The product: connect saved material with your next piece of writing

Saving an article is easy. Two weeks later, when you prepare a presentation, remembering a useful point but losing its source is the harder problem. Recall organizes saved material into cards. Each card keeps a read-only original and an editable notebook, alongside summaries, chat and connections between content. Here, a “knowledge base” means the collection of material the user has chosen to save. See the official introduction.

You can ask about one card or search across the library. This article focuses on the latter: finding evidence for a short piece of writing, identifying which material an answer used, and returning to the original to check it. More material does not automatically mean more reliable conclusions. Duplicate, outdated or conflicting sources still need attention.

Cards and source choices are public features; judging evidence and refining questions are suggested human checks. Originals are read-only and notebooks are editable. A citation still needs to be checked against the conclusion.

A practical workflow: use two sources to prepare a short explanation

Suppose you want to explain remote collaboration to colleagues. You have a public article and an internal methods note that you are allowed to upload. This is a suggested practice scenario, not a performance test.

  1. Check your plan, then save the material. Under the current plans, Free includes saving content, writing notes and 10 AI summaries a month. Knowledge-base AI chat requires Plus or above. After signing in, use Add in the app, or install the extension and click it on the source page. The adding-content guide explains that saving creates a card. Open it first to check that the original is complete.
  2. Leave a clue about why it matters. In the card's notebook, write why you saved it—for example, “Compare approaches to asynchronous updates.” Your interpretation stays separate from the read-only original, making it easier to distinguish source content from your later thoughts. Check important numbers and conditions in the original rather than relying only on a summary.
  3. Decide what this answer may draw on. Open library chat using the chat icon on the left of the web app. The source options are Recall, Web and Recall + Web. Choose Recall for this task, then use @ Context to focus on the relevant cards. The source option selects the library, the web or both; @ focuses attention on material. Writing “use my material” in a question does not replace checking the selected scope. See the chat guide.
  4. Ask a specific question and check its citations. A suggested prompt is: “Compare what these two sources say about asynchronous updates. List agreements, differences and the evidence for each. Say when something is not covered.” Answers include source citations. Open them to check whether they support the associated statement. Preserve disagreements instead of combining advice for different circumstances into one conclusion.
  5. Save a result you can build on. Save a useful answer to your notes and add your own judgment. For newer external information, start another question with Recall + Web or Web and check the citation scope again. Accounts with saving features alone can still read and take notes manually; paid chat is not a required step in a free workflow.

Design lessons: choose the information scope before judging the answer

Make “where to look” a visible choice

A library may contain lasting methods while lacking the latest news. Recall, Web and Recall + Web let the user choose before asking, rather than presenting an input box without a visible source scope. For someone preparing an internal presentation, this can reduce the chance of mixing new external material with existing notes. The tradeoff is an extra decision and the need to check the scope when the question changes. This is an analysis of the public controls; choosing a scope does not guarantee a correct answer.

Give originals, answers and personal notes different roles

Cards retain originals, chat produces answers with citations you can revisit, and notes hold the user's interpretation. They sit along a related workflow but serve different purposes: originals support verification, answers help organize material, and notes accumulate judgment. A useful design principle is to make information easier to reuse while keeping a path back to where it came from. Saving only a fluent summary would lose that route for later checks.