Wishing somebody a happy birthday requires little effort on your part, but it immediately makes your friends and family feel appreciated and cared about.

But if your brain cannot handle yet another important date, your ever-loyal smartphone offers a host of ways to stay on top of birthdays and other special occasions. Just make sure you use at least one of these approaches to avoid missing someone’s big day.

[Related: How to set phone reminders for anything]

Snapchat will display a cake icon next to your contacts in the main chat list when it’s their birthday—swipe left from the camera screen to see it. You can also tap on a friend’s avatar to get to their profile page, and if it’s their big day, you’ll see an It’s Their Birthday! graphic. Unfortunately, you can’t look up birth dates in advance.

Other social networks are less helpful. Twitter will display people’s birth dates on their profile pages but only if they’ve provided the information. There’s also no list or notification you can use: to know if it’s somebody’s birthday, you’ll have to visit their page to find out. Instagram is even less helpful and doesn’t display birthdays at all, so you’re out of luck. Unless someone specifically puts their date of birth in their bio or uploads a ‘happy birthday to me’ post that you notice.

Of course, Google isn’t guessing here—this feature relies on the information provided by your contacts. If you want to add birthday info yourself, you can open a contact page, tap the pen icon (top right) and then tap Significant date. Enter the birth date and make sure it has a Birthday label underneath. You can also store dates such as anniversaries in the same way. On the main Highlights menu, the app may also prompt you to add birthdays to your contacts more easily. If you see the notification to Add birthdays, tap it and then tap the birthday cake icons you see next to each of your contacts. 

The listings in the iOS Contacts app also have a birthday field you can fill in. On a contact page, tap Edit and then tap add birthday to enter the date. The iOS Contacts app doesn’t remind you about birthdays, but the iOS Calendar app can, which brings us neatly to…

Google Calendar offers similar integration with Google Contacts. In Google Calendar, tap the three horizontal lines (top left) and make sure the Birthdays calendar is checked (tap Show more if you can’t see it). There’s no way to manage notifications for these events in Google Calendar, as these alerts are handled in Google Contacts.

There’s nothing to stop you from creating your own birthday calendars in the iOS or Android Calendar apps, which would give you a bit more control over formatting (like colors) and let you set different notifications for each birthday. But you’ll need to maintain them manually, which may involve a lot more work than you’re willing to input. The same goes for any other third-party calendar app that you might be using.

[Related: Little kids think birthday parties actually make you get older]

Over on Android, we like Birday, which is open source, as well as easy and completely free to use. You can enter birthday data manually or import it from Google Contacts, and the app can track everyone’s age, count down to specific birthdays, and show you all of your friends and family’s special days on a year planner as well. 

Countdown+ Widgets (for Android and iOS) puts the emphasis on counting down to birthdays or any other event you’re interested in. You can import data from the calendars on your phone or from Facebook, customize the countdowns in numerous ways, and see all upcoming events in a simple list. You’ll also be able to remove ads after paying a one-off fee of $2, which will also allow you to back up your data and get even more customization options.

The post How to make sure you never miss someone’s birthday appeared first on Popular Science.

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When your desktop or laptop refuses to start, that means either its hardware or software is having trouble. Identifying the problem’s root cause isn’t an exact science, but you can rule out many potential issues by taking a methodical approach to troubleshooting.

As you work through these steps, keep in mind that there’s a very, very long list of reasons why your computer might not be turning on. Finding and fixing the problem often involves a lot of trial and error. We may not be able to include every potential issue, but we can guide you toward solutions for some of the most common problems. If all else fails, we’ll explain when it might be best to call in the professionals.

Next, ensure that your machine is receiving enough power. If you’re dealing with a laptop, plug it in and ensure that the charging light is on. For a desktop, double-check that the monitor is firmly connected. With any type of computer, make sure you’re using the power cable that came with it—or, if the original broke, that you have an exact replacement. If you own (or can borrow) a spare cable, try switching to that one to make sure it’s not the cause of the problem.

[Related: How to slow down a hot computer]

Once you’ve shut everything down, briefly push the power button to turn the machine back on. If your computer springs to life, at least for a few seconds, the culprit is probably damaged software… but this response doesn’t entirely rule out a hardware issue. So look for any messages on screen that might hint at what’s going wrong. Does the computer give a reason why it can’t boot? Is it unable to detect the hard drive or another specific component?

If the power button gets no response at all, it’s a tell-tale sign that something has gone wrong with the hardware. In this situation, if you’ve already tried that alternative power cable, it might be time to visit a local repair shop for a professional assessment.

Is it possible to pin down the exact hardware issue? We can’t cover every scenario here, but if you own an older computer or have recently moved your machine around, you may have damaged or dislodged a component. With a desktop, you can try powering down the machine, opening up the case, and double-checking all the connections to and from the motherboard. But we’d only recommend that step if you’re confident poking around your computer’s guts. For the rest of us, a professional assessment is probably better.

Deal with software problems: Windows

When software refuses to let a computer start up, it’s usually because of data corruption: The system can’t find a file it relies on to boot up properly. If you’re lucky, you’ll see a message on screen explaining what’s wrong, along with instructions for what to do next. Otherwise, you’ll have to walk through some troubleshooting steps to pin down the problem.

On a Microsoft machine, the computer can try to fix itself. If it fails to start up three times in a row, both Windows 10 and 11 will automatically display a recovery console, called Startup Repair, on screen. When the big “Automatic Repair” heading appears, click Restart, and the system will attempt a number of fixes. This might be enough to get you back up and running.

However, if you try to start up after that and land back on Automatic Repair instead of your usual Windows desktop, click Advanced options to enter the Windows Recovery Environment. From there, click Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings. Here, choose Restart, and you’ll eventually see a list of boot-up options. Choose option four or hit F4 on your keyboard to Enable Safe Mode. If you need to use the internet, pick option five or tap F5. Both options will launch a stripped-down version of Windows, with only the essential applications and utilities enabled. You may be able to launch Windows in this minimal state. If you can, try uninstalling any programs or devices you’ve recently added, as they could be interfering with system startup.

If you can’t launch even this simple version of Windows, try a system reset. We have a full guide to all your Windows 10 and 11 reset options, but the basics for Windows 10 are: Open your computer’s settings via the cog icon on the Start menu, click Update & Security, and select Recovery. Under Reset this PC, select Get started to begin the reset process. On Windows 11, you’ll choose System > Recovery > Reset this PC > Reset PC.

After that, Windows will replace and repair many of the key operating system files. It will also offer to wipe your personal files, but unless you have extremely up-to-date backups, you should opt to keep them. This final measure should fix most software-related boot-up issues. However, if your computer still doesn’t start, the culprit is probably the hardware. As mentioned in the previous section, we recommend that you turn to the experts for help fixing this type of error.

Deal with software problems: macOS

The macOS operating system typically does a better job of repairing itself than Windows does (although Microsoft has caught up in recent years). That said, software corruption is still very much a possibility.

As an analog to Windows’ Startup Repair, macOS has Recovery. To use it, run an internet search on your phone or some other device to determine if your computer uses Apple silicon or an Intel processor. If it’s the former, press and hold the power button to turn on your Mac until a list of startup options appears. Click Options, then Continue. If it’s the latter, turn on your computer and immediately hold down Cmd+R until you see an image.

When the computer loads, you’ll see a list of options. Start with Disk Utility, which will scan your Mac’s internal drives for problems. It will also attempt to fix any issues it encounters, which might get your computer working properly again.

[Related: 4 hidden Mac tweaks to speed up your computer]

If you can get into macOS via Safe Mode, a normal restart might fix your problem. If not, try uninstalling any non-essential applications or devices—particularly anything you set up around the time your startup problems began.

If you’re still having issues, you might need a full reinstall. Go back to the Recovery screen and choose Reinstall macOS. This will completely restore your machine’s software back to its factory state, so only do this if you’ve backed up all your important data. Like the equivalent Windows process, a reinstall should fix most software problems.

How to recover files from a dead computer

Even if all these attempts fail, your precious data may still be safe (unless the primary cause of your startup troubles is a damaged hard drive). Of course, in an ideal world, you wouldn’t need to retrieve that data, because you’d have already backed up all your files. However, if you don’t have available backups, you’ll want to pull your data from your hard drive.

On the simplest level, you can remove the drive from your laptop or desktop and access it from another computer. You could, for example, set it up as an external drive, but to do that you’ll need an enclosure like the models from Inateck ($12 on Amazon) or Sabrent ($12 on Amazon). Just make sure to buy one that matches the hard drive you’re extracting from your old machine.

Once you have an enclosure, you’ll need to power down your computer, remove the side or bottom panel, and disconnect the drive from its enclosure and cables. You’ll want to follow an online guide, which you can find by searching for your dead computer’s make and model along with the phrase “remove hard drive. If you’re not exactly comfortable working on hardware, we recommend that you leave this task to a professional repair shop.

When you set up your old drive in a new enclosure, you can plug it in to a working machine, where it should appear as a normal external disk. If your original files are Mac ones, you’ll need to access them from another Apple computer, but if you don’t have one, a program like MacDrive ($50 with a five-day free trial) will let you access them on Windows (Windows drives are much more accommodating, so you won’t need extra software to read them on a Mac). Then you can copy the files to the new computer—and make sure to back them up this time.

Try other data-recovery methods

Another option for recovering data from a dead computer is to access your files through a different operating system. However, this will only work in situations where your laptop or desktop can actually stay on long enough for you to boot from a portable system.

If it can, set up a portable Linux operating system on a USB stick (full instructions here). Pop that into your dead computer, start up on the Linux operating system, and try to access the drive that way.

However, if you want to get as much data as possible off your drive, and you’re prepared to pay for this peace of mind, you should get help from a data recovery service. A quick web search should turn up plenty of options in your local area.

The post How to save a dead computer, or at least try to revive it appeared first on Popular Science.

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No matter your operating system, Mozilla Firefox makes a great default browser. The free program is quick, intuitive, and packed with features. And you can customize it in all kinds of ways, from tweaking the look of the software to changing the appearances of individual websites.

Once you dig past the surface-level options, you’ll find you can do even more with this privacy-focused browser. These features include app troubleshooting, expert tab management, and entirely new ways of surfing the web. Check out the tips below to ensure you’re taking advantage of all Firefox has to offer.

1. See tabs on your other devices

If you’re using Firefox on multiple devices—maybe a laptop, a desktop, and a phone—and you’re signed into the same Firefox account on all of them, you can see open tabs across all of them through a feature called Firefox View.

First, click the three horizontal lines (top right), then Settings and Sync to make sure you’re signed in. As long as you’re signed in on at least one other device, you can click the Firefox icon on the far left end of the tab bar to see the tabs you’ve got open elsewhere.

2. Customize your address bar

You can turn the Firefox navigation bar into a search powerhouse. That way, when you type keywords (rather than URLs) into the address bar, you’ll be searching for those terms across the web. First, choose the search engine you prefer, whether that’s Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or something else. Then set it as Firefox’s default, so search terms in the navigation bar will yield results from that search engine. To do so, open the application menu (click the three horizontal lines on the top right of the page), then choose Settings and Search to set the default.

The address bar can act as more than a standard search engine, too. By typing in special keywords, you can launch custom searches within pretty much any site you like, including Wikipedia, IMDb, Amazon, and more. To set this up, navigate to the site you want to search and find its search box. Right-click inside the box and choose Add a Keyword for this Search. A dialog box will pop up. Next, type something short but unusual in the keyword box. This is the term that will trigger your site-specific search when you type it in the Firefox address bar, so you don’t want it to resemble any normal keywords you might search for on a regular basis. For example, you might choose to trigger an IMDb search with the term “imdb”, because you’re not likely to run a general search for that word.

Click Save, and you can then search within that site by entering your keyword, followed by your search terms, in the address bar at the top of the browser. To stick with our previous example, type “imdb Tom Cruise” into the navigation bar to search the IMDb website for Tom Cruise.

3. Watch videos in picture-in-picture mode

When you’re watching a video in Firefox, you’ll see a small overlay button that looks like two rectangles with an arrow pointing from one to the other. Click on this, and your video will pop out of Firefox. Then, you can carry on browsing while the video continues to play.

Click and drag the pop-up window to move it, and drag in (or out) from its edges to resize it. Click the X to close the picture-in-picture video, or the back to tab button (an arrow pointing to a box) to continue playback inside Firefox again.

4. Delete browsing data when Firefox is closed

Keeping on top of cookies and other browsing data saved by the sites you visit in Firefox can be tricky. This data saves information such as your location and your settings for particular sites, and while it can streamline your browsing experience, you may not feel comfortable with websites knowing this much about you.

If you’d like to stay a little more private, click the three horizontal lines (top right) in Firefox, then choose Settings and Privacy & Security. There, you can check the box labeled Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed. Every time you shut down the browser, these files will be automatically wiped, so you won’t need to worry about them.

5. Turn on mouse gestures

Clicking and scrolling is fine, but Firefox lets you supercharge your online navigation with mouse gestures that allow you to trigger specific actions by moving your mouse a certain way. Give it a trial run, with the help of the Gesturefy add-on, and there’s a good chance you’ll never look back.

First, install the extension inside Firefox and restart your browser. To explore the available gestures, open the main menu (the three horizontal lines in the top right) and choose Add-ons and themes. Find Gesturefy, click the three dots next to it, then Options, and you’ll find the configuration panel.

Under the Settings tab, you can set the trigger button, which is a button you need to hold down while making a mouse gesture. Gesturefy’s default trigger is the right mouse button, but you can change it if you’d like. Switch to the Gestures tab to see some of the gestures already in place. For example, dragging the mouse quickly to the right, then the left (with the right mouse button held down) closes the current tab. You can add more gestures to the extension’s repertoire here, too.

It may take you some time to get the hang of these gestures, but once you do, you may find that a quick hand movement feels much more intuitive than fishing around for toolbar buttons or scrolling through menus.

6. Manage your tabs

Tabs make up the core of your browsing experience—but you don’t have to settle for the default options Firefox gives you. Check out the Tree Style Tab extension, for example, which introduces a new tab panel on the left and lets you organize your open tabs into hierarchies, almost like a family tree.

Then there’s Tab Stash: This extension lets you save batches of tabs together as bookmarks inside Firefox. If you’re researching a particular topic, for example, and want to come back to it later, you can quickly save all your open tabs as a group that you can open up again later.

You should also check out Simple Tab Groups. This extension does exactly what its name suggests, enabling you to organize open Firefox tabs into color-coded groups in—you could have one group for work stuff and another for personal stuff, or whatever you like.

7. Take screenshots of webpages

There are all kinds of reasons you might want to take screenshots—for posterity, or maybe to refer to in a separate document—and this is really easy to do in Firefox. Just right-click on a blank part of a page, then choose Take Screenshot. You can either click on an element (like an image) to grab it, click and drag across a region to capture, click Save full page to screenshot the entire page, or click Save visible to just capture what you can currently see on screen.

8. Snooze tabs for later

You might be familiar with snoozing your alarm—hitting a button to postpone your wakeup call and sleep for a few extra minutes. Now you can do the same with Firefox tabs, thanks to a third-party extension called Snooze Tabs.

The extension is pretty simple to use: Click the extension button on the toolbar (it looks like a jigsaw piece), then pick Snooze Tabs. You can send the tab you’re currently viewing, or all your Firefox tabs away until a later time and date—choose a preset option like Tomorrow morning or specify your own with Custom time.

9. Search through your tabs

Browser tabs seem to multiply like magic, and you likely have dozens of them open at any one time. That can make navigation tricky, but there is a tab search trick that can help: Click inside the address bar at the top of the Firefox interface, then type the percentage symbol (%)and a space. You’ll then be able to search through the titles of the tabs that you currently have open.

10. Refresh Firefox

If you find your software bogged down with a bunch of extensions, or behaving sluggishly for no specific reason, most programs require that you uninstall and reinstall them to restore their factory settings. Firefox offers a built-in refresh feature that easily resets the browser back to its factory settings and gets it running as good as new. As Mozilla explains, a refresh will return most Firefox settings back to their default state, but it won’t affect your saved bookmarks, stored passwords, browsing history, or even open windows. What it does scrub are third-party extensions, website permissions, modified user preferences, and any customizations you’ve made to the Firefox toolbar.

To access the refresh feature, type “about:support” into the address bar and hit Enter. This takes you to the master troubleshooting page. Click the Refresh Firefox button on the right, and instructions will guide you through the short process.

If you’re really having problems with Firefox, you may not be able to start it at all, which will prevent you from performing a refresh. So try running it in Troubleshoot Mode, which disables everything except the core Firefox program. To open the browser in Troubleshoot Mode, hold down the Shift button (Windows) or the Option button (macOS) while clicking or double-clicking the program icon. As Firefox starts, you’ll see the Troubleshoot Mode window appear. You can continue to browse in Troubleshoot Mode, or go ahead and run that refresh right away.

11. Switch to dark mode

Firefox comes with its own dark mode, which you may prefer. Click the three horizontal lines in the top right, then pick Settings. Open the General tab, and you’ll find Dark under the Web site appearance heading. This will be applied to Firefox’s own settings and new tab screens, but will only darken a website if the site has been coded to respond to a dark mode request from the browser.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on September 11, 2017.

The post 11 hot Firefox tips and tricks that might finally convince you to switch browsers appeared first on Popular Science.

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AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google Bard have now reached a level where they can write emails, essays, and entire books. There’s an ongoing debate on how good that content actually is, but these platforms can certainly give a passable impression of a human being when it comes to creating copy.

