A portable, refrigerant recovery unit to transfer refrigerant from a refrigerant system to a storage tank. The recovery unit includes a condenser bypass mode controlled by a valving arrangement that can be employed when the cooling and phase change functions of the condenser are not needed such as commonly exist during the initial stages of the overall recovery process when the refrigerant from the system may already be in liquid phase. In such cases, the bypass mode avoids having the flow run through the tubing and other plumbing of the condenser which otherwise would add significant length (e.g., 2-3 feet or more) and resistance to the flow through the recovery unit for a faster overall recovery process. The valving arrangement of the recovery unit has a single control knob and can be positioned in a plurality of modes including off, condenser bypass, recovery, and condenser purge.