At the moment (2022-11):

  • Windows Recoll is built as a 32 bits application. This is also the case for the Python extension DLL. This means that you will need a 32 bits Python installation.

  • The extension is built for Python 3.7 to 3.11 at the moment. It is distributed as separate .whl files The files are located in the Share/dist subdirectory of the Recoll installation directory (so, usually, C:\Program Files (x86)\Recoll\Share\dist)

Installing the extension

I don’t know of a clicky way to do it at the moment, you will need to use a command window.

Install the extension with something like the following, adjusting things for the Python and Recoll version numbers:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Python39-32\Scripts\pip.exe" install "C:\Program Files (x86)\Recoll\Share\dist\Recoll-1.32.9-cp39-cp39-win32.whl

Check the installation by running python and trying to import the recoll module:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Python39-32\python.exe
>>> from recoll import recoll
>>> quit()

Installing the Recoll WebUI

  • Install the waitress HTTP module:

    "C:\Program Files (x86)\Python39-32\Scripts\pip.exe" install waitress

  • Clone the WebUI directory somewhere (e.g. C:\Users\[you]\Documents):

    git clone https://framagit.org/medoc92/recollwebui.git

If you don’t have git around, you can also download a Zip of the WebUI files from https://framagit.org/medoc92/recollwebui. Use the download icon on the left from the Clone button.

  • Run the WEBUI in a command Window, or from a script as:

    "C:\Program Files (x86)\Python39-32\python.exe C:\Users\you\Documents\recollwebui\webui-standalone.py -a 0.0.0.0

The -a 0.0.0.0 would tell the WebUI to use all the available interfaces, you can give it an IP address instead.

By default, the WebUI listens on port 8080. You can change this with the -p option.

By default this will use the Recoll configuration from C:\Users\you\Appdata\Local\Recoll. You can use the RECOLL_CONFDIR environment variable to change the base configuration directory, and RECOLL_EXTRACONFDIRS to add external indexes.