That’s a problem when it comes to proving you wrote a particular document, whether you’re submitting a college essay or entering a short story competition. Right now, we don’t have a reliable way of detecting AI-generated text (ChatGPT can’t tell if ChatGPT has written something), but there are some options you can explore.

One is to track the changes to your document as you create it in your program of choice. It’s not a foolproof option, as you could still manually type out any output from ChatGPT or Bard, but it does at least show whoever’s reading your document how it came together, if they ever want to check.

When it comes to passing on your work to someone else, you need to use the built-in Google Docs sharing feature: Click Share on the right to grant access or to get a link you can copy and paste into an email or chat box. If you save your work as a Word document or a PDF, the version history won’t be transferred over to the file.

Note that whoever you’re sharing your document with will have to log into a Google account to access it, and you’ll have to give them Editor permissions too. If the other person opens the document anonymously via a link, or only has Viewer or Commenter permissions, then won’t have access to the version history, and won’t be able to see that the document is all your own work.

By default, the software will underline new text and color it red, but you can change this by clicking All Markup on the Review tab: Choose Simple Markup to have edits highlighted in the margin rather than in the body of the text, or No Markup to turn off highlighting altogether. Whether the highlights are visible or not, you can click Reviewing Pane (or Reviewing on macOS) on the Review tab to see all the document revisions. The person reading your work will be able to see all of the edits you made to the document in the same way, demonstrating it’s your own work.

The second option is to save your Word file to your OneDrive account and share it via a link, which is the more modern, Google Docs-style approach. While the Track Changes option is still available, you can also click the name of the document at the top of the window, then Version History, to view (and revert to) previous versions of the document.

Go to File, then Share, and you can generate a link for the file to pass on: Make sure the recipient has editing privileges and can sign in with their own Microsoft account. They’ll then be able to access the version history of a document by clicking on its title, whether they open it on the web or in Word for desktop. As long as the file is in your OneDrive account, version history will be available.

If you’re using Pages on a Mac, open the File menu then Revert To and Browse All Versions to see previous versions of the document (and revert back to them if needed). If you’re using Pages on iCloud on the web, click the three dots (top right) and then Browse All Versions. Anyone you’re sharing the document with has the same options available to them, as long as you’ve granted them editing privileges.

The post Prove your writing is not AI-generated by tracking changes in your docs appeared first on Popular Science.

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Software updates are crucial to the health of your various gadgets and it’s generally in your best interest to install them as soon as they’re available. Apple knows this so they introduced a different type of software update called Rapid Security Response. These patches run separately from the usual iOS or macOS updates and work in a slightly different way.

If you see a Rapid Security Response notification on one of your Apple devices, don’t panic—it’s there to keep your device safe and secure.

Behind the more showy, user-facing upgrades, these updates also do a lot of important work under the hood in improving security and stability. The problem is that sometimes significant security issues come to light and need to be addressed immediately rather than in a few weeks or months.

That’s where Rapid Security Responses come in. Apple can send out these patches whenever they need to so that security vulnerabilities don’t stay vulnerable for long. The company says these responses could help “mitigate some security issues more quickly,” particularly those that pose a current risk. The company is now sending these updates to iPhones, iPads, and Macs running iOS 16.4.1, iPadOS 16.4.1, or macOS 13.3.1 or later. If you haven’t already, make sure to update your operating system to receive them.

For the good health of your Apple gadget, we strongly recommend you authorize these automatic updates, but if you feel strongly about preventing software from installing without your consent, you can stop Rapid Security Responses. To go about it, open the Settings on your iPhone or iPad and choose General, Software Update, and Automatic Updates. Once there, toggle off the Security Responses & System Files option. On a Mac computer, open the Apple menu, then select System Settings, General, and Software Update. Click the info button next to Automatic updates to find the Install Security Responses and system files option and toggle it off.

When your Apple device installs a Rapid Security Response, the iOS, iPadOS, or macOS version number will have a lowercase letter after it—so “macOS Ventura Version 13.3.1 (a)” for example. To check this, go to Settings on an iPhone or iPad, or to System Settings on a Mac, and choose General, and then About. You’ll notice that, unlike normal software updates, these special security patches don’t come with any details about what they’ve fixed, presumably in the interests of speed and security.

[Related: Smart ways to manage software updates on Windows and macOS]

If you’ve disabled these automatic updates, you can still manually check for Rapid Security Responses in the same way as you would for any other update: Just go to General and Software Update in the settings on your Apple device. Any Rapid Security Responses your device doesn’t apply immediately will be rolled into the next standard software update, but we strongly advise you to protect your device by installing them as soon as they appear.

The post What to know about Apple’s new Rapid Security Response updates appeared first on Popular Science.

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Disaster has struck—a nasty piece of malware has taken root on your computer, and you need to remove it. Viruses can cause serious damage, but you might be able to get your computer back on its feet without too much difficulty, thanks to an array of helpful tools.

We’re using the term malware to refer to all kinds of malicious programs, whether they’re viruses, ransomware, adware, or something else. Each of these threats has its own definition, but the terms are often used interchangeably and can mean different things to different people. So for simplicity’s sake, when we say malware, we mean everything you don’t want on your computer, from a virus that tries to delete your files to an adware program that’s tracking your web browsing.

With so many types of malware and so many different system setups out there, we can’t cover every scenario. Still, we can give you some general malware removal pointers that should help you get the assistance you need.

First, identify the problem

When malware hits, you sometimes get a threatening error message—but sometimes you don’t. So keep an eye out for red flags, such as an uncharacteristically slow computer, a web browser inundated by endless pop-ups, and applications that just keep crashing.

Most machines have some kind of antivirus security protection, even if it’s just the Windows Defender tool built into Windows 10 or 11. Extra security software isn’t as essential on macOS—its integrated defenses are very effective—but that doesn’t mean a clever bit of malware can’t get access.

If you do have a security tool installed, make sure you keep it up to date. Then, when you suspect you’ve been hit, run a thorough system scan—the app itself should have instructions for how to do so. This is always the first step in weeding out unwanted programs.

[Related: How to make sure no one is spying on your computer]

You might find that your installed security software spots the problem and effectively removes the malware it on its own. In that case, you can get on with watching Netflix or checking your email without further interference. Unfortunately, if your antivirus software of choice doesn’t see anything wrong or can’t deal with what it’s found, you have more work to do.

Deal with specific threats

If your computer is displaying specific symptoms—such as a message with a particular error code or a threatening ransomware alert—run a web search to get more information. And if you suspect your main machine is infected and potentially causing problems with your web browser, you should search for answers on your phone or another computer.

Telling you to search online for help may seem like we’re trying to pass the buck, but this is often the best way to deal with the biggest and newest threats. To remove malware that has overwhelmed your computer’s built-in virus protections, you’ll probably need to follow specific instructions. Otherwise, you could inadvertently make the situation worse.

As soon as new threats are identified, security firms are quick to publish fixes and tools. This means it’s important to stay in touch with the latest tech news as it happens. If your existing antivirus program is coming up blank, check online to see if companies have released bespoke repair tools that you can use to deal with whatever problem you’re having.

Finally, based on what your research and antivirus scans tell you, consider disconnecting your computer from the internet to stop any bugs from spreading, or shutting down your machine completely to protect against file damage.

Tools such as Microsoft Safety Scanner, Spybot Search and Destroy, Bitdefender Virus Scanner (also for macOS), Kaspersky Security Scan, Avira PC Cleaner, Malwarebytes, and others can parachute onto your system for extra support. There, they’ll troubleshoot problems and give your existing security tools a helping hand.

All of the apps listed above will do a thorough job of scanning your computer and removing any malware they find. To make extra sure, you can always run scans from a couple of different tools. If your computer has been infected, these apps will most likely be able to spot the problem and deal with it, or at least give you further instructions.

Once your existing security tools and an on-demand scanner or two have given your system a clean bill of health, you’re probably (though not definitely) in the clear. That means that any continued errors or crashes could be due to other factors—anything from a badly installed update to a failing hard drive.

A more drastic—but extremely effective—course of action is to wipe your computer, reinstall your operating system, and start again from scratch. Although this will delete all your personal files, it should hopefully remove malware and other unwanted programs at the same time. Before you take this step, make sure all your important files and folders are backed up somewhere else, and ensure that you’ll be able to download all your applications again.

Reinstalling the operating system and getting your computer back to its factory condition is actually much easier than it used to be. We have our own guide for resetting Windows 10 and 11, and Apple has instructions for macOS. If you need more pointers, you can find plenty of extra information online.

That’s it! Through a combination of bespoke removal methods, existing security software, on-demand scanners, and (if necessary) a system wipe, you should now have effectively removed whatever malware had taken root on your system. At this point, if you’re still struggling, it’s time to call in the experts. IT repair specialists in your area may be able to lend a hand.

Next, install a solid security tool you can trust. For Windows 10 and 11, the built-in Windows Defender program is a competent antivirus tool even if you don’t add anything else. That said, you can opt to bolster your machine’s defenses by paying for extra software from the likes of Norton, Avast, and many others. While the number of shady programs targeting Apple computers is on the rise, they’re still more secure than Windows machines. The general consensus is that macOS is mostly safe from harm, provided you only install programs through the App Store and apply plenty of common sense. That means you should avoid following shady links or plugging in strange USB drives you’ve found lying in the street.

Finally, make sure your software is always patched and up to date. Most browsers and operating systems will update automatically in the background, but you can check for pending patches on Windows 10 by opening Settings and clicking Update & security (on Windows 11 it’s Settings > Windows Update). If you have a macOS computer, just open up the App Store and switch to the Updates tab to see if anything is available that you haven’t downloaded.

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The era of recording mixtapes and burning CDs for friends and family has passed by, so you’ll have to get creative if you want to share the latest track or artist you’re excited about.

One of your options is social media. You can share music on Instagram or have your pick from the TikTok music selection with only a few taps.

When you select a song, Instagram will add it to your story as a sticker, and down at the bottom of the screen, you’ll be able to scroll through the track to pick a snippet of up to 15 seconds. You can also tap on the song’s icon to get more options: select a different sticker style, remove it completely, or use the album art instead. Tap Done to post the story.

If you want to add music to an Instagram post on your main feed, you can do so by tapping Add music on the final screen before publishing. You get a similar option when making a reel—just tap Audio on the left before or after you record your clip. 

Yet another way to share music on Instagram is by posting a link to Spotify or YouTube, for example. In a Story, choose your image or video, tap the sticker icon, and choose Link. You can also just paste a URL in a direct message conversation if you want to go for something more private.

The app will then take you to the music selection screen: Browse through the Recommended tab to find popular TikTok music suggested by the algorithm, or Favorites, where you’ll find the sounds you’ve tried in the past. Finally, if you want something completely new, you can tap the magnifying glass icon on the right and use the search box. When you tap on a track you’ll get a preview—if you’re OK with it, confirm your choice by tapping on the pink checkmark button, but if you want to make some edits, you can always hit the scissors icon.

Snapchat

Snapchat offers almost as many ways as Instagram for sharing music with friends and family. Let’s start with Snapchat stories. Tap the camera icon at the bottom of your screen to go into recording mode, and either before or after capturing an image or clip, tap the musical note symbol on the right.

You can browse through the music that Snapchat suggests (trending tracks and songs based on mood), as well as search for specific tunes via the box at the top. Tap on the small play button to preview a track, or on its title to add it to your story.

You can then drag across the song’s sound wave to pick a 10-second snippet to use. With that done, tap Next to post the image or video as a story or as a snap directly to one or more of your contacts.

Tap your profile picture (top right), select the three dots, and go to Audio to connect your account to your favorite music service. If something is playing on Spotify or Apple Music when you capture a BeReal photo, you’ll see an icon down in the lower right corner of the image. Tap it and pick Shared so your friends can see the track and artist, or Private so only you can see what was playing when you took that picture.

In both cases, you can search for specific tracks or pick one of the Facebook suggestions. After you add a song, tap on its icon on the right to pick which part of it to embed into your story, and change how the track details and lyrics display in your post.

Stories aren’t your only option. To add music to a Facebook post, for example, tap Music from the list of options that pop up underneath as you’re creating it. You can also link your Spotify and Facebook profiles so people can click through on: From the mobile app, tap your avatar on the left, then go to Edit profile, and next to Links choose Add. Continue by tapping  Add Social Link and then Spotify.

The best way to share music on Twitter is to just paste in a link from somewhere else, whether you’re internally sending a message to one person or broadcasting a tweet to the world. If you’re sharing from Spotify, tap the three dots next to a song while on the app, then choose Share and Copy link.

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Adobe has been building artificial intelligence into applications like Photoshop for several years now. But Lightroom Classic, another of the company’s image editing programs, also features AI tools to quickly improve the look of your photos.

Underpinning it all is Adobe’s mighty AI muscle, trained on huge libraries of stock and publicly available images to generate new pictures. This means Lightroom Classic knows what a sky or a person looks like in a photo, and can make changes accordingly.

You can now use AI to pick out backgrounds, subjects, skies, and objects: Just click the Masking icon on the right (it looks like a circle inside a dash-lined square) and pick Subject, Sky, Background, or Objects. You’ll also be able to choose Brush for more precise control over where your selection goes.

The program will shade the new masked selection in red and you’ll be able to manipulate it as needed. For example, if you selected the sky, you’ll be able to tweak the brightness and contrast to make your photo appear sunnier. The Masks window, which will pop up on the right of your screen when you select something,  is where you can switch between your masks, create new ones, and delete them. Just click the three dots next to each item to see a full set of options.

Use the sliders that pop up underneath the tool when you click it to change the size and opacity of the brush, and paint over the object you’d like to remove. Once you finish your selection, the program will get to work. Lightroom Classic automatically chooses which parts of the background to sample to replace the deleted object, but you can use Ctrl+click (Windows) or Cmd+click (macOS) to specify a particular area, such as a blue sky.

This works just like the Tone Curve tool, but it only applies to the area of the picture under the mask. Along the top of the panel you’ll see selectors for the red, green, and blue channels—use them for more precise adjustments.

Choose Photo,  Enhance, and then check the Denoise option so that the AI can work its magic. The slider underneath the tool’s icon lets you control how aggressive it is—you can check the preview panel on the left to see the difference before you commit any changes. When you’re happy with the level of denoising, click Enhance to confirm your choice.

To find them, go to the Presets dialog box on the left and click on the small arrows right next to it to see the full list of Adaptive Presets. For example, you can select Storm Clouds to add a bit of drama to the sky or Enhance Eyes to highlight the peers in a portrait.

Open up the Masks window via Tools and Masking to see the mask that Lightroom Classic’s AI created to apply the effect. You can edit this mask as any other, allowing you to use the brush tool to change the outline of the selection the program has come up with, for example.

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The swift rise of generative platforms such as ChatGPT and Dall-E mini has brought artificial intelligence to everyone’s attention in recent months. But programs such as Photoshop have been offering AI assistance of their own for quite some time now.

When it comes to Adobe’s image editing software, these capabilities are there to help select the outline of an object, fill in a picture’s background, or change the expression on someone’s face. Your AI-enhanced edits can be subtle or quite dramatic, and there’s plenty of room to experiment.

All of this machine-powered magic works in a similar way, no matter what Photoshop tool you’re using: developers have used vast amounts of stock and copyright-free images to train the program to be able to decide where a pixel should or shouldn’t go, or what color it should be.

To use them, go to Filter in the main navigation bar and then click on Neural Filters. You’ll be able to choose from a wide range of actions, such as adding depth to your images and smoothing the skin on people’s faces. Each filter comes with its own set of options, so you can tweak them to make them more or less aggressive, depending on what you want your final photo to look like. You may notice some of the filters are still in beta. This means they’re works in progress, so keep that in mind if you use them, as the results might be less than perfect.

For example, click Smart Portrait and you’ll be able to use simple sliders to make people in the photo look happier, younger, or older, and even change the direction they’re looking in.

Switch to Object Aware mode on the right menu to get Photoshop’s help in picking out edges, then use the Refine Edge Brush Tool to make cuts—select it by clicking the second icon from the top down in the left sidebar, or hitting the R key on your keyboard. It’s particularly good when you’re trying to trace around very faint edges, like someone’s hair.

Open an image, go to Edit, and then Sky Replacement to make alterations. You can drop in one of the program’s presets or load your own, as well as tweak the sky’s temperature and brightness, and make adjustments to the foreground to help it match the lighting.

Select an object in your photo, go to Edit, and choose Content-Aware Fill. You’ll be able to refine your selection further and see a preview of how the fill is going to work. You can specify areas of the image Photoshop should use to fill in the background once it removes the object.

To do this even quicker trusting in Photoshop’s process and without any refinement options, select an object and press Shift+Backspace. Just make sure the Content-Aware option is selected in the dialog box that pops up, and click OK to apply the changes.

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It might be hard to believe, but the Apple TV box—not the Apple TV app—has been with us since 2007. In that time, it’s gotten both smaller and smarter, and it has a few tricks up its sleeve that you might not know about.

While the Apple TV is designed to make it easy for you to sit back, relax, and get to your entertainment as quickly as possible, you can improve your viewing experience by digging into some of the settings and hardware features. Note that these tips work with all generations of the Apple TV 4K, whether you have the latest version and its Siri Remote (with a circular clickpad), or the older model and its Touch Remote.

To delete an app from the home screen entirely, tap and hold on it, press Play/Pause, and select Delete to remove it. As on iOS, you can create folders too: press Play/Pause and choose New Folder to create one, and you’ll be able to drag app icons into it. To remove them, drag them out of the folder.

