopilot provisioning flow:

powershell

$state = (DISM /online /Get-FeatureInfo /FeatureName:”Recall” | Select-String “State”).ToString()

if ($state -notlike “*Disabled*”) {

    DISM /online /Disable-Feature /FeatureName:”Recall” /NoRestart

}

For offline image prep, swap /online for /image:<mount_path> to bake it out of your WIM before deployment.

Why Bother?

Recall snapshots everything — banking portals, healthcare apps, credentials mid-entry — and indexes it in a local SQLite database. On-device storage is the current model, but any LPE or physical access scenario turns that database into a full activity log handed to an attacker. For environments under HIPAA, GDPR, or SOC 2, disabling it isn’t optional.

To reverse: DISM /online /Enable-Feature /FeatureName:”Recall” — though if the payload was removed, expect a reach-out to Windows Update or installation media.

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Stop Spam in Its Tracks: The Unsubscribe Rule for Outlook

If you’re drowning in promotional emails, newsletters, and marketing messages, here’s a simple Outlook trick that can dramatically clean up your inbox: create a rule that automatically filters any email containing the word “unsubscribe.”

Why This Works

Nearly every marketing email and newsletter is legally required to include an unsubscribe link. By targeting this common element, you can catch the vast majority of promotional content without manually unsubscribing from dozens of lists.

Setting Up the Rule

Here’s how to create this rule in Outlook:

  1. Open Outlook and go to File > Manage Rules & Alerts
  2. Click New Rule and select “Apply rule on messages I receive”
  3. Under conditions, choose “with specific words in the subject or body”
  4. Type “unsubscribe” as your keyword
  5. Choose your action—most people select “move it to the specified folder” and create a folder called “Promotions” or “Newsletters”
  6. Name your rule and click Finish

A Word of Caution

While this method is effective, it’s not perfect. Some legitimate emails from colleagues or clients might occasionally include the word “unsubscribe” in their signature or content. You should check your filtered folder periodically to make sure nothing important slipped through.

Also consider that some transactional emails you actually want—like order confirmations or account notifications—may also contain unsubscribe links. You might need to refine your rule over time or create exceptions for specific senders.

That said, for most users, this simple rule provides an immediate and noticeable reduction in inbox clutter with minimal effort.

Credit Where It’s Due

This filtering approach was inspired by Digvijay Kumar’s excellent article about achieving inbox zero in Gmail using similar filters. While he applied this technique to Gmail, the same principle works beautifully in Outlook.

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