Perfect Memory vs Rewind: an honest comparison, and how to move over

Rewind was the Mac app that made “search everything you have seen” feel normal. It no longer records. If you used it, you are probably looking for something to replace it, and you have good reason to be suspicious of anyone selling you one. I build one of those replacements, so read this with that in mind. I have tried to put the places where Perfect Memory is weaker in writing, not only the places where it is not.

What happened to Rewind

Rewind's maker renamed itself Limitless in 2024 and moved its focus to a wearable pendant. On 5 December 2025, Limitless CEO Dan Siroker announced that the company was joining Meta. The same announcement said the pendant would no longer be sold and that the Rewind Mac app was being retired. A final update switched off screen and audio capture on 19 December 2025.

Users in the EU, the UK and several other countries lost access to the Limitless service straight away and had until 19 December to export their data. Everyone else could keep the remaining Limitless features by accepting Meta's updated terms. Contemporary reports: 9to5Mac, TechCrunch and CNBC.

None of this was a failure of the idea. People still want to find the thing they saw on Tuesday. What changed is who owns the company holding the recordings, and that is worth thinking about before you pick the next one.

Side by side

Rewind's column describes the app as it was in 2025, before the shutdown.

Where Perfect Memory is weaker

If any of these matter to you, it is better to know now than a month in.

• It cannot import your Rewind history. Rewind's database is its own format, and I have not built an importer. You start from today.
• The Mac app is young. Perfect Memory has run on Windows for years; the Mac version is newer and still gets frequent fixes. It also needs macOS 14 and Apple silicon, so an Intel Mac is out.
• On Mac, only the screenshots are encrypted. Screenshots are sealed with AES-256-GCM. The recognised text and the search index are not encrypted by the app yet, so they rely on FileVault and your macOS account, like most of what is on your disk. Encrypting them is planned.
• It is not open source. If you need to read every line of the recorder before you run it, an open-source tool will suit you better.
• It records your computer, not your day. Perfect Memory hears meetings on your Mac or PC. It does not replace the Limitless pendant for conversations away from your desk.
• Assistants need your computer awake. Claude or ChatGPT search your history on your own machine, so a sleeping laptop has nothing to answer with. Connecting uses a private URL that you paste into the assistant; there is no sign-in flow yet.
• Pro has monthly limits. Pro covers 700 AI prompts and 500 meeting summaries a month. Searching and connector calls from Claude or ChatGPT are not limited on any plan.

Where it is different

It runs on Windows too. If you split your week between a Mac and a PC, one account covers both, and Claude can search either machine.

Your assistant can use it. Rewind had its own chat box. Perfect Memory also answers to the assistant you already use: add the connector to Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT, Cursor or Codex and ask “what did we decide about the launch date on Tuesday’s call?”. The request is relayed to the app on your computer, the search happens there, and only the answer travels back. The relay keeps no copy of your history. Here is how that works.

You control what it sees. It pauses in private and incognito browser windows, you can exclude apps such as your password manager, and you can delete the last 15 minutes or the last hour in two clicks.

You can take your data with you. Both apps export your screenshots and meetings to an ordinary folder. If Perfect Memory ever disappeared, your recordings would still be files on your own disk.

How to move over

1. Decide what to do with your Rewind history. Rewind kept it in ~/Library/Application Support/com.memoryvault.MemoryVault. It is yours, it can be large, and nothing reads it any more. Keep a copy if you might need it; delete it if you will not. If you also had a Limitless account, its export covers pendant transcripts and chats, not your screen history.
2. Install Perfect Memory from the download page. On a Mac, grant the Screen Recording permission when macOS asks; that is what lets it read your screen.
3. Exclude what you never want recorded. Password managers and banking apps are the usual start. Private browser windows are skipped already.
4. Give it a day. Search only finds what it has seen, so the first useful search is usually the next morning. Press ⌥Space on a Mac and type something you remember reading.
5. Connect your assistant (optional). Add https://proxy.perfectmemory.ai/api/mcp to Claude or ChatGPT as a custom connector and sign in with your Perfect Memory account. Step-by-step setup.

The question worth asking

The lesson of Rewind is not that local recording was a bad idea. It is that a record of everything you have seen is only as safe as the company that controls the app writing it. Perfect Memory keeps that record on your computer, lets you export it, and does not keep a copy on a server. Whatever you choose, look for those three things.