There are more options for changing your home screen’s appearance on the General menu within Settings, including switching between a light and a dark interface mode and choosing from a list of available screensavers.

2. Tame your notifications

If you install apps that support notifications—like the Apple TV app, which will alert you to new shows—you’ll see badges on the app icons when there’s a new alert. If you’d rather not have the extra clutter, go to Settings and open up Notifications, where you can turn these badges on or off for each app.

You can double-tap the Home button (which looks like a big TV display) to show all of your recent apps. Within an app, if you slide a finger left or right on the touch-sensitive top half of the Touch Remote or tap the left or right side of the clickpad ring on the Siri Remote, you’ll go backward or forward in videos and audio tracks.

A downward swipe (Touch Remote) or a tap on the bottom part of the clickpad ring (Siri Remote) brings up more options while you’re watching something. The options vary by app, but in the Netflix app, for example, it will bring up the subtitle and audio options.

If you find your remote too sensitive, or not sensitive enough, head to the Settings app, then choose Remotes and Devices to adjust it. You can check on the remote’s battery level at the same time.

4. Control the Apple TV 4K with your iPhone

You can use your iPhone to control your Apple TV 4K, and you may find that easier than the device’s remote. Setting this up is as simple as opening the Control Center (swipe down from the top right corner of your phone’s screen), then tapping on the remote button (which looks like your Apple TV 4K remote). If you can’t see the button, open iOS Settings and choose Control Center to add and position it.

[Related: All the ways to customize your iPhone lock screen]

5. Get info on your screensavers

The Apple TV 4K has some of the most gorgeous screensavers in the business. If you find yourself particularly taken with a scene and want to know where in the world it is, lightly touch the top half of the Touch Remote or the clickpad on the Siri Remote (without actually clicking) to see the location.

6. Add more users

You don’t necessarily want family members or housemates ruining your Disney Plus recommendations list or checking out your photos and videos, which is why the Apple TV 4K supports multiple user accounts. From Settings, pick Users and Accounts, then Add New User. This new user will need their own Apple ID, which grants them access to all their apps and services. You can swap between users from the same screen, or by pressing and holding the Home button (with the TV display icon on it).

7. Check how much space apps are using

You get a certain amount of on-board storage with the Apple TV 4K, but all those high-resolution movies can quickly eat up precious space, and you don’t want to run out of room. If you need to free up some storage, you can see which installed apps are the biggest data hogs by going to Settings and choosing General, followed by Manage Storage.

The next screen will show all the apps on your Apple TV 4K, with the bulkiest (perhaps a game of some sort) at the top. Handily enough, there’s a trash can right by each entry on the list—tap this icon once to delete the app and free up some space. The Apple TV 4K remembers your app purchases, so you can always download them again.

8. Do more with Bluetooth devices

Your Apple TV 4K has Bluetooth, so make the most of it. You might already know you can boost the audio capabilities of your box with Bluetooth speakers or your own headphones, but you can connect other devices as well. Up to two Bluetooth devices can be connected to your Apple TV 4K at any one time.

For example, tvOS now supports Bluetooth keyboards, which means you can save yourself the hassle of typing out movie titles and search requests—just swap the Touch Remote or Siri Remote for a keyboard.

Or, add an MFi Bluetooth game controller to give yourself more intuitive control over your big-screen games. From the Settings app, head to Remotes and Devices, then choose Bluetooth to pair devices or to remove one device and make room for another.

9. Make your Apple TV kid-friendly

The Apple TV can entertain kids of all ages, but you don’t necessarily want your youngsters to access all available material or start spending your money on in-app purchases.

On top of that, you can disable multiplayer gaming, screen recording, and even explicit language in Siri’s responses. All of these blocks and limits are protected by a PIN code, which must be entered to turn them off again.

Just install Plex on your computer and install the Plex app on your Apple TV to get started. If you need a little more help, Plex has more information about setting up the app. VLC Media Player is also worth a mention here, as it’s one of the most versatile media players for computers and phones. On the Apple TV, it provides support for streaming almost anything from your local network.

12. Calibrate your TV picture

The Apple TV 4K offers a rather smart color calibration feature, which you can use if you also have an iPhone. From Settings, choose Video and Audio, then Color Balance, and follow the instructions on screen. Note that you’ll need to turn your iPhone toward your TV to monitor and adjust the balance of colors. When the calibration is done, which only takes a few seconds, you’ll have the option to accept the new settings or go back to the original calibration.

13. Get help from Siri

Siri is available on the Apple TV, so make use of the voice-controlled assistant by pressing and holding on the Siri (microphone) button on the remote—it’s on the front on the Touch Remote and on the side on the Siri Remote.

Try asking, “What’s the weather forecast?” or saying, “Show me comedy movies from the 90s” (or whatever genre you’d prefer). The best part is, Siri’s results pop up at the bottom of the screen most of the time, so they won’t interrupt what you’re doing.

When watching movies and shows, you can say, “Forward 10 minutes” to jump around, or ask, “Who stars in this?” to get a list of cast members to appear on screen. Another good vocal trick is asking, “What did he (or she, or they) just say?” This prompts Siri to rewind whatever you’re watching by 15 seconds and temporarily turn subtitles on. Meanwhile, saying, “Reduce loud sounds” can make it easier to hear dialogue.

14. Use picture-in-picture

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Quick Response (QR) codes were popular before the COVID-19 pandemic, but now they’re everywhere, from restaurant menus to billboards. These square codes are quick and easy to use, and anyone can scan them on their mobile device using its built-in camera, no special app or update necessary. 

If you’ve ever wondered how to make a QR code, know that it doesn’t require any great degree of technical know-how or a huge amount of time. You just need the right app and the content you want to encode.

[Related: QR codes are everywhere now. Here’s how to use them.]

On mobile, the process is similar:

Chrome’s QR code generator is free and easy to use, but gives you little in terms of customization. If you create the code on an Android device or a computer, it will always have the Chrome dinosaur in the middle, but you can avoid that by using an Apple mobile device instead.

You can also try The QR Code Generator, which has nearly the same name as the one we just mentioned. You can easily access this free platform from your browser, and you can start creating QR codes from the get-go. To enjoy features like the ability to add logos, make simpler patterns, or generate dynamic QR codes, you’ll have to create an account. But if you have basic needs, this site is intuitive and provides everything you’ll need.  

What you can do with QR codes

QR codes can store around 4,000 characters of text, which can be a plain message, a link to a website, a file to download, or pretty much any other information you can think of. You’re probably most familiar with their ability to store website URLs, whether that’s a portal to a company website on an advertisement or a shortcut to a bar’s drinks list.

The post How to make a QR code and share digital data with anyone, anywhere appeared first on Popular Science.

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It’s a sign of the times that most new technology brings with it new privacy and security issues, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT is no exception. The text generator is truly impressive (at least to some), but it also raises questions about how it collects and processes our data.

ChatGPT’s developers trained the large language model on vast amounts of publicly available text on the web. But the chatbot also uses your conversations with it to learn, so if you want to protect your privacy, you’ll need to know what your options are. 

From that point on, every time you close the browser tab, your conversation log with ChatGPT will disappear from your account. But that doesn’t mean it’s entirely gone—behind the scenes OpenAI hangs on to your chat history for 30 days to “monitor for abuse” before permanently deleting it.

Back on the Data Controls menu, there’s an Export data option. This won’t affect how OpenAI uses your information or delete what it has already collected, but it gives you a better idea of what OpenAI has on you. It might include chats you haven’t erased and the feedback you’ve given to ChatGPT’s responses. 

If there’s anything in there you’re not comfortable with, you can manually wipe your chat history. Back on the ChatGPT interface, click your username and then Clear conversations to get rid of your entire log all at once, or click the trash can icon next to any specific chat to wipe it out. ChatGPT won’t be able to use deleted conversations for training, but depending on how long your chat history has been there, the chatbot might have gotten to it before you did. To prevent that from happening in the future, or just in case someone gets access to your computer and wants to take a peek at your conversations, it’s a good idea to tidy your chat log up every now and again.

Finally, if you no longer want to talk to ChatGPT, you always have the option to delete your account, which you can do from the Data Controls panel.

The chatbot’s privacy policy says OpenAI logs data such as your conversations and the features you engage with, and may share “aggregated information” such as user statistics with third parties. As a response to legal requests from law enforcement, for example, the company may also share users’ personal information, such as email addresses and location data, with “affiliates.” But the document is vague and doesn’t specify who these affiliates might be exactly. 

It’s a standard privacy policy, but the rule is clearly the same as with most platforms online: the less you’re sharing about yourself, the better. That won’t only protect you from questionable privacy practices OpenAI might have in the future, but also from bugs and hacks. For example, a recent ChatGPT outage resulted in people seeing titles from other active user’s chat history. 

If there’s public information about you on the internet, ChatGPT might be able to tell other users about you—and if that’s not scary enough, think about what could happen if it gets things wrong. If you want to correct inaccuracies or just stop ChatGPT from learning about you, you can fill out this form or get in touch with OpenAI via dsar@openai.com. You can learn more about the data ChatGPT is trained on in the platform’s support page.

When it comes to using an app or browser extension built on top of ChatGPT, you’ll need to apply the same caution you would with any other third party tool: check the permissions it requires, read through the privacy policy and terms and conditions, and find out about any associated costs, whether it’s subscription fees or in-app payments. 

As soon as something becomes as popular as ChatGPT, scammers and hackers also want in on it, so we’d also recommend researching the background of the developer behind any ChatGPT tool you use. 

The most trustworthy apps will have privacy and security settings of their own you can configure. When it comes to the ChatGPT-powered Bing AI chatbot run by Microsoft, for example, click the three horizontal lines in the top right corner of the Bing interface, then choose Search history to see the chats that you’ve had with the AI and to clear these results if needed.

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Banish the bloatware

Your shiny new laptop might already be weighed down by unnecessary applications. These are called bloatware, and to expand on the brief definition we offered above, they’re basically the laptop manufacturer’s attempts to push its own services. Some can be useful, but you don’t have to keep them around if you don’t want to.

You could open up the Applications folder in Finder, and then drag the app icon down to Trash to remove it from your system. Alternatively, open Launchpad from the Dock or the Applications folder, click and hold on an app icon until it starts shaking, then tap the little X icon that appears on it.

Be careful with installers

Plenty of programs will attempt to install extra software while you’re working your way through the initial setup process. Not only will this add extra clutter to your system, it can also be risky from a security perspective—you’re granting access to apps you haven’t fully vetted.

The only way to really guard against this is to pay attention as you install new software, and don’t zone out while clicking the “next” buttons until you’ve reached the end. Watch out for boxes that are checked by default and effectively give permission for the program to install extra software.

[Related: Questions to ask when you’re trying to decide on a new app or service]

You should also be careful about the software developers you trust to install applications on your laptop. There are many honest and reputable smaller developers out there, but always do diligent research before downloading and installing something new: check the history of the developer, and read reviews of the app from existing users.

To be on the safe side, limit yourself to installing apps from the official Microsoft and Apple stores whenever possible—these programs have been vetted, and shouldn’t attempt to install anything extra. On Windows, choose Microsoft Store from the Start menu; on macOS, click the App Store icon in the Dock.

Lock down your browser

Your browser is your laptop’s window to the web, so you’ll want to make sure it’s shored up against apps and extensions that surreptitiously install themselves. Keeping your browser updated is the first step, but thankfully modern browsers take care of that automatically (so long as you close all your tabs and restart the browser every once in a while).

Avoid agreeing to install any add-ons or plug-ins you don’t immediately recognize as programs you opted to download. If you’re in any doubt, navigate away from the page you’re on or close the tab.

Watch out for extra toolbars appearing in your browser, or browser settings (like the default search engine) changing without warning—you can always head to the extensions settings page in your browser to remove add-ons you’re not sure about.

When you install a new extension in your browser, you’ll get a pop-up explaining the permissions it has—the data it can see, and the changes it can make to your system. Don’t install any extras on top of your browser without double-checking the developers behind them and reading reviews left by current users.

Practice good security

To maximize your protection against applications that would install themselves without your permission, we recommend installing an antivirus package whether you’re on Windows or macOS—you can find a variety of independent reports online to point you towards the best choices. These packages typically include dedicated tools that watch for unexpected software installations.

If you’re on Windows, you can make use of the built-in Windows Defender software that comes with the operating system and specifically checks for the installation of authorized apps. On Windows 11, open Settings, click Privacy & security, then Windows Security, Open Windows Security, and App & browser control to make sure the feature is enabled. If you’re still using Windows 10, open Settings, then click Update & Security, Windows Security, and App & browser control.

[Related: How to make sure no one is spying on your computer]

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There’s a wealth of software available for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS—but not all of it has been developed with the best intentions. There are apps out there that have been built to steal your data, corrupt your files, spy on your digital activities, and surreptitiously squeeze money out of you.

The good news is that a few smart questions can steer you away from the shady stuff and toward apps you can trust and rely on. If you’re not sure about a particular piece of software for your phone or computer, running through this simple checklist should help you spot the biggest red flags.

Old software that hasn’t been updated in the last year or so isn’t necessarily bad, but be wary of it: It’s less likely to work with the latest version of whatever operating system you’re on, and it’s more likely to have security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by bad actors (because it’s hasn’t been patched against the latest threats).

Don’t automatically trust brand new software either. An app may have been rushed out to cash in on a trend (whether it’s Wordle clones or ChatGPT extensions), and these types of apps are built to make money rather than offer a good user experience or respect your privacy. It may be worth just waiting until you’ve seen some reviews of the app in question.

2. What are other people saying?

That brings us neatly to user reviews, which can be a handy way of gauging an app’s quality. It’s easy to use the dedicated reviews sections in official app stores to see what other people think of the software, but in other scenarios (like downloading a Windows program from the web) you can do a quick web search for the name of the app.

Be sure to check several reviews rather than just relying on one or two, and look for running themes over isolated incidents (the customer isn’t necessarily always right). See what users are saying about bugs and crashes, for example, and how any requests for support have been handled.

[Related: What to do when your apps keep crashing]

Reviews can be faked of course, even in large numbers. Don’t be too trusting of very short and very positive reviews, or reviews left by people with usernames that are generic or look like they might have been created by a bot. Place most faith in longer, more detailed reviews that sound like they’ve been written by someone who’s actually used the software in question.

If you’re on Android or iOS, you can tap the developer name on an app listing to see other apps from the same developer. If they’ve made several apps that all have high ratings, that’s positive. Developer responses to user reviews are a good sign as well, showing that whoever is behind the software is invested in it.

Checking up on the developer of an app that you’re downloading from the wilds of the web isn’t quite as straightforward, but a quick web search for their name should give you some pointers. Developers without any online or social media presence, for instance, should be treated with caution.

4. How much does it cost?

Pay particular attention to how much an app costs, both in terms of up-front fees and ongoing payments: These details are listed on app pages on Android and iOS, and should be fairly straightforward to find on other platforms too. You don’t want an app that’s going to extort money out of you, but you also need to figure out how the costs of development are being supported.

Like the other questions here, there are no hard and fast rules, but if an app is completely free it’s most likely supported through data collection and advertising—this is true from the biggest names in tech, like Facebook and Google, to the smallest independent developers. Freemium models are common too, where some features might be locked behind a paywall.

[Related on PopSci+: You have the power to protect your data. Own it.]

If you get as far as installing an app, go through the opening splash screens very carefully, and pay attention to the terms and conditions. Watch out for any free trials you might be signing up for,that could be charging your credit card unexpectedly in a month’s time (even if you’ve uninstalled the app).

Ideally, apps should explain to you why they need the permissions they do. Access to your contacts, for example, can be used to easily share files with friends and family, rather than to pull any personal data from them. It’s not an exact science, but it’s another way of assessing whether or not you want to install a particular program.

You can change app permissions after they’ve been installed, too, and you should check in on these every once in a while because settings may change as developers update their app. We’ve written guides to the process for Windows and macOS, and for Android and iOS. If you do think that a piece of software is reaching further than it should do in terms of permissions, you can block off its access to them rather than removing it.

The post Stop and ask these 5 security questions before installing any app appeared first on Popular Science.

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Google has become so synonymous with search that the company’s name has found its way into the dictionary as a verb—and that means your Google search history can reveal a lot about your life. If someone manages to gain access to that treasure trove of information, they could learn about everything from the medical conditions you’ve been worried about to where you’ve been on your vacations.

With so much sensitive data involved, you should make sure that your search history is safe from prying eyes. There are ways to make extra-sure that no outsiders can get a glimpse at what you’ve been looking for, and to block Google itself from knowing anything about your online queries.

Put a password on your Google search history

Your Google account is protected by both a password and two-factor authentication if you’ve switched that on (we recommend you do). That should minimize the risk of anyone else being able to log in and take a peek at what you’ve been searching for, but you can do more.

If you’re on a computer where you’re regularly logged into Google, your browser has your password saved, and other people (maybe housemates or colleagues) are likely to be wandering past, you might feel like an additional layer of security is required. Or maybe you’re just very private and security-conscious.

For these situations, Google has created an extra password step just for your search history. Even if someone makes it to your Google account page, they’ll need your password to enter the search history section.

You can enable this by going to your Google account page, and choosing Data & privacy from the options on the left. Scroll down to the History settings box, click Web & App Activity, and then hit Manage all Web & App Activity at the bottom of the page. Finally, click Manage My Activity verification, fill in the bubble next to Require extra verification, and hit Save.

Automatically delete your Google searches

Google will automatically clean up your search history, if you want it to. Go to your Google account page, click Data & privacy, find the History settings heading, and click Web & App Activity to open the Activity Controls page. There, find the Auto-delete section and click the time period underneath to open a dialog box full of customization options. Use the dropdown menu to tell Google to automatically delete search history data older than three, 18, or 36 months.

Back on the Activity Controls page, if you choose Manage all Web & App Activity instead of opening the auto-delete options, you can manually wipe everything you’ve ever searched for, or just some of it. Use the search and filter options to look for something specific, and either the Delete box directly under the search bar or the X buttons next to individual entries to get rid of what you want to erase.

[Related: How to purge all of your search histories]

You can also use the Activity Controls page to just tell Google to stop tracking your activity altogether. To do so, find the Web & App Activity heading and click Turn off. Then hit Pause, followed by Got it to confirm that this is actually what you want to do. This will remain off until you decide to turn it back on. For a clean slate, click Manage all Web & App Activity at the bottom of the page to see your activity, then hit Delete and All time to erase everything, or use whatever other options suit you.

Avoid Google entirely

Another way to keep your Google search history private is not to allow Google to track it in the first place. If you open an incognito or private window in your browser of choice before visiting Google and running your search, it won’t be recorded. As soon as you close the window, the browser (and Google) will forget the query ever happened.

In Google Chrome, for example, click the three dots in the top right-hand corner of the browser interface and choose New Incognito Window from the menu that appears. In Microsoft Edge, click the three dots (top right) then New InPrivate window; in Firefox, click the three lines (top right), then New private window; and in Safari you can click File and New Private Window.

When you start off in an incognito or private browser window, you won’t be signed into any of your accounts, including your Google one. Make sure you don’t sign into Google during the browsing session though—otherwise Google will log your search requests as normal, even if you’re using a private browsing mode.

You also have the option to run your web searches elsewhere: You can pick from Microsoft’s Bing or the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo, for instance. The developers behind the browser Brave have also launched a search engine you can try, and it won’t track you or anything you’re searching for.

Manage your browsing history and syncing

If you use Chrome while signed into your Google account, everything you search for on Google will be saved to the browser and your Google account. If you’ve turned off tracking in your Google account, your search history will still appear in Chrome. These lists of queries are one and the same, though the information might be presented slightly differently. You can see your history in Chrome by clicking the three dots (top right), choosing History, then History again.

This setup also means you can delete your history from your browser as well as your Google account page. From the History screen, you can select individual entries and then choose Delete, or click Clear browsing data on the left for some more comprehensive options. Select Browsing history and the time period you want to cover, then select Clear data.

[Related: How to clear your web history in any browser]

The post 4 ways to protect your Google search history appeared first on Popular Science.

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There’s a lot to like about going on trips as a group—the shared experiences, the socializing, the deepening of friendships, the support and help when you need it. But it’s not without its problems either.

At the planning stage, trying to make sure everyone’s voice is heard and everyone’s ideas are accommodated can be tricky. But as with so many modern-day challenges, technology can help and group trip planner apps can help your journey go brilliantly.

The post 5 apps to organize your next group outing appeared first on Popular Science.

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If you own an Apple MacBook, then the built-in trackpad might be your way of doing just about everything except typing. It’s an essential input device for your laptop, so you’ll need to know how to make the best of it.

Not only are there a ton of configuration options to personalize the gestures you use with your MacBook trackpad, but there are also third-party apps to help you do more clicking, selecting, zooming, and scrolling.

Next is Secondary click, also known as right-click: You can turn this off completely or choose to enable it with a two-finger click, or a click on one of the bottom corners of the trackpad. The final option on this screen, Tap to click, means you can register a click with a light tap on the trackpad rather than a full press.

Switch to the Scroll & Zoom tab and you can set which direction the screen scrolls when you move two fingers up or down the trackpad (Natural scrolling), enable a pinch with two fingers to make things on screen appear larger (Zoom in or out), enable a two-finger double-tap for a quick zoom in or out (Smart Zoom), and enable the ability to rotate objects with two fingers (Rotate). Hover over any option to see a preview of how it works at the top of the dialog box.

Lastly, there’s the More Gestures tab, which offers a total of seven different gestures you can enable. Some of these just have a simple switch you can toggle to turn them on and off, with the gesture action explained underneath, while others have a drop-down menu where you can pick the gesture you want to trigger the action.

For example, turn on the Notification Center toggle switch and you’ll be able to swipe left from the right edge of the screen with two fingers. Meanwhile, for the Swipe between full-screen applications gesture, you can choose to do this by swiping left or right with either three fingers or four fingers on the trackpad. Or you can turn the gesture off completely.

One such app is BetterTouchTool, which will set you back $10 with two years worth of updates, or $22 with updates for life. There’s also a 45-day free trial you can use to see if you like the software before you part with your money.

First, click the + (plus) icon underneath Groups & Top Level Triggers, and pick your gesture—you can do something like 3 Finger Double-Tap or whatever else you want to do with your fingers to trigger the action. You can also combine a keyboard shortcut if you want, and choose whether macOS acknowledges the trigger with a visual alert. 

Then, click the + (plus) icon underneath Actions Assigned to Selected Trigger. This determines what happens next: you can choose from a long list of supported actions, including app navigation, window resizing, and system actions such as powering down the Mac. Once you pick the one you want, your gesture will be ready to use. 

Another trackpad app worth checking out is Swish which you can test for free for 14 days before having to pay $16 to keep using it. Unfortunately, this app doesn’t allow you to create your own gestures but comes with a list of custom ones that expands on the built-in trackpad functionality in lots of new and useful ways. You’ll be able to maximize and minimize windows, snap them to a grid on screen, move open windows between different monitors, or quickly view the desktop by minimizing every currently open window.

You can see the various supported gestures by going down the navigation pane on the left of the app interface: General, Windows, Snapping, Apps, Menubar, and Advanced. Swish also has a few other interesting settings you might want to turn on, like setting up a modifier key on your keyboard to enable gestures.

The post Your Mac’s trackpad doesn’t have to be basic. Here’s how to customize it. appeared first on Popular Science.

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Disk space is always at a premium, so you should take every opportunity to free up as much of it as you can. One of the best ways to do this is to back up a bunch of files to the cloud, then remove them from your computer entirely.

Stashing your data in the cloud will allow you to access your files while still having hard drive space on your computer. The process is relatively easy, but don’t let this be your only form of backup: keep your files on another cloud service or an external hard drive (or two) in case something catastrophic happens.

Cloud storage and syncing apps can help you manually choose which files live locally on your computer, but they can also do the job automatically. In some cases, you can keep a folder online-only, but still have placeholders for its contents on your hard drive. As soon as you try to access them, they’ll download from the cloud and open as normal.

All these services also have web interfaces, which allow you to log in and view your files on any computer with a web browser and an internet connection. In some cases, web access might be all you need.

When deciding what kind of files to store where, think of the cloud as your basement—a place where you store things you don’t want to throw away, but wouldn’t keep in the middle of your living room. As such, it’s best to make older files and folders online-only—those you want to keep backed up but don’t need to access regularly, such as vacation photos and videos. You should locally store any files you constantly need access to, especially if you can’t rely on internet connectivity.

To make some files online-only, right-click on the OneDrive icon (a cloud) in the Windows taskbar notification area, then choose Help & Settings and open up the Settings tab. Go to Sync and backup, then open the Advanced settings. Finally, locate Files On-Demand and select Download files as you use them.

You’ll find there are three types of files in OneDrive. First, there are online-only documents, which you’ll recognize by the blue cloud badge that sits on top of the file icon in File Explorer. These live in the cloud, but open normally as long as you have an internet connection. The second type are locally available files, which have a green check mark on them and live both on your device and in the cloud. Finally, there are locally stored files. These are marked by a white check mark in a green circle and they stay on your computer no matter what.

The last two types are practically the same, and you’ll be able to open and edit them normally, even if you’re offline. The only difference is that locally available files will automatically become online-only after a set period of time if you enable a Windows 10 and 11 feature called Storage sense, which uploads files to the cloud when you’re running out of space on your computer.

OneDrive will handle some of this automatically (by downloading files when you open them, for example), but you can also manually set up what the platform does with specific files and folders by right-clicking on them in File Explorer.

How to save space with iCloud

Apple has two different storage systems: iCloud and iCloud Drive. The first one syncs information on your Mac devices, including music and videos purchased through the iTunes Store, plus contacts, calendars, and pictures. The second, iCloud Drive, is Apple’s version of OneDrive or Dropbox. You can install it on Apple and non-Apple tech, use it to store any file or folder, sync that data across devices, and share your files with anyone.

To see how much of your iCloud storage you’re using on your Mac, open the Apple menu, choose About This Mac, click More info, and scroll down to click Storage Settings. Under Recommendations, you’ll see a Store in iCloud button. Click it, and you’ll have the option to save all the files and documents from your Desktop and Documents folders in the cloud so you can access them from any Apple device where you’re signed in with your Apple ID. You can also move all your messages to the cloud rather than storing them locally.

Under Optimize Storage, click Optimize to remove any local iTunes movies and TV shows you’ve got on your Mac that are marked as watched—you can always download them again if you need to. 

Finally, open System Settings, go to the Apple ID tab, and choose iCloud. If you toggle the switch next to Optimize Mac Storage, macOS will start to clear your hard drive of older files you haven’t opened in a while, whenever you start to run out of space. These files won’t disappear from iCloud and you can always redownload them.

This feature will let you uncheck some or all of the folders in your Dropbox to prevent the platform from downloading and syncing them to your computer. If you uncheck a folder, it will disappear from that device, but will remain in the cloud and on any other computers you’re using Dropbox with. You can follow the same path and undo this preference if you want to restore access and syncing capabilities to certain folders. 

Then there’s the feature formerly known as Smart Sync, which is only available to paying Dropbox customers. It works like Selective Sync but it’s more automatic: it lets you move files to the cloud, making them online-only, but the platform will put placeholders for them in the Dropbox folder on your computer. You can easily view online-only documents when you’re offline, but if you need to edit them, you’ll need an internet connection to download them. Changes will sync to the cloud, but if you want to keep the file online-only after that, you’ll need to manually enable the feature again.

[Related: 6 essential Dropbox tools you might be missing]

To make a file or folder online-only, go to your Dropbox folder, right-click on the file or folder you want to only store in the cloud and choose Make online-only. You can also make all new files online-only by default: go to Dropbox Preferences, click Sync, open the dropdown menu next to New files default, and select Online-only.

The post Free up space on your laptop by moving all your files to the cloud appeared first on Popular Science.

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If you subscribe to Netflix, Amazon Prime, or any other streaming service, you’ve probably found yourself gazing at the screen as episode after episode autoplays, until you check the clock and realize you wanted to go to sleep more than an hour ago. But series like Stranger Things are seriously good television—so where’s the harm in binge-watching a bit?

The problem is that a growing body of evidence suggests the various demands of a modern-day lifestyle, including hours of late-night streaming, are seriously disrupting human sleep patterns. This, in turn, can damage our overall health. But just try telling people to give up their Netflix—it’s a recipe for failure.

With that in mind, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, a professional society founded in 1975, has taken it upon itself to set some guidelines for enjoying top-notch shows while making sure your body and brain get enough rest. We can show you how to use them to properly balance binge-watching and sleep.

Take breaks between episodes

The AASM recommends getting out of “the autoplay loop,” where you watch episode after episode because it takes less effort than stopping the playback. Luckily, Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services give you the option to turn autoplay off. The idea is that manually loading the next episode can prevent you from mindlessly gluing your eyes to the screen. However, it’s still easy for you to click, click, click through the episodes. Which is why you should also…

Set an episode limit

Don’t fire up Bridgerton and then wait to see how the evening goes. Decide in advance how much you’re going to watch before bed and then stick to that limit, regardless of cliffhangers. (By the way, this is the same principle you should use for a night of boozing.)

If you have trouble obeying this type of limit, you might have to trick yourself. One way to do so is by downloading episodes onto your phone. Because Netflix and other services support offline downloads for many shows, you can pre-load all the television you’ve decided to watch in advance. Then put your phone in airplane mode to stop yourself from exceeding your limits. Downloading also lets you catch up with Yellowjackets on the train ride to work, instead of staying up watching it the night before.

Stressed about finishing an episode on your commute? Try reserving some daylight hours when you’ll be able to watch without worrying about missing your stop or blowing past your bedtime. The AASM advises you to resolve the conflict between binge-watching and sleep by setting aside relaxed viewing time over the weekend.

[Related: How to add subtitles to Netflix and other apps]

Another problem with phones is that their glowing displays strain our eyes. All that staring at your phone is unhealthy, and one way to limit its impact on your sleep is to watch on a bigger, more distant screen instead. So instead of using your phone in bed, try streaming that media to a television.

Control the light

Bright blue light, like the wavelengths emanating from your video screen, will keep you alert and suppress the chemicals supposed to send you to sleep. To make sure you’re able to drop off when you want to, you should stop binge-watching about half an hour before your desired bedtime. In fact, the AASM recommends turning off all screens at least 30 minutes before you sleep.

For iPhone users, there’s a blue-light-reduction feature called Night Shift built right into iOS. It can automatically adjust the color of the screen during evening hours so that the display will emit reddish rather than bluish light. To find it, open the Settings app and head to Display & Brightness.

Apple has also included the same feature in macOS. To set it up on your computer, open the Apple menu, choose System Settings, and open the Displays tab. Click the Night Shift button in the bottom right, and you’ll be able to set the color change schedule and strength as you see fit, just as on iOS.

Android phones have a similar feature called Night Light, though the setup process may be different depending on which version of the mobile operating system you’re using. To activate it on a Pixel phone, go to Settings, Display, and tap Night Light. You can schedule a daily start and end time, and customize the intensity by dragging the slider.

The last thing you should remember every time you find yourself choosing between binge-watching and sleep is that AASM recommends adults rest for seven hours or more per night. Anything less than that can cause problems with work or school performance, cognitive abilities, and mood. You don’t need to stop watching movies and shows to reach this goal, but these tips should let you get a handle on your viewing habits, and make you feel a lot better.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on June 8, 2017.

The post How to stream movies and shows without destroying your sleep appeared first on Popular Science.

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For a lot of us, checking our Gmail inbox is a daily ritual, and Google’s email client comes packed with labels, filters, stars, and other features meant to help you sort and manage your messages as quickly as possible. But those are just surface-level—you can go deeper.

Experimenting with Gmail’s layout is a powerful, but often overlooked way to boost your email productivity. It can surface the most important messages first, help you avoid inbox clutter, and give you a different perspective on your mountain of emails.

After Gmail creates this divide, click the three dots in the top right corner of your inbox to choose how many unread emails appear on screen at once (up to 50). From the same menu, you can also select Hide section when empty to have it disappear when all your emails are read.

You can also type “is:unread” into the search box at the top of the page to sort by unread Gmail messages. This will display everything from your inbox and archive that you haven’t opened yet, in reverse chronological order, while hiding all your other emails from view. It also won’t change the layout of your main inbox, so it’s a good option if you just want to have a quick look instead of making a lasting change.

2. Show important emails first

If simply sorting by unread isn’t enough, you can choose to have Gmail bring the most important emails to the top of your inbox. Importance is judged by Google’s artificial intelligence algorithms, and those algorithms are based on indicators such as who you email most frequently and the keywords inside your messages. Emails that Gmail thinks are important have a small yellow arrow next to their subject headers.

Click the cog icon (top right) in the main Gmail interface, scroll down to Inbox type, and choose Important first. Emails deemed to be important will appear in the top section, in reverse chronological order, and everything else will show up below. Click the three dots (top right) to choose how many important emails appear on screen at once, and whether or not the section should be hidden when it’s empty.

Irrespective of your inbox layout, you can run an “is:important” search to see all the important emails in your Gmail account, in reverse chronological order, without changing how everything looks. You can also click the arrow markers to the left of email subject headers to mark the messages as important or unimportant.

3. Display starred emails first

You might not have realized how comprehensive the stars system in Gmail is: Click the cog icon (top right), See all settings, and make sure you’re in the General tab. Scroll down to find Stars, and you’ll see there are 12 types to choose from (you don’t have to use them all).

Make your choices and click Save Changes to lock them in. Back in your Gmail inbox, click the cog icon again, find Inbox type, and select Starred first. All the messages you’ve put a star next to will go right to the top of your inbox. They will appear in reverse chronological order by date, with each star type from a given date grouped together. Click the three dots (top right) to set how many starred messages appear on screen at once.

[Related: 4 tips to bring your Gmail inbox to zero]

You can search for starred emails too, which won’t change the layout of your Gmail inbox. Run a query for “is:starred” to see everything with a star next to it, or use a search like “has:orange-star” to find specific star types (hover over the stars in the General tab of Gmail’s settings to see what their individual labels are).

To do so, click the cog icon on the main Gmail interface (top right), go to Inbox type, and select Priority inbox. Click Customize just underneath, and you can decide how many sections show up on screen, as well as what gets put in them.

One of the most useful sections is Important and unread, which shifts every, well, important and unread email up to the top of the conversation list (click the three dots in the top right to choose how many emails are shown in each section). Any label you’ve set up in Gmail can be used to fill out one of your sections.

5. Tweak the default setting

You can make adjustments to the default Gmail layout too, which uses tabs at the top of the inbox to split your emails into categories. If you’ve never explored these options, they’re worth experimenting with to see which setup suits you best.

Click the cog icon (top right) from the main Gmail interface, find the Inbox type heading, locate Default, and choose Customize. From there, you can pick which tabs show up on screen—from Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, and Forums—and Gmail will try to sort your messages into these tabs as they come in.

[Related: Dig up any old email in your inbox, even if it’s in the trash]

Based on our experience, this sorting works pretty well, but Gmail can occasionally get a category wrong. You can always drag emails between tabs to tell Google where a certain type of email should go, and this should improve its future classification decisions.

The post 6 Gmail sorting tips for a more efficient and less chaotic inbox appeared first on Popular Science.

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Whatever familiarity you think you have with Windows keyboard shortcuts, think again. The nearly 40-year-old operating system has so many hotkeys that it can be easy to miss some surprisingly useful ones, and if you recently switched from Windows 10 to Windows 11, some shortcuts have changed.

No matter how often you’re using these efficient key combinations in your day-to-day work, it’s in your in interest to learn as many as possible. A single shortcut will shave a mere moment off a task, but you’ll save a substantial chunk of time over weeks, months, and years. To get you started, we’ve gathered 20 of the most indispensable keyboard commands for the latest Microsoft Windows computers.

• No matter what program you’re running, Ctrl+Z will roll back your last action. Whether you’ve just overwritten an entire paragraph in Microsoft Word or deleted a file you didn’t mean to, this one is an absolute lifesaver.

Ctrl+W: Close

• Another shortcut that works just about everywhere, Ctrl+W will close down whatever you’re viewing. Shut that File Explorer window, eliminate that browser tab, or shelve that image file without bothering to hone in on the close button.

Ctrl+A: Select all

• This command lets you highlight all the text in a document or select all the files in a folder. Hitting Ctrl+A can save you time you’d otherwise spend clicking and dragging your mouse.

Alt+Tab: Switch apps

• This baby is one of the classic Windows keyboard shortcuts, and it can be hugely useful when you’re running multiple applications. Just press Alt+Tab and you’ll be able to quickly flick through all your open windows.

Alt+F4: Close apps

• Another old-school shortcut, Alt+F4 shuts down whatever app you’re using so you can skip the process of hunting down its on-screen menu. Don’t worry about losing unsaved work with this command—it will prompt you to save your documents before closing them.

Windows navigation shortcuts

Win+D: Show or hide the desktop

• This keyboard combo minimizes all your open windows, bringing your home screen into view. If you store rows and rows of files and shortcuts on your desktop, Win+D will let you access them in moments.

Win+left arrow or Win+right arrow: Snap windows

• Snapping a window simply keeps it open on one side of the screen (left or right, depending on which arrow you hit). This allows you to compare two windows side-by-side and keeps your workspace organized.

Win+Tab: Open the Task view

• Like Alt+Tab, this shortcut lets you switch apps, but it does so by opening an updated Windows application switcher. The latest version shows thumbnails of all your open programs on the screen.

[Related: The fastest way to install Windows software]

Tab and Shift+Tab: Move backward and forward through options

• When you open a dialog box, these commands will move you forward (Tab) or backward (Shift+Tab) through the available options, saving you a click. If you’re dealing with a dialog box that has multiple tabs, hit Ctrl+Tab or Ctrl+Shift+Tab to navigate through them.

Ctrl+Esc: Open the Start menu

• If you’re using a keyboard that doesn’t have a Windows key, this shortcut will open the Start menu. Otherwise, a quick tap of the Windows key will do the same thing. From there, you can stay on the keyboard and navigate the Start menu with the cursor keys, Tab, and Shift+Tab.

Advanced Windows shortcut tricks

F2: Rename

• Simply highlight a file and hit F2 to give it a new name. This command also lets you edit text in other programs—tap F2 in Microsoft Excel, for example, and you’ll be able to edit the contents of the cell you’re in.

F5: Refresh

• While you’re exploring the function key row, take a look at F5. This key will refresh a page—a good trick when you’re using File Explorer or your web browser. After the refresh, you’ll see the latest version of the page you’re viewing.

Win+L: Lock your computer

• Keep your computer safe from any prying eyes by using this keyboard combo right before you step away. Win+L locks the machine and returns you to the login screen, so any snoops will need your user account password to regain access.

Win+I: Open Settings

• Any time you want to configure the way Windows works, hit this keyboard shortcut to bring up the Settings screen. Alternatively, use Win+A on Windows 11 to open the Quick Settings panel. On Windows, 10, Win+A brings up the Action Center panel, which shows notifications and provides quick access to certain settings.

[Related: How to use File Explorer tabs on Windows 11]

Win+S: Search Windows

• The Windows taskbar has a handy search box that lets you quiz Cortana or sift through your applications and saved files. Jump straight to it with this keyboard shortcut, then type in your search terms.

Win+PrtScn: Save a screenshot

• No need to open a dedicated screenshot tool: Win+PrtScn grabs the whole screen and saves it as a PNG file in a Screenshots folder inside your Pictures folder. At the same time, Windows will also copy the image to the clipboard. If you don’t want to snap the whole screen, the Alt+PrtScn combination will take a screenshot of just the active window. Just know that this command will only copy the image to your clipboard, so you won’t get a saved file.

Ctrl+Shift+Esc: Open the Task Manager

• The Task Manager is your portal to everything running on your Windows system, from open programs to background processes. This shortcut will call up the Task Manager, no matter what application you’re using.

Win+C: Open Microsoft Teams chat (Windows 11); start talking to Cortana (Windows 10)

• This shortcut has changed a bit since Microsoft deemphasized its virtual assistant, Cortana. On Windows 11, Win+C opens Microsoft Teams chat. But if you have a Windows 10 computer, this puts Cortana in listening mode as long as you’ve activated this ability. To do so, open Cortana from the taskbar search box, click the cog icon, and turn on the keyboard shortcut. Once you’ve enabled the shortcut, hit Win+C whenever you want to talk to the digital assistant. You can do this instead of, or in addition to, saying, “Hey Cortana.”

Win+Ctrl+D: Add a new virtual desktop

• Virtual desktops create secondary screens where you can stash some of your open applications and windows, giving you extra workspace. This shortcut lets you create one. Once you have, click the Task View button to the right of the taskbar search box to switch from one desktop to another. Or stick with shortcuts: Win+Ctrl+arrow will cycle through your open desktops, and Win+Ctrl+F4 will close whichever one you’re currently viewing and shift your open windows and apps to the next available virtual desktop.

Win+X: Open a hidden menu

• Windows has a hidden Start menu, called the Quick Link menu, that allows you to access all the key areas of the system. From here, you can jump straight to Device Manager to review and configure any hardware, such as printers or keyboards, that are currently attached to the system. Or you can quickly bring up the PowerShell command prompt window to access advanced Windows commands.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on September 30, 2017.

The post 20 essential Windows keyboard shortcuts that will make you forget your mouse appeared first on Popular Science.

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If you have movies, TV shows, and music stored on your computer that you want to stream to other devices inside and outside of your home, there aren’t too many options purpose-built for the job. You’ve probably heard of Plex, but there’s another option: the open-source Jellyfin.

How to set up Jellyfin

Whether you have a bunch of home movies, burned CDs from your teenage years, or recordings you just can’t get anywhere else anymore, Jullyfin supports all of the most common formats. These include H.264 for video and MP3 for audio, and there is a format compatibility list you can check. If a file type is supported, you can stream it straight from your Windows or macOS computer.

When setting up Jellyfin, you’ll first need to make sure all your locally stored content is indexed and available. Click Download Now from the Jellyfin homepage and pick the software that matches the desktop operating system you’re using—just make sure Server is selected at the top, as this is the program that will get your files ready to stream. Here we’re looking at the Windows server tool, but it’s similar on other platforms.

[Related: How to stream your personal video collection to any device]

Run the Jellyfin Server tool after installation and its interface will pop up in your default web browser. Most of Jellyfin’s setup steps are quite straightforward, and you’ll quickly come to an Add Media Library button: Click this, and you can point the program toward the media storage folders on your computer by using the plus icon next to Folders. Check the Enable real time monitoring box, and whenever you add new files to your selected folders, Jellyfin will automatically put them in your media library.

After a few seconds (or minutes, depending on how many files you’ve got), your library should be scanned and ready to access—you can access it from the Libraries option on the left of the main Jellyfin interface. The same screen lets you add more folders to your library: Just click on one of the existing collections, like Shows, Movies, or Music. Further options on the same screen let you choose whether or not Jellyfin automatically pulls imagery like album art from the web.

That’s all that’s really required to set up a Jellyfin library. There are a range of other options available in the various screens within the Jellyfin Server tool, but you can leave most of them in the default configuration until you get more familiar with the software. However, if you want to stream files outside of your local network, you’ll need go to the Networking page and enable Allow remote connections to this server.

Tips for using Jellyfin

On the computer where your media files are stored, you can use any media player you like to watch or listen to them. The Jellyfin Server program can do the job as well, if needed. To use it, open the app in your web browser, and you’ll see your media library on the first screen. Click on anything you see to browse the folder or play the file.

Your watching and listening history will sync across devices—so you can, for example, start watching a film on your laptop and finish it on your phone. If anything is labeled incorrectly, click the three dots next to the file and choose Edit metadata. For TV shows, for example, that would be the episode title and the year of release. If you add a link to the relevant listing on the IMDb website, some of this information will be filled out automatically.

[Related: 6 streaming tools to help you watch TV better]

For other computers, you can use the same Jellyfin Server tool to watch content over the web: Just skip the adding a library part of the setup process. As long as you log in using your Jellyfin username and password, you’ll see the files you added on the other computer. Bear in mind that the original computer—the one acting as the media server—has to be switched on if you want to do any streaming.

Head back to the Jellyfin downloads page, and you’ll see there are apps available for Roku, Android TV, and the WebOS software that runs on LG TVs. It’s not quite as comprehensive a selection as you get with Plex, but Jellyfin is getting there. There are also official apps available for Android and iOS, for getting your content on phones and tablets, and you can also use these apps to make playlists with your files.

There’s lots more to dig into with Jellyfin, and we’d recommend checking out the official documentation and the Jellyfin subreddit for more information. You should find everything you need there for going beyond the basics with the software, whether that’s accessing your content remotely over the web or filtering through your library (by genre, for example) as it starts to grow in size.

The post How to use Jellyfin to stream movies, music, and more right from your hard drive appeared first on Popular Science.

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The bundled gamepad isn’t the only way to control your PlayStation. Not only can you use a mouse and keyboard, but you can also use voice commands like you would with a smart speaker. Simply say your instructions out loud and your console will obey.

Voice control is a quick and convenient way of performing functions like turning off your PlayStation 4 or PlayStation 5, and launching games. And there are plenty more voice commands to explore.

Before you start talking to your console, you need to say “Playstation” and wait for the microphone icon to appear on screen. You can also press and hold L2 on the DualShock controller to get the console to start listening, but this only works on the home screen. When the mic shows up you can start talking and say multiple instructions in a row.

There are some basic commands that are going to work just about everywhere, including “yes” to agree to a confirmation prompt, “cancel” to reject a confirmation prompt, and “back” to return to a previous screen. You’ll also be able to say the name of any game or app on your console to launch it, but this will only work from the PS4 home screen.

To turn your console off with your voice, open the power options by saying “start power” and then either use the “enter rest mode” command (to put the PS4 into rest mode) or say “turn off PS4” (to turn the console off completely). Unfortunately, no matter whether the console is in rest mode or fully switched off, there’s no way to turn on the PlayStation 4 using your voice as there is on the Xbox.

You can also get around the various different screens in the console interface with your voice—just say “start…” followed by the name of the screen you want to jump to. Available options here include the PlayStation Store, settings, notifications, friends, messages, party, profile, and trophies. You can manage gameplay captures with voice commands as well: say “take screenshot” to do just that, or “start video clip” to begin recording gameplay.

At the time of writing, Sony doesn’t have an official full list of all the PS4 voice commands you can use, but you can see them all through the Voice Operating Settings page under System in Settings: Just choose Commands for Voice Operation. Alternatively, use the voice command “all commands” to see the list.

For the PlayStation 5, you can use the PlayStation Camera (PS5 edition) as a mic, or any connected headset with a mic. As the bundled DualSense controllers also have a mic on them, you can just talk into that as well. Just make sure the microphone is turned on, which you can do by pressing the small button between the joysticks, right under the PS button—it lights up orange when enabled.

The “Hey PlayStation” command will get your console listening, and then you’ve got lots of options. For a start you can say “open…” followed by the name of any app or game you’ve got installed—it’s a quick and convenient way of launching something, especially if it’s got a short name that’s simple to say. You can also use “find…” followed by a game or app title if you’re looking for something in the PlayStation Store.

You’ll also be able to control media playback on any app playing movies or music through your console: For example, commands such as “pause”, “resume” and “fast forward” will do exactly what you’d expect. If you want to make a gameplay video, “capture that” will record the last few minutes of action. You can be more specific by adding a time period to the command (just say “capture the last five minutes”), but if you don’t, the PS5 will use the default duration of 30 seconds instead.

As with the PS4, there’s no official list on the web of all the voice commands supported by the PS5 at the time of writing, but a quick search will reveal plenty of unofficial ones. You can also choose Voice Command (Preview) and then Learn More from Settings on the console itself to see a list of some of the supported commands.

The post PlayStation voice commands will change how you use your console appeared first on Popular Science.

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We all deal with a daily deluge of email, which means we jump at anything that can improve the efficiency of our inboxes. In that spirit, consider creating at least one email alias, and you should find that your organization and, in some cases, privacy, improve immediately.

Aliases are useful features found in popular services such as Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, and Apple Mail that serve as alternative addresses for when you don’t want to give out your main one. They still direct messages to your original inbox, so you essentially get a new address without having to go through the hassle of setting up a new account with its own login credentials.

What is an email alias?

In general, email aliases act as “fronts” to your main email address, although the exact details vary from service to service. Anything sent to these variations will arrive at the same inbox as messages meant for your main address, while keeping your original moniker hidden from view. That said, the real application here is not anonymity, but easy filtering.

For example, if you sign up for a lot of email newsletters, consider doing so with an alias. That way, you can quickly filter the incoming messages sent to that alias—these are probably low-priority, so you can have your provider automatically apply specific labels, mark them as read, or delete them immediately. Alternatively, a filter might prioritize messages sent to the alias you give out to friends and family, or those sent to the alias you use for work emails. This approach gives you a lot of flexibility for managing your inbox.

Bear in mind that recipients can usually look at one of your aliases and use it to figure out your main email address. So in situations where anonymity is critical, you might need to start fresh with a new address. Still, if hiding your identity doesn’t matter as much, aliases are much easier to configure than whole new accounts.

How to create a Gmail alias

You don’t need to jump through any hoops to set up a Gmail alias. Just add some periods and plus symbols to the addresses you give out. When you tack on a plus sign followed by a word, the Google service will ignore the added text, and it overlooks periods altogether. For example, let’s say your email is “johnsmith@gmail.com.” Messages addressed to “john.smith@gmail.com,” “j.o.h.nsmith@gmail.com,” “johnsmith+hello@gmail.com,” and “johnsmith+message@gmail.com” will all show up in your usual Gmail account.

Although the end result is the same, this gives you a quick and effective way of filtering messages. Going back to the John Smith example, you might always do your online shopping through the “john.smith@gmail.com” alias. When these messages arrive, Gmail might automatically label them “shopping” or “receipts.” You could sign up for email newsletters with the moniker “johnsmith+news@gmail.com,” and a filter might mark them read and send them straight into the Updates tab.

[Related: 4 tips to bring your Gmail inbox to zero]

How to create an email alias in Outlook

Outlook aliases are similar to the ones you can build in Gmail. You can also create completely new “@outlook.com” addresses within your primary account, which gives you more options if you want to use aliases to maintain anonymity.

With Microsoft’s free webmail service, you can still make up variations on your full address using plus symbols, but periods won’t work the way they do in Gmail. For example, you can use aliases such as “johnsmith+news@outlook.com” and “johnsmith+work@outlook.com,” but you can’t rely on “john.smith.” Again, you don’t have to specifically create these aliases—just hand them out, and they’ll work automatically.

To set up a filter for your tweaked email addresses, click the cog icon in the top right, hit View all Outlook settings, make sure you’re in the Mail tab, select Rules, and choose Add new rule. Name your rule whatever you want, go to the dropdown menu under Add a condition, and pick To from the list of options. Another text box will appear to the right—enter your email alias there. Finally, use the Add an action dropdown menu to decide on an action to take. For instance, you might tell Outlook to immediately delete alias-addressed messages, move or copy them to certain folders, mark them as read, label them as spam, categorize them, forward them to another email address, and so on. Click Add another action to process the incoming message in multiple ways, or Add an exception to exclude certain messages from the filter. When you’re happy with the actions an alias-addressed email will receive, click Save.

[Related: How to secure your Microsoft account]

Unlike with Gmail, you won’t be able to send messages from these variations on your original email address. However, Outlook does let you add a completely new @outlook.com address inside your primary account. If your requested address is available, you’ll get to manage both “johnsmith@outlook.com” and “johnsmithalias@outlook.com” from the same account—messages addressed to both will arrive at the same inbox, and you can send messages from both as well. So if you want to use aliases to achieve anonymity, Microsoft’s email service has an edge over Gmail in this department.

To add this kind of alias, you’ll need to visit a specific web page within your Microsoft account (account.live.com/AddAssocId/). Look under the Create a new email address and add it as an alias heading and enter your new address there. You can choose pretty much any alias you want, as long as you pick addresses that nobody else has claimed first. Once you’ve established an email alias or two (or more), they will work in the desktop version of Outlook, as well as the Mail application that comes with Windows. To create new ones though, you’ll need to follow these steps in your web browser, not the desktop app.

You can filter incoming messages sent to these aliases the same way you filter those sent to DIY aliases made with plus signs. To actually send emails from your added addresses, just click From when you’re composing a message and select whichever moniker you prefer.

How to create an iCloud email alias for Apple Mail

The Apple Mail alias system works very much like the Outlook one. Without changing any settings, you can toss pluses into your address, and messages sent to “johnsmith+work@icloud.com” will still end up in the “johnsmith@icloud.com” inbox. However, you can’t send emails from these aliases. To get that ability, you can create up to three completely new @icloud.com email addresses that funnel messages into your original inbox.

Let’s start with those plus-sign aliases. To filter messages sent to those addresses, head to iCloud Mail’s web portal, click the cog icon, and choose Preferences. Select Rules, then Add rule. Enter your alias in the top field, change the label to is address to via the dropdown menu, and decide what you want to do with the message: You can send it to a folder, forward it, mark it as read, and more.

Those DIY aliases are easy to set up, but you can’t send messages from them. For that, you can create a brand-new alias—a different email address managed from your original account—and send messages from it. First, click the cog icon, followed by Preferences. From the Accounts tab, choose Add an alias, and enter your chosen address. If it’s available, it’s yours. Finally, you can tell Mail to apply a label to any messages that arrive at this address.

The post Use email aliases to organize your inbox—and stay private appeared first on Popular Science.

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The sheer number of streaming services available today means more content to watch, more places to watch it, and a growing number of tools and add-ons that can improve your viewing experience beyond what’s built into the likes of Netflix, Disney Plus, and Apple TV Plus.

From working out how long a binge-watching session is going to take, to randomly choosing what to watch, these out-of-the-box features can augment your favorite streaming apps in a variety of useful ways.

[Related: 9 ways to get the most out of Prime Video]

Can I Binge?

Before you sit down to start streaming a new show, it’s useful to know how long it will take you to cruise from start to finish—you might be after something you can wrap up in a week, or an epic tale that takes months to watch in full. Can I Binge? is perfect for this: Type in a show and how much time you can commit to it, and it will tell you how many episodes you’ll have to watch each day, week, or month, so you can pace your bingeing accordingly. For example, if you want to get through the entirety of Twin Peaks in a month, you’ll need to settle in for two episodes a day.

Teleparty

You can’t always be in the same physical space as other people when you want to watch something on a streaming app together, and that’s where Teleparty comes in. Formerly known as Netflix Party, this browser extension for Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and Opera can set up virtual watch parties in minutes and sync content across services including Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, and HBO Max. It also includes a chat box so you can discuss what’s happening with your friends or family members. The core features are free, but throw the developers $5 a month and you’ll unlock the ability to use emojis in the chat box and participate in real-time voice chat for an even more intimate feel.

[Related: Hack Netflix with these add-ons and tricks]

Reelgood

Reelgood acts as a command center for all the streaming services that you’re signed up to. Covering platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and HBO Max, it lets you keep track of what’s available on each service—including what’s just arrived and what’s about to leave. You can use Reelgood to discover new movies and shows to watch, and to keep track of everything you’ve seen to date as well. We particularly like the Reelgood Roulette feature, which picks a movie or show for you to watch based on filters such as genre and viewer rating—perfect for those times when you’re looking for something new.

Netflix Codes

The post Hidden Netflix codes and 5 other streaming tools to make TV simpler, smarter, and more fun appeared first on Popular Science.

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You can go the traditional way of controlling your Xbox by using a gamepad or a mouse and keyboard. But you can also use your voice—just speak out the correct commands to easily open up menus and launch apps.

Voice control is managed through either Amazon’s Alexa (available for Android and iOS) or the Google Assistant (available for Android and iOS), so you’ll need to pick one and get the appropriate app installed on your phone.

From the front page of the Xbox interface, pick Settings, go to Devices & connections, and then Digital assistants. Check the box marked Enable digital assistants and you’ll be ready to turn your attention to the Alexa or Google Home apps. Keep in mind that if you regularly use both platforms, there’s no need for you to pick only one, as you can use them in tandem if you want to.

[Related: Xbox Series X vs. PS5: How to pick between the two biggest new game consoles]

If you’re using Alexa, open the app and choose More and Skills & Games. Search for the Xbox skill and when you find it pick Enable to use. Amazon’s assistant will ask you to log into your Microsoft account to give it permission to interact with your console.

If you’re using the Google Assistant through the Google Home app, tap the + (plus) button in the top left corner, then choose Set up device and Works with Google. Search for and select the Xbox option, then link your Microsoft account.

Bear in mind that you won’t be directing your voice commands to your Xbox: You’ll be speaking to Alexa or the Google Assistant, and they will control the console based on your instructions. You can use your phone for this or, if you have one, you can also use another connected device like a smart speaker, as long as it’s connected to the same Amazon or Google account as the app on your phone.

There’s a nice bonus if you use the Google Assistant: Open the Google Home app, pick Xbox from the front page, and you’ll get an Xbox remote control on screen. You can use it to navigate around menus, adjust the volume, and turn the console on and off.

The simplest commands you can use are “turn Xbox on” or “turn Xbox off”. The only caveat is that for the former to work, your console needs to be in Sleep rather than Shutdown mode—you can set this up by going to General and Power options in Settings.

You can save yourself some time by using voice commands to launch games and apps as well. Just say “open [app or game] on Xbox” to have it come up on screen. Games with longer titles can be a bit of a mouthful, but Alexa and the Google Assistant are usually pretty good at understanding what you mean.

[Related: The best Xbox One controllers of 2023]

Another area where voice control can be really useful is in taking screenshots and capturing videos of gameplay. Just say “tell Xbox to take a screenshot” or “tell Xbox to record that” to launch the capturing features. You can also start and stop a live stream using your voice by saying “tell Xbox to start broadcasting” or “tell Xbox to stop broadcasting”.

When you’re not gaming, you can also use Alexa and the Google Assistant to control media playback. Say “pause Xbox” or “play Xbox” while watching movies or videos on streaming apps such as Netflix or YouTube. You can also control the volume with the commands “volume up on Xbox” or “volume down on Xbox”.

It’s also possible to see which of your friends are online, send messages, and set your online status. The only problem here is that the supported commands aren’t all the same on Alexa and the Google Assistant. For a full list of everything you can do on an Xbox with both digital assistants, check out Microsoft’s official command list.

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The new Apple Music Classical is an extension of Apple’s existing music platform and offers more than 5 million pieces of music. If you’re a fan of Beethoven, Mozart, or any other composers, take a few minutes to learn how the app works.

Navigating Apple Music Classical

Fire up the Apple Music Classical app for iOS and it’s clear why a separate app was necessary: classical music compositions are generally longer and feature multiple movements, and that requires a different approach to search and organization.

Tap the Browse icon to see what we mean: You can navigate the catalog by composer, time period, genre, conductor, orchestra, soloist, and even the type of instrument featured most prominently. Follow any of these links to see new releases and popular picks, and in some cases curated Editor’s Choices.

With a track playing, pull up the “now playing” card from the bottom of the screen, then tap the small info button (or “i”) for further details. From this screen you’re able to navigate to pieces from the same composer, conductor, or orchestra, or from the same overall work. Apple Music Classical will also show you related works (linked by similar composers or orchestras, for example).

Also on the now playing screen, you’ll see a Dolby Atmos label if a piece is available in Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos—the surround sound technology that’s designed to create a more immersive experience. Enabling this depends on your device, but on iPhones and iPads you can go to Music, Audio, and Dolby Atmos inside the Settings app to turn it on or off.

Open the Search tab in the Apple Music Classical app and your options are wide open. You can search based on any of the criteria we’ve already mentioned, or even look for the nickname of a particular piece—try searching for “emperor” to get to Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5 if you want to test it out. You can look for the name of a recording, its composer, or someone involved in its production.

As in the main Apple Music app, you can listen to tracks without adding them to your library so you can easily get back to them later on. If you do want to add something to your library, tap the plus icon that appears on search results and individual listing pages. You can also create playlists by tapping the three dots next to pieces or on listing pages and choosing Add to a Playlist.

Using both apps together

Apple Music can be confusing at the best of times—not least as it boldly tries to mix locally stored tracks with a cloud streaming service—and there are a few extra complications that Apple Music Classical brings along with it. Most of these involve your saved music library and the different places you can access it from.

[Related: Why and how to set up a second Apple Music library]

Tap Library in the Apple Music Classical app and you’ll only see classical music. However, tap Library in the original Apple Music app and you’ll see everything from your regular music library and your classical music library—this applies to everywhere Apple Music is available, including on Android, the web, and macOS.

One of the reasons you would want to access a classical music playlist through the main Apple Music app is that there’s no shuffle feature in the Apple Music Classical app: These compositions don’t really lend themselves to being shuffled anyway, but if you want to shuffle the tracks in a playlist, you’ll need to switch to Apple Music.

The same is true for downloading pieces for offline listening. At the time of writing at least, you can’t do this in the Apple Music Classical app, so again you’ll need to go to the Library tab of the Apple Music app to save classical works to your iPhone or iPad. To do so, open the playlist or album, then tap the download button (the downward arrow in the top right corner) to save the tracks.

You don’t get the same library navigation options in the Apple Music app as you do in the Apple Music Classical app, so you won’t be able to drill down into your saved pieces based on composer, conductor, or orchestra. As your music collection gets bigger, you’ll probably want to stick to the Apple Music Classical app for listening to classical music most of the time.

As in Apple Music, you can choose to add classical works to playlists in Apple Music Classical without adding them to your library (handy if you want to check out some new recordings without cluttering up your library). On an iPhone or an iPad, you can set this up by opening Settings and choosing Music and Add Playlist Songs (the same toggle switch controls the behavior across both apps).

The post Right on cue, Apple Music Classical is here to liven up your music library appeared first on Popular Science.

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Maybe you’re used to turning your computer on every day with the power button and off every evening with a few clicks—or perhaps you just leave it running around the clock. Instead, save yourself some time by making your computer turn on and shut down on a schedule.

Not only will you save money on energy bills, but you’ll also have your PC or Mac booted up and waiting for you in the morning when you reach the office (or home office). You can also leave your computer working on a task (like a hefty download or a long video encoding process) knowing that it will switch off when it’s done. Or maybe you just want to fall asleep to some streaming video, without leaving your laptop or desktop running all night—there are lots of ways to use this superpower.

How to automatically turn on a Windows PC

Powering up a PC on a schedule requires a bit of digging around in the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) that launches before Windows does. On computers sold in the last few years, the BIOS has been replaced by the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), but they do a very similar job.

To get to the BIOS or UEFI, you’ll need to press a specific key while your computer is booting up. Which one varies from device to device, but it’s usually F2, F8, Delete, or Esc. The key you’ll need should be displayed on screen during the startup process, but if you’re really stuck, try looking for documentation for your PC’s make and model on the web.

[Related: Small, game-changing utilities for Windows and macOS]

Different manufacturers configure their BIOS or UEFI differently, so we can’t give you exact instructions for how to find the scheduling feature, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to track down—look for some kind of advanced settings or power management menu after you press the proper key. If you can’t find anything, your PC might not have this feature at all, but you should check the web to make sure.

The Dell desktop we used as a test machine for this guide was running Windows 10, and we pressed F2 to enter the BIOS screen. There, we found an Auto Power On option under the Power menu. This gave us the choice to turn the computer on at a certain time every day or on one particular day, but as we’ve said, your PC may be slightly different.

Alternative ways to enter the Windows BIOS/UEFI

On a Windows 11 Lenovo laptop, we were able to access the BIOS/UEFI mode while the computer was still on by navigating through its settings. You can also use the Windows Terminal app. Just know that these two methods are somewhat more complicated and you’ll want to make sure you save all your work before you proceed. Although you’ll be starting with a device that’s already on, you’ll still have to reboot it in the end.

From the Settings app, choose System on the left, then scroll down to click on Recovery. Under the Recovery options heading, find Advanced startup and hit Restart now. Here, Windows will warn you to save your work, but if you’ve already done so you can click Restart now from the dialog box. On the next screen, go to Troubleshoot, Advanced Options, UEFI Firmware Settings, and hit Restart to enter BIOS/UEFI.

If you’d rather use the Terminal app, search for it via the Start menu. Open it and enter this command (without the period at the end): shutdown /r /o /f /t 00. Hit Enter to restart your computer. From the “Choose an Option” screen that appears, click Troubleshoot, Advanced Options, UEFI Firmware Settings, and then Restart.

How to schedule a shutdown on Windows 10 or 11

Shutting down a Windows computer on a schedule is much more straightforward. Use the taskbar search box or Start menu to look for and launch the Task Scheduler program, then click Create Basic Task and give it any name you like.

Work through the task creation process, using the Next buttons to move through the steps. Along the way, you can pick the days and times you want the scheduled shutdown to occur, and have it repeat automatically or leave it as a one-off action. When you get to the Action screen, choose Start a program and enter shutdown.exe as the program to launch. You’ll see a summary, and can click Finish to confirm the scheduling.

To see all the tasks you’ve set up, go back to the main Task Schedule interface and click Task Scheduler Library. You can edit and delete them from here using the options on the right side of the panel. Note that you can configure multiple tasks for multiple times on multiple days if you need to (so your PC automatically shuts down at a different time on a Sunday than a Monday, for example).

How to automatically turn a Mac on and off

If you’re using a version of macOS that predates Ventura, you’ve got it easy and can skip to the following subsection. But if you’ve upgraded to Apple’s latest operating system, scheduling automatic shutdowns and boots is quite a bit more complicated than it used to be.

You used to be able to tell your Mac to shut down and start up on a schedule by clicking through obvious options in the macOS system settings, but all of those are gone in Ventura. Now, you’ll have to use the Terminal app. To find it, search for it on your computer using Spotlight search or your preferred app-locating method.

Inside this app, you’ll be using a “pmset” command, and there are a few things you’ll need to know before you build one:

• Dates are formatted as MM/DD/YY, so April 10, 2021 would be 04/10/21.
• Time is formatted as HH:MM:SS, so 9 a.m. would be 09:00:00.
• Days of the week are generally formatted using their first letter (Monday is “M”, but there are two exceptions: Thursday is “R” and Sunday is “U”.

Whether you’d like to schedule your Mac to shut down, start up, or reboot, the commands follow a similar pattern. You may also need to enter your password before your computer will complete the task. Use these examples as guides to create your own schedule:

• Automatic startup: To get your device to turn on every weekday at, say, 8:59 a.m. (the minute before you sit down at your desk), enter sudo pmset repeat poweron MTWRF 08:59:00 into the Terminal. If you’re someone who puts your computer to sleep instead, you can replace “poweron” with “wake”.
• Automatic shutdown: If you want your Mac to shut down every Friday at 5 p.m., enter sudo pmset repeat shutdown F 17:00:00 into the Terminal. This may just stop you from working into the weekend.
• Schedule restart: For an automatic macOS restart every other day at 3 a.m., enter sudo pmset repeat restart MWFU 03:00:00 into the Terminal. Maybe now you won’t keep putting off those updates.

How to schedule a Mac shutdown, startup, or reboot in older versions of macOS

Unlike with macOS Ventura, you don’t need to bother with the Terminal app to schedule various tasks in older versions of the OS. Instead, open the Apple menu, then choose System Preferences. To get to the scheduling screen, click Energy Saver and Change Settings (on a desktop Mac), or Battery and Schedule (on a MacBook).

Check the Start up or wake box, and you can set a startup time for every day, only weekdays, just the weekend, or on a single day of your choosing—just use the drop-down lists to set your preference.

[Related: 23 useful Mac settings hiding in plain sight]

The next check box has three options: Sleep, Restart, or Shut Down. Once you’ve made your selection, you’ll get the same choices you do with starting up the Mac. Click Apply to confirm your choices.

A few notes to remember: You can’t have multiple timings for different days, just one startup and one shutdown time for each day you scheduled automation. On a MacBook, startup scheduling will only work if the laptop is plugged in and charging.

The post Set your computer to turn on and off on a schedule appeared first on Popular Science.

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Amazon Luna finally came out of beta to be widely available in March 2022, immediately impressing users and reviewers. Like competitors such as Xbox Cloud Gaming and Nvidia GeForce Now, the platform streams games straight to your TV, laptop, or phone—think Netflix, but for video games.

To get access to Amazon Luna, you either need to be a Prime subscriber—which gets you a limited number of free games per month—or sign up for one of the specific Luna subscription plans starting at $10 a month. 

If your TV has a game mode, Amazon recommends turning it on for the best experience. The location of this setting depends on the make and model of your TV, so you’ll have to dig in a bit. If you still can’t find it, we recommend searching for the user manual online.

You’ll also need to connect a compatible controller to enjoy Luna. You can use the official gadget (you can get it bundled up with a Fire TV stick) or one from your Xbox or PlayStation. But those are not your only options.

If you’re seeing buffering and lag, you can scale down the resolution of Luna games to 720p, which uses a more modest 5 Mbps. To do this, on the home page of Luna on the web or in the desktop app, click Settings then Audio & video quality to make the change.

3. You can use your phone as a controller on Amazon Luna

Whichever device you’re using with Amazon’s gaming service, you can control it using the Luna Controller app (available for Android and iOS). Your handheld device will provide you with a full set of virtual controls to work with, including a d-pad and trigger buttons.

As long as you are signed into the same Amazon account on your phone and on whatever device you’re streaming Luna to, the devices should connect automatically, even if you’re not on the same Wi-Fi network.

You can also use the Luna Controller app to have guests join in your gameplay using their own phones—this is extremely useful if you’re playing a multiplayer title. The only drawback is that they’ll need to sign into the app using your Amazon credentials.

The platform will give you a code that you can share with other people. All players need to do is head over to the Luna Couch website and enter that code.

To access this feature, type “chrome://settings/?search=hardware” into the Chrome address bar and hit Enter. The Use hardware acceleration when available toggle switch should be set to on.

For some unspecified reason, having location services enabled on Fire tablets and macOS can cause performance issues on Luna. You can turn this setting off on Fire tablets by picking Location-based Services from the Settings menu. On macOS, go to System Settings and then choose Privacy & Security and Location Services.

You’ll be able to manage your stream from a separate window that will pop up. It includes controls to allow you to share (or not) your audio and webcam feeds, and stop or pause the broadcast at any time.

However, there are reasons to splash $70 on Amazon’s own gamepad: It’s designed specifically for cloud gaming and has its own direct Wi-Fi connection, so you can easily switch between Luna games on multiple devices.

Its Bluetooth and USB support give the Luna controller versatility, and as you’d expect, it also comes with Amazon Alexa on board. If you’re going to get serious about your Luna gaming, then it’s worth picking up.

The post 7 things to know about Amazon’s new gaming service, Luna appeared first on Popular Science.

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Pictures and videos are likely to be some of your most precious digital possessions. They represent snapshots of loved ones, special places, memorable events, incredible trips, and even some moments that will have you laughing for years to come. We take a lot of these with our smartphone cameras, so we might as well make sure they’re safe and looked after.

Moving your photos and other files to cloud storage is a great idea if you want to protect them, and there are numerous apps and services that will take good care of your images. Even better, if you decide to, say, transfer your Amazon photos to iCloud, it is possible to switch platforms without too much of a hassle.

Get comfortable and open your laptop—phone apps are simply less capable than full-blown computers when it comes to downloading and uploading entire archives of images and videos. And no matter how much you trust your cloud storage provider, always back up your photos and other data somewhere else.

For an even easier way to move your photos to the cloud, download the Google Drive desktop app (free for Windows and macOS). It lets you specify certain folders on your computer that will automatically sync with Google Photos, which means that everything you add to those folders will have a copy in the cloud you can access from anywhere. Just open the app, click the cog icon in the top right and go to Preferences. Click Add folder and choose the location you want synced to the cloud. The app will ask where you want the copies of your pics to live—check the box next to Back up to Google Photos and finish by hitting Done.   

Finally, if you’re moving images from Facebook, iCloud, Pixieset, or Pic-Time, Google Photos has a built-in feature to make the switch seamless. Click Upload and from the emerging menu pick Copy from other services. Choose the platform you want to source your stuff from and Google will redirect you to that platform’s login page, where you’ll have to type in your credentials. What you see on the next page will depend on the service you’re dealing with. For example, if you’re moving content from iCloud, Apple’s platform will show you its “Manage your data” menu, where you’ll have a list of options, not all of them related to what you want to do. To move your photos and videos, select Request to transfer a copy of your data, choose Google Photos as the destination for your files on the next page, and hit Continue. 

Before you seal the deal, make sure you have enough space in your Google Photos account for the incoming files—if you don’t, nothing will transfer and you’ll have to repeat the process all over again. Follow the prompts to give iCloud access to your Google account and hit Confirm transfer to finish. 

This process is not immediate and you may have to wait up to a week for it to complete, depending on the number and heft of the files you’re moving. In the case of iCloud, you’ll receive a confirmation email, but you may have to check your account regularly if you’re using other services. 

If you need to export absolutely everything out of your Google Photos account, head to the Google Takeout service on the web. This tool will help you move all your Google data to another cloud platform, but you can also specify what you want to take with you and what to leave behind. By default, all the boxes on the list of services will be selected, so you’ll want to first make sure Google Photos is the only one—you can do this quickly by hitting Deselect all and checking the box next to Google Photos. Then choose Next step and select Send download link via email from the drop-down menu. If you don’t want to deal with one huge file, you can also choose the frequency of downloads, the maximum heft of each bundle of files, and whether you want to compress your images in a ZIP or TGZ file. Once you’re done customizing, click Create export and wait for the link to that archive (including your selected photos and videos) to appear in your Gmail inbox.

Apple iCloud Photo Library

Contrary to what you might think, Apple does play nice with other cloud services—but only some of them. With the rest, you’ll have to export your photos and videos before you can upload them to other platforms.

Facebook

Technically, Facebook is a social media platform, but if you tweak your privacy settings, you can use it to manage your photos and videos as well.

Amazon Photos

If you have an Amazon Prime account, you have unlimited space to store your photos. Yes, you read that right.

Flickr

Downloading individual photos from Flickr is easy enough. Just hit the download button, select your quality, and you’re done.

The post How to move your photos to and from any cloud service appeared first on Popular Science.

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You’ve probably had to ask  “Can you hear me?” more than once while on a phone call. One of the most vexing frustrations of the modern age is that, despite the rapidly evolving technological landscape, we still have a hard time clearly getting words across during a voice conversation.

Fortunately, your phone is here to help. While your device can’t magically improve your connection, it can help you get more out of it and deploy a few tricks to ensure that you and the person on the other end of the line can hear each other properly.

This feature doesn’t just work in calls made through the Phone app: You can access and apply it in the same way if you’re making voice calls in FaceTime, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or any other calling app on your device.

[Related: How to make voice calls from any device]

When it comes to properly hearing the person you’re speaking to, there’s a volume slider on the Control Center as well, which you can also access simply by using the buttons on the side of your iPhone. Switching to speakerphone might help: On the call screen, choose Audio then Speaker. If you’ve got other Apple devices like iPads or Macs on the same Wi-Fi network and logged into the same Apple ID, you’ll be able to switch to these too via the Audio option on the call screen—a bigger device might have better mics and speakers than your iPhone.

You can also boost call volume on Android via the buttons on the side of your phone, and switching to speakerphone is as easy as on iOS: just tap Speaker on the call screen. If you’re using a Samsung Galaxy phone, you can also head to Settings, then Sounds and vibration, and Sound quality and effects to access two useful features: Dolby Atmos and Adapt sound. The former optimizes voice audio, while the latter tunes the sounds from the phone to your specific hearing abilities.

Pick the Adapt sound option, then tap Adapt sound for and make sure to select either Media and calls or Only calls to make sure you get the benefit on phone calls. Further down you can pick from one of the presets to better match your phone to your hearing—Under 30 years old, 30 to 60 years old, or Over 60 years old—or you can tap Test my hearing to create a customized profile through a series of tests your device runs through connected headphones.

Android has a similar feature to iOS’s Voice Isolation to reduce background noise on calls, but at the time of writing it’s only available with the latest Android 13 update and on the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro. To access it, head to the Sound & vibration section of Settings, and then tap Clear calling.

Audio quality doesn’t only depend on the settings or hardware on your phone. If cell reception in your area isn’t great, your call won’t sound crisp and could even drop out. If that’s the case, you can make calls over Wi-Fi instead, as long as your carrier supports it (most do). To turn it on on iOS go to Settings, select Phone, and then Wi-Fi Calling.  On Android, go to Settings and tap Network and Internet, Calls and SMS, and then the name of your carrier. Just make sure you’re already logged into whatever Wi-Fi network you want to use before placing the call.

Some apps have audio optimization on by default. For calls made through Zoom, for example, echo cancellation and background noise suppression are the standard: If you think the feature is interfering too much or the app is applying it too aggressively, you can disable it by going to Settings, Meetings, and turning on Use Original Sound.

Messaging apps often have data-saving features that can reduce the bandwidth audio calls use. If you’re in an area with a strong signal, you’ll want to turn off this option to maximize audio fidelity. However, if your phone has a spotty connection, turning these features on can help. They work exactly like lowering the quality of a YouTube video while on a bad Wi-Fi signal—you don’t get an HD image, but at least the footage doesn’t stop to buffer every 3 seconds.  When you turn on data-saving features, your phone will compress and optimize the audio to get it through entirely, albeit in a lower quality. This will allow you to hear more of the conversation instead of having the audio constantly break up, improving the overall quality of the call.

In WhatsApp, for example, tap the three dots (top right) and go to Settings (Android), or tap the Settings button at the bottom right of the screen (iOS). From there, choose Storage and data to find the Use less data for calls toggle switch. Meanwhile, on Signal, tap the three dots (top right) and then go to Settings, Data and storage, and Use less data for calls.

[Related: How to fix spotty cell service in your home]

Signal also has a call relay feature that protects your privacy by rerouting audio calls through Signal’s servers. This makes it harder for someone to tell where you’re calling from, but it also reduces call quality. It’s not on by default, but if you’ve turned it on for any reason, you can disable it by going to the Settings menu and tapping Privacy, and then Advanced.

Microsoft Teams has a noise suppression option that cuts out unwanted background noise from voice calls. Inside the mobile app, tap your avatar (top left), then choose Settings and Calling. You’ll see under the Noise suppression heading there are several options to pick from, depending on how aggressive you want the suppression to be.

As always, keeping your apps and your mobile operating systems up to date is important in terms of making sure you have the latest bug patches and audio optimizations, which often run in the background without you even noticing. To check for Android updates go to System and System update from Settings. Apple users can check for iOS updates by going to General and Software Update from Settings.

The post Tweak these settings for better-sounding phone calls appeared first on Popular Science.

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Often, email is a case of can’t live with it, can’t live without it. These messages are an essential part of modern-day communications, but sorting through them takes up an inordinate amount of time—time that could be spent doing something more productive.

Fortunately, if Gmail is your email service of choice, it has a number of features that will help you blast through your incoming messages. On top of that, there are plenty of add-ons that will assist you in getting down to an empty inbox—the coveted “Inbox Zero”—as efficiently as possible.

The key is offloading as much work as possible to automatic filters and other tools that will do some organizing for you, leaving you to deal with what’s really important. When you’re done, you should have a nice, clean Gmail inbox.

1. Get Gmail to prioritize your messages

If you haven’t set up tabs in Gmail, now’s the time to do it. Click the cog icon (top right in the web interface), choose See all settings, select Inbox from the labels at the top of the page, and find the Categories heading. For each box you check next to the options here, Gmail will add a new tab with that title to your inbox and sort all relevant emails into it. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the options screen to lock in your edits. As time goes on, Google will also try to guess which messages are important, and you can help it by clicking the importance marker (a right-pointing arrow) to the left of any truly significant conversation.

What’s more, you can drag emails between tabs to teach Google how to sort your messages in the future based on type or sender. How can this help you reach Inbox Zero in Gmail? Well, you can ignore the less important categories (like Social and Updates) until the end of the day, then spend a few minutes managing and processing these messages in bulk.

[Related: How Google Tasks can help you organize your Gmail inbox]

2. Set up your own filters

Filters are one of the key ways you can automatically organize your incoming messages. Click the filters icon (three sliders) on the right end of the Gmail search box to set up some search terms. Then click Create filter to set it up. You can also create new filters from individual messages by clicking the three vertical dots in an email’s top right corner and choosing Filter messages like this.

If you’ve got multiple email addresses coming into your Gmail account, for example, you can mark messages sent to other addresses as less important. Another option is to immediately archive certain emails and mark them as read—they won’t appear in your inbox, so less work for you, but they will still be available via search if you need them.

How does this bring you and Gmail closer to Inbox Zero? By starring and archiving messages, you can clean out your inbox without losing track of important messages. You can view each star category with a simple search, such as “has:yellow-star” or “has:green-check“. To see the search term associated with each star, hover the mouse over the relevant icon on the Settings screen.

[Related: 29 Gmail keyboard shortcuts to help you power through your inbox]

4. Unsubscribe from everything you can

Gmail has a built-in unsubscribe feature to quickly get yourself off newsletter and notification lists you don’t want to be on. You should see an Unsubscribe link in the header of any compatible message. Essentially, Gmail is scanning messages for “unsubscribe” links and making them easier for you to find right up at the top.

The post 4 tips to help you achieve ‘Inbox Zero’ in Gmail appeared first on Popular Science.

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The latest Android Auto update is one of the biggest yet for Google’s in-car interface, giving users more control than ever over how the software looks on their car dashboard.

If you’re completely new to the Android Auto and Apple CarPlay experience, these are the interfaces that pop up in compatible vehicles when you connect your Android or iPhone device. They’re essentially extensions of your phone, giving you access to select apps including maps, music, and messaging.

The internal Google codename for this latest Android Auto update is Coolwalk, though you won’t see it mentioned anywhere officially. It brings with it a split-screen design, streamlined widgets, and a new app launcher.

The interface will also give whatever media playback app you’re using a second screen typically showing recommendations for what to play next. You can access it by swiping left or right on the corresponding icon. As you drive, if you don’t use any of the map destination shortcuts, the media app widget will expand to fill that space.

Depending on your car’s dashboard screen you’ll also see shortcuts to your most-used apps on the side of the widgets or underneath them. Tap any of these shortcuts to make the selected app fill the screen. You’ll also recognize the colorful microphone icon, which you can tap to give voice commands to the Google Assistant.

In the lower-left corner of the Android Auto screen, you should also see a monochrome icon that will either show nine dots or two squares and a rectangle, depending on what’s on screen. Tap this to cycle between the widget view, the full-screen view, and the app launcher, which shows all of the apps available inside Android Auto.

But maybe you don’t want to see all the Android Auto-supporting apps you have on your phone crowding your car’s dashboard screen. If there are some you know will never use while on the move, you might want to declutter the app launcher by hiding them from view. You’ll need to set this up on your phone, so don’t do this while driving. From Settings, pick Connected devices, Connection preferences, Android Auto, and Customize launcher. From there, uncheck the box next to any app you don’t want to see in the dashboard interface. You’ll notice some tools, like Google Maps, Phone, and Settings, are not optional, so you won’t be able to hide them from the app launcher.

Go back to the Android Auto menu to switch between night and day (dark and light) modes for maps and customize the interface in various other ways. From this menu, you’ll also be able to enable Taskbar widgets, which will display a new bar along the bottom of the interface so your media playback controls are available at all times.

Customize your Android Auto settings

The renewed Android Auto also offers a selection of customizations you can access from the interface itself. Again, toggling them will require some concentration and focus, so make sure not to play around with them while your vehicle is moving. Get to the app launcher by tapping the nine-dot icon (you may have to access it by touching the widget icon first), and pick Settings.

The first selection of settings covers notifications, so you can choose whether or not you get alerts whenever there’s an incoming message on your phone. There’s also the option to show the first line of conversations and to play a chime on these alerts. Turn off the Suggestion cards setting and you won’t see smart prompts like the option to call a contact you communicate with a lot or navigate to a specific home or work address.

[Related: Your Android phone may soon be able to start your car]

Further down you can set whether Android Auto starts up automatically when it connects and whether the audio you were playing most recently starts up automatically. In our experience, not all media apps obey the rules set down by this setting, so you might still find audio playing (or not playing) no matter what this option is set to.

As well as accessing settings you can get on the phone (such as day and night mode for maps), there’s also a Wallpaper option. Tap this and you’ll be able to access a selection of different patterns and photos. Wallpaper doesn’t show up on the widgets view, but you will see it when you’re accessing menus and the app launcher.

The post Take advantage of all of Android Auto’s new customizations appeared first on Popular Science.

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Now that we’re living in a mostly digital world, it’s a lot easier than it used to be to accidentally delete that precious family photo or important bank statement. One slip of the finger and whole folders of files can disappear into the digital ether.

If you’re hit by such a mishap, don’t panic. If you keep calm and act fast, you might be able to get your files back. In fact, you can explore a few different methods in your quest to restore your data. From tools built into your operating system to third-party apps you can download for free, here’s how to rescue those files.

Keep a backup

Nowadays, you really have no excuse for not backing up everything that’s on your computer and phone. The available backup and cloud storage apps are so comprehensive and easy to use that you barely have to do anything to update the spare copies of your data. What’s more, backups are your best protection against any accidental file deletion, not to mention other potential problems like ransomware.

If you don’t already have a backup system in place, it won’t be much help if you’ve arrived here in a panic. But you can at least make sure you set something up to protect your future files. On your computer, look at the options built into Windows (OneDrive) and macOS (iCloud), as well as independent apps such as Dropbox and Google Drive.

All of these services sync your files between computers and the cloud. So when a file disappears from one place, you can restore it from another. For example, in the Dropbox web interface, just click the Deleted files link and then restore whichever file or folder you want back. For even more protection against data loss, consider a service like Crashplan or Backblaze.

Check the Recycle Bin or Trash

Many people will have already thought of this one. But if you’re not aware, both Windows and Apple computers have folders that keep all deleted files for a short while—just in case you want them back.

A Windows machine calls this folder the Recycle Bin. Its icon might already be on your desktop, but if not, simply open File Explorer, click the drop-down menu at the start of the file path field, and choose Recycle Bin. You can click on individual items and restore them one by one, or select Restore all items to undelete them en masse. Files will return to their original location, though you can copy and paste them somewhere else if you prefer.

[Related: The recycle bin settings you didn’t know you needed]

If you’re on a macOS computer, deleted files will end up in the Trash, and this folder appears on the right-hand end of the dock by default. Again, you can drag files out of the Trash folder, or right-click on a file and choose Put Back from the options menu to restore them to their former location.

Both of these options are time-sensitive. On a Mac, files stick around in the Trash for 30 days. But on a Windows machine, they only stay in the Recycle Bin until the folder exceeds a certain size—so the sooner you act, the better.

Use a third-party app

A host of third-party applications promise to at least try to bring back your files from the digital grave—though none are guaranteed to work. These programs scour a specified disk to look for file fragments that haven’t been overwritten yet. Then, they (hopefully) piece those bits back together to make a coherent file again.

Options include EaseUS Data Recovery (for both Windows and macOS), Active@ Undelete (Windows only), Disk Drill (both Windows and macOS), and Recuva (Windows only). You can download and run all of these programs for free, though in some cases, you will have to pay to actually get your data back. Don’t part with any cash until a scan has actually run, and the program has confirmed that it can recover your important files.

All of these choices and most other reputable options are simple to use. And they don’t require much configuration either: Simply choose the drive you’d like to search through and let the app get to work. It’s a good idea to run more than one undelete program on your system, as different apps might be able to detect different sets of files.

How to recover files from phones or tablets

Phones and tablets handle file storage differently than computers, making it harder to recover deleted information. On the other hand, a lot of mobile apps have an undelete feature built right in, so you might well be able to restore that erased file with just a few taps.

The post The easiest ways to recover deleted files appeared first on Popular Science.

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If you want to instantly improve your digital life, take a sticky note, write “delete browsing history” on it, and place it near your computer so you never forget it. Web browsers keep track of your past activity because it comes in handy if you want to find a funny article again, return to your favorite photo of the kids, or if you want to restore a tab you accidentally closed.

At the same time, some people find this constant tracking a little on the creepy side. Not to mention that, if you share a computer with others, you might not want them to find out about a gift you secretly bought them, your interest in 1970s folk-rock, or your more private Google searches.

Fortunately, all of today’s web browsers make it easy to erase your web browsing history and wipe away your tracks online.

Browsers also track your download history, which is just a list of files you’ve downloaded. Don’t confuse this history with the actual files themselves, which live somewhere on your computer. It’s simply a list of references to them, which can help when you can’t find a specific document or if you want to download it again.

Next up are cookies: little bits of code websites use to recognize who you are. They come in a variety of forms. For example, if you go to a weather website and it instantly shows you the cities you previously searched forecasts for, that’s a cookie in action. If you return to a shopping site and you find the items you left in the shopping basket are still there, that’s cookies at work again. These files won’t harm your computer, but some users don’t like this kind of tracking and prefer to delete them on a regular basis.

While you’re looking at cookies, you might see that your browser distinguishes standard cookies from those from third parties. Third-party cookies track behavior across multiple sites and they’re usually in the ads rather than in the actual page code of a website. You can blame this type of cookie for personalized ads: If you’ve spent some time searching multiple sites for tents and you start seeing tent ads everywhere, third-party cookies are responsible.

Finally, browsers keep a “cache,” which contains local copies of graphics and other elements these programs use to load pages more quickly. If you head back to a site you’ve just visited, for example, the browser can draw site images from the cache rather than pulling them from the web again. This reduces the amount of data your browser has to download each time and speeds up the whole page-loading process. While it can provide snoops with a few hints about your browsing history, you need a certain amount of technical know-how to understand it properly.

When you decide to clear browsing data, most browsers will list all these types of data separately. You can decide to clear everything out, which lets you start all over again—as if you had a new browser on a new computer—or you might decide to keep certain types of files, like the cookies and cache, to make your browsing life more convenient.

However, this mode won’t erase everything you do. If you log on to a site like Facebook or Amazon in incognito mode, those pages will recognize you and record your browsing activity. In other words, your browser won’t remember what you’ve been up to, but any sites you log into will. This means you might see evidence of your private browsing in ads that appear later. And if you download files, private mode won’t wipe them either, though it will clear out your download history.

Those using Mozilla Firefox you should click the three horizontal lines to the right of the address bar to open the Firefox menu, then pick Settings. Click Privacy & Security and then scroll down to the Cookies and Site Data section. Here, you can clear your data completely or manage your data to have more control over what you delete. You can also check the box that clears your browsing data every time you close Firefox if you don’t want to have to worry about doing it manually.

If you’re using Apple Safari on macOS, you can blitz your browsing history by opening the Safari menu and clicking Clear History. Choose the time period you want to erase from the drop-down menu, then click Clear History to confirm the action. When you clear your history in Safari, you won’t get the option to delete different types of data, so it will wipe your cookies and cached files along with your history.

Windows 11 users who are using Microsoft Edge browser a whirl can also clear their browsing history. Click the three dots to the right of the address bar, then pick Settings from the menu that appears. In the Privacy, search and services tab, find Clear browsing data and click Choose what to clear. Next, make your choices from the list, which includes browsing history and cached data, then click Clear now.

Finally, in the popular third-party browser Opera, click the quick settings icon to the right of the address bar—it looks like a stack of three dials. On the emerging menu, scroll down to Privacy & Security, and next to Browsing data click on Clear. This will open the browser’s full settings page, and you’ll be able to choose your types of data and specify your time period. When you’re done, click Clear data. 

Across the street, Mac users using Safari, can go to Settings, Privacy, and Manage website data. Apple’s browser will provide one long list of all the information it’s gathered. Choose to delete select items or click Remove all to get a clean start.

On Firefox, go to Settings, Privacy & security, and under Cookies and site data, choose Clear data. Continue by picking Cookies and Site Data, plus anything else you want to delete, and hit Clear.

Meanwhile, on Microsoft Edge, go to Settings, then Privacy, search, and services, and under Clear browsing data, choose What to clear. In the next window, choose Cookies and other site data, then click on Clear now.

The post How to clear your web history in any browser appeared first on Popular Science.

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There are more differences among the best email apps than you might think—and just because you’ve used one for years doesn’t mean you should stick to the status quo. You may be able to do better.

Moving from Google to iCloud—from Gmail to Apple Mail, in other words—is one common switch. It’s particularly appealing if you’ve just purchased some new Apple hardware, as Apple’s iCloud services and Mail app work so well on iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

You can make the jump for free, without losing any of your messages. To get started, you’ll need to create an Apple ID, which includes an iCloud email address. You can do this from any Apple device or on the web.

How to add Gmail to Apple Mail and iCloud

First, you’ll need to get your Apple Mail apps scanning your Gmail account. To do this, Gmail needs to be set up to work with other programs. From Gmail on the web, click the cog icon (top right), then See all settings, and Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Make sure Enable IMAP is selected and leave the default settings in place underneath.

Next, you’ll need to get your Google emails inside Apple Mail. In the macOS Mail app, you can do this by choosing Mail and Add Account: Click Google, Continue, and follow the instructions to sign into your Gmail account. On an iPhone or iPad, open Settings, pick Mail, Accounts, Add Account, and Google, and sign in when prompted. This is a device-specific setting, so adding these emails to your Mac’s Mail app won’t add them to the iPhone version, and vice versa.

It will take some time for everything in your Gmail to show up in Apple Mail, especially if you’ve built up a large volume of messages, so be patient. However, the most recent emails should show up fairly quickly. Note that you can’t import these messages into Mail in iCloud on the web at the time of writing.

Copy messages to Apple Mail and iCloud

The steps you take next depend on what you want to do with your Gmail account. One option is to simply leave it in place alongside your iCloud account in Apple Mail. You can manage both mailboxes from the same app, sending and receiving messages using the two separate email addresses.

This process deletes the emails from your Gmail account and moves them to your Mail account—the messages effectively transfer from Google’s servers to Apple’s servers. Unfortunately there’s no quick, automatic way for transferring everything, so you’ll have to be quite picky about which messages you want to bring with you or be prepared to spend a lot of time on the process.

Note that Apple Mail will show the labels you’ve created in Gmail when you import these messages, and will also show the messages that have been tagged as important and starred—see the left-hand navigation pane in Mail on macOS, and the main Mailboxes list in Mail for iOS and iPadOS. This can help you find priority emails that you’d like to transfer over more quickly.

Tidy up your Gmail account

You’ve got a few options when it comes to what you do with your Gmail account. You might want to set up an auto-reply message to tell people you’ve switched, mentioning your new iCloud address. To do this in Gmail on the web, click the cog icon (top right), then See all settings, General, and enable the Out of Office AutoReply on option before composing your message underneath.

The post The easiest way to move your emails from Google to iCloud appeared first on Popular Science.

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Everyone wants the data on their phone to stay private, and Android and iOS come with a variety of security features that will prevent other people from sneaking a peek.

If you suspect someone is snooping on you, there are some simple steps you can follow to secure your information, as well as a few warning signs to look out for to make sure it doesn’t happen in the future.

You can customize lock screen security on Android by going to Settings, Security & privacy, Device lock, and then Screen lock. Meanwhile, from the Settings app on iOS, choose either Touch ID & Passcode or Face ID & Password depending on which biometric security method is built into your iPhone.

[Related: 7 secure messaging apps you should be using]

You should also make sure the screen on your device locks as soon as possible after you’ve stopped using it—otherwise, someone could surreptitiously swipe it while you’re not looking before the locking mechanism kicks in. On Android, open Settings, then go to Display and Screen timeout to set how quickly the screen should turn off—your options go from 15 seconds to 30 minutes. Over in iOS settings, pick Display & Brightness, then Auto-Lock. The shorter the time period you set here, the more secure your data is.

If you need to lend your phone to someone, but still worry about their unfettered access to your handset, know that you can lock people inside one particular app or prevent them from installing anything while you’re not looking. We’ve gone deeper into these features and other similar security options, for both Android and iOS.

Android and iOS don’t allow apps to hide, so even if someone has gained access to your handset to install an app that’s keeping tabs on you, you’ll be able to see it. On Android, go to Settings, Apps, and then See all apps. If you see something you don’t recognize, tap the item on the list and choose Uninstall. Within iOS, just check the main apps list in Settings. As the device’s owner, you can uninstall anything you don’t recognize or trust—you won’t break your phone by removing apps, so don’t hesitate if there’s something you’re unsure about.

If you want to do a bit more detective work, you can check the permissions of any suspicious apps. These will show up when you tap through on the apps list from the screens just mentioned—on Android, tap on an app and go to Permissions; on iOS tap an app name from the main Settings page and check what it’s allowed to access. In terms of notifications, system settings, device monitoring, and other special permissions, Android gives apps slightly more leeway than iOS—you can check up on these by going to Settings and choosing Apps and Special app access.

If you think your phone might have been compromised in some way, make sure you back up all of your data and perform a full reset. This should remove shady apps, block unauthorized access, and put you back in control. From Android’s settings page, choose System, Reset options, and Erase all data (factory reset). On iOS, open Settings, then pick General, Transfer or Reset iPhone, and Reset.

Android handles location sharing with other people through Google Maps. Tap your avatar (top right), then Location sharing to check who can see your location and to stop them, if necessary. You can check your shared photo albums in Google Photos by tapping the Sharing tab at the bottom of the screen, but you’ll need to open up Google Calendar on the web to edit shared calendars. Hover over the name of a calendar on the left sidebar and click the three dots that appear, and on the emerging menu, select Settings and sharing to see who can view your schedule.

Google Families works in a similar way to Apple Family Sharing, with certain notes and calendars marked as accessible by everyone, though no one will be able to see any personal files unless the owner specifically shares them. If you want to leave a family group, open the Play Store app on Android, and tap your avatar (top left). Once you’re there, go to Settings, Family, and Manage family members. Then, in the top right, tap the three dots and Leave family group.

The usual password rules apply: Don’t repeat credentials across multiple accounts and make sure they’re easy for you to remember while remaining impossible for anyone else to guess. This includes even those closest to you, so avoid names, birthdays, and pet names.

Two-step authentication (2FA) is available on most digital accounts, so switch it on wherever you can. For Apple accounts, visit this page and click Account Security; for Google accounts, click your avatar on any of the company’s services, go to Manage account, Security, and click on 2-Step Verification.

It’s a good idea to regularly check how many devices are logging in using your Google or Apple account credentials as well. On Android, open Settings and pick Google, Manage your Google account, and Security. Scroll down and under Your devices you’ll see a list of all the gadgets linked to your Google account. You can remove any of them by tapping on their name, followed by Sign out. On an iPhone, open Settings and tap your name at the top to see devices linked to your account—you can tap on one and then choose Remove from Account to revoke its access to your Apple account.

The post Your checklist for maximum smartphone security appeared first on Popular Science.

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Notifications from apps and operating systems aren’t all you have to deal with these days. Websites are also keen to keep you informed and up to date with their news, adding to the deluge of pop-ups constantly hitting your devices.

Manage the settings for Google Chrome notifications

Any site that wants to send you alerts will prompt you to deny or accept the request right away. But if you change your mind later, you can tweak these settings by clicking the padlock icon to the left of the address bar. Choose Site settings, find Notifications, and select Allow or Block from the adjacent dropdown menu next to decide if the website you’re on can send you alerts via your browser.

Another way to get to these settings is to click the three vertical dots in the top right corner of the Chrome interface, then go to Settings, Privacy and security, Site settings, and Notifications. Here you’ll see a list of all the sites where you’ve previously blocked or allowed notifications, and you can make changes by clicking the three vertical dots next to any site name.

[Related: The best internet browsers you’ve never heard of]

The same methods work in Chrome for Android, too. Tap the padlock icon in the address bar, then go to Permissions to set the notification rules for the open site. You can also tap the three dots in the top right, and go to Settings, Site settings, and Notifications to see a list of all the options you’ve configured so far.

To review all your notification settings, open the Firefox menu via the three horizontal lines in the top right corner, then choose Settings, followed by Privacy & Security. Scroll down to find the Permissions heading, look for Notifications, and click the Settings bubble to its right. You can use the emerging window to change the listed websites’ permissions and even stop the speech bubble from appearing altogether by checking the box next to Block new requests asking to allow notifications.

In Firefox for Android, you’ll see a prompt to allow or block notifications from individual sites. You can also manage alerts for the site you’re on by tapping the three dots in the corner of the Firefox interface, and then going to Settings, Site permissions, and Notifications.

Allow or deny Safari notifications

Websites that want to send you notifications in Apple’s built-in browser will ask for permission to do so when you open them up, or shortly after. If you want to stop these permission prompts from popping up at all, go to Safari, Settings, and Websites. There, choose Notifications from the left-hand sidebar and uncheck the box labeled Allow websites to ask for permission to send notifications.

You can use the same dialog box to change your mind about a website that you’ve blocked or allowed permissions from in the past. Just click the small drop-down box next to the website in question and choose Allow or Deny from the list.

Change the Microsoft Edge notification settings

When a site wants to send you notifications in Microsoft Edge, you’ll first see a small pop-up box that lets you choose whether to allow or block them. You can also change this site-specific setting at any point by clicking the site information icon (a padlock or “i” symbol) on the far left of the address bar, choosing Permissions for this site, finding the Notifications option, and adjusting the options in the dropdown menu to its right.

In Edge for Android, you can tap the padlock or info icon on the left of the address bar, then choose Site settings to modify the permissions of a site, including notifications. You can also tap the three dots at the bottom of the interface and go to Settings, Site permissions, and Notifications to see a list of permissions for all sites.

To see the settings for every site you’ve visited, click the cog icon on the Opera browser’s left-hand sidebar. From there, choose Privacy & security, Site settings, and Notifications. You can adjust the configuration for sites already listed, and add new entries with the Add button.

When it comes to Opera for Android, again you can tap the padlock icon in the address bar, and go to Site settings to control notification permissions. To see the settings for all sites, tap the Opera icon in the lower right corner of the interface and go to Settings, Site settings, and Notifications.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on March 25, 2021.

The post How to block or allow browser notifications from any website appeared first on Popular Science.

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If you’re of an age to remember the launch of Windows 95 almost 30 years ago, you may also remember Microsoft PowerToys—add-ons the company built for its operating system and aimed at power users (hence the name). Guess what: they’re still around, and arguably cooler than ever.

After their launch, these utilities gained a cult following among a nerdier, geekier subset of Windows users—those who wanted to tinker and explore beyond the Windows wall. The original PowerToys let you, for example, play CDs from the taskbar, edit right-click context menus, and access the command prompt from anywhere.

The popularity of the add-ons continued with the arrival of Windows XP and a second version of PowerToys in 2001, which included a new set of utilities for creating custom keyboard layouts, and adding different time zones to the system clock. They also expanded the core Windows functionality with extras that were actually useful, such as live previews for switching applications with Alt+Tab, and the option to open a command prompt window from any folder.

With all that history behind them, it’s not surprising that the return of PowerToys caused such excitement—the past few years have been like the revival of a much-loved movie franchise from decades past.

The latest breed of PowerToys for Windows 10 and 11 will also be rolling out as open source projects, so users can pick them up and customize them. Just visit the official download site in your browser, open the ZIP file, and follow the instructions on the screen to add the utilities. Once installed, you’ll see a little PowerToys icon down in the Windows notification area in the lower right-hand corner.

Load up PowerToys with a click on the notification area icon (or via the Start menu). You’ll see all kinds of goodies. Here are a few highlights.

PowerToys Run

Mac users are familiar with Spotlight, a fast search tool that can quickly open any application or file on an Apple computer. PowerToys Run brings this basic idea to Windows. Use the keyboard shortcut Alt+Space to open a search bar (you can customize the keyboard shortcut if you want), then type the name of any application or file on your computer to quickly open it.

It gets better. There’s a built in calculator: type any equation to see the answer and hit Enter to copy it to the clipboard. You