Rewind.ai Is Gone — the Local Alternatives for Windows (2026)
3 min read · TimeLeak
Updated August 2026.
Quick recap for anyone who missed it: Rewind.ai became Limitless, Limitless was acquired by Meta in December 2025, new sales stopped, the Mac screen-capture app was disabled weeks later, and EU/UK users had their data deleted on a two-week clock (the HN thread is full of people who lost years of "perfect memory" overnight).
Whatever you thought of the product, the lesson is structural: a cloud-connected memory of your screen is a liability with a shutdown date you don't control. Anything that replaces it should be local, and should keep working if its vendor doesn't.
The honest options on Windows
| Tool | What it is | Price shape | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screenpipe | 24/7 screen+audio recording → searchable local DB, open-source core | free to self-build; packaged app pricing has moved between lifetime deals and subscription (~$21/mo tiers) — check their current pricing | heavy (continuous recording), dev-oriented, pivoting toward AI-agent infrastructure |
| OpenRecall | open-source Recall clone: snapshots + local semantic search, any x86 PC | free | young project; snapshots and index stored unencrypted — the exact exposure Recall gets criticized for |
| ActivityWatch | local app/title tracking, open source | free | no screen understanding — buckets and charts, DIY insight |
| Windows Recall | Microsoft's built-in snapshot memory | free on Copilot+ PCs | hardware-gated, and security researchers were still extracting Recall data with standard-user access in 2026 |
| TimeLeak | 5-second local watcher + AI daily brief of where your time went | free watcher; Pro $19 one-time | not a search-your-past tool — see below |
Which job did you actually use Rewind for?
Be honest about this, because the replacements split cleanly:
- "Find that thing I saw last Tuesday" — you want full recall and search. Screenpipe is the closest living thing to Rewind on Windows; pay its resource cost knowingly.
- "Tell me where my day actually went" — most people's real use, most days. That's TimeLeak's entire job: light 5-second sampling, 7-day retention, and an evening brief that names the repeat behaviors and their fixes — with nothing leaving your machine and a license that can't be acquired out from under you.
The TimeLeak watcher is free — you'll know by tonight whether the daily-brief job is the one you were really paying Rewind for.
FAQ
Is TimeLeak a full Rewind replacement?
No. Rewind's superpower was searching everything you ever saw; TimeLeak deliberately keeps only 7 days and outputs a daily brief instead of a search box. If total recall is the job, look at Screenpipe. If awareness and fixes are the job, TimeLeak does it lighter and cheaper.
Could TimeLeak get acquired and shut down like Rewind?
The company could; your copy can't. It's plain Python with local data and no activation server — there is no switch anyone can flip remotely. That's a design decision made specifically because of what happened to Rewind users.
What happened to Limitless pendant owners?
Meta stopped pendant sales at acquisition and committed to limited support — early adopters got about a year before the wind-down. Same lesson, wearable edition.