On December 5, 2025, Meta announced it had acquired Limitless, the AI startup formerly known as Rewind AI. The deal ended one of the most ambitious experiments in personal screen recording and searchable digital memory.
If you were a Rewind AI user, a Limitless Pendant owner, or someone who relied on always-on screen recording to navigate your workday, here is what happened and what your options are now.
The Timeline of Events
Rewind AI launched in 2022 with a compelling idea: silently record everything on your Mac, store it locally, and make it searchable. The app gained a devoted user base among knowledge workers, researchers, and developers who valued the ability to retrace their digital steps.
In 2024, the company rebranded from Rewind to Limitless and pivoted toward hardware. They launched the Limitless Pendant, a $99 wearable that could capture conversations and meetings. The original Rewind desktop app took a back seat as the team shifted focus to the pendant and enterprise features.
Then on December 5, 2025, Meta announced the acquisition. The Limitless team would join Meta's Reality Labs wearables division.
What Was Shut Down
The acquisition had immediate consequences for existing users:
- Screen and audio capture disabled on December 19, 2025. The core Rewind feature — recording your desktop activity into a searchable archive — stopped working entirely.
- Limitless Pendant sales ended. Meta stopped selling the hardware device on the day of the announcement.
- Regional shutdowns. Users in the EU, Brazil, China, Israel, South Korea, Turkey, and the UK lost access immediately. They had until December 19, 2025, to download their data before accounts and all associated data were permanently deleted.
- Existing Pendant customers were moved to a free Unlimited Plan, with support continuing for one year.
In short: the Rewind desktop recording product — the thing that started it all — is gone.
Why Meta Bought Limitless
Meta's interest was not in the desktop screen recording product. They wanted the team's expertise in wearable AI and ambient computing. The Limitless Pendant represented a working prototype of the kind of always-listening, context-aware wearable that Meta envisions as part of its AR/VR strategy.
The team was placed inside the wearables organization of Reality Labs. The screen recording technology and the Mac app were not part of Meta's plan.
This is a pattern that has played out before in tech acquisitions. The product users love gets discontinued while the talent and intellectual property get absorbed into a larger company's roadmap. It does not matter how many people relied on the original product. What matters to the acquirer is the team.
What This Means for Screen Recording Users
If you depended on Rewind or Limitless for screen recording and search, you now need an alternative. The market has not stood still since Rewind first launched, and there are genuine options available in 2026.
Here is what to consider when evaluating replacements:
Privacy Matters More Than Ever
Meta's acquisition raised fresh privacy concerns. A company whose business model depends on data collection now owns the technology and intellectual property behind a tool that recorded everything on your screen. Even though the desktop product was shut down, the acquisition underscores why local-only storage matters.
Any screen recording tool you choose should keep your data entirely on your machine. No cloud uploads, no remote processing, no ambiguity about who can access your screen history.
The Product Should Be the Company's Core Focus
One lesson from the Rewind-to-Limitless-to-Meta journey is the danger of using a product from a company that has pivoted away from it. Rewind pivoted to Limitless, which pivoted to hardware, which sold to Meta. At each step, the desktop screen recording product became less important to the people building it.
Look for tools where screen recording is the primary product, not a side project or a stepping stone to something else.
Your Best Options in 2026
We have a detailed comparison in our Best Rewind AI Alternatives Compared article, but here is the summary:
Rewind Desktop
Rewind Desktop is the tool we built to fill the gap left by the original Rewind AI. It is a macOS menu bar app that silently records your screen 24/7, stores everything locally with H.264 compression (~2GB/week), and gives you a visual timeline accessible with Cmd+Shift+R.
Key differences from the original Rewind AI:
- 100% local storage — No cloud, no servers, no exceptions.
- Active development — Screen recording is our only product. There is no pivot risk.
- Efficient compression — H.264 encoding keeps storage manageable.
- Automatic incognito detection — Pauses recording in private browsing windows.
Download Rewind Desktop or check our pricing page.
Screenpipe
Screenpipe is an open-source alternative that records screen and audio with a plugin system for custom workflows. It is cross-platform (macOS, Windows, Linux) and free. Best for developers who want maximum customization and do not mind a more technical setup process.
Other Options
- Microsoft Recall — Built into Windows on Copilot+ PCs. Not available on Mac.
- Fenn — A local AI file search tool for Mac. Searches inside files rather than recording your screen.
- Pieces — Developer-focused snippet management. Not a general screen recorder.
For a full breakdown, see our alternatives comparison.
How to Export Your Limitless Data
If you still have a Limitless account, Meta stated that existing customers would retain access for one year from the acquisition date (through December 2025–2026). However, for users in regions where service was terminated, data deletion was permanent after December 19, 2025.
If you have access, export your data as soon as possible. There is no guarantee about how long the archive will remain available.
The Bigger Picture
The Rewind-to-Limitless-to-Meta story illustrates something important about the personal AI tool market: the tools you rely on can disappear when venture-backed companies change direction.
This is one reason why local-first, privacy-focused alternatives matter. When your screen history never leaves your machine, a company's acquisition or shutdown does not mean your data gets deleted from a server or absorbed into a different product's ecosystem.
The idea Rewind AI proved — that people want a searchable visual memory for their computer — is not going away. If anything, Meta's acquisition validates the concept. The demand is real. The question is just who builds the tool you can trust to stick around.
Looking for a Rewind replacement after the Meta/Limitless shutdown? Rewind Desktop keeps your screen history 100% local with no cloud dependency. Download it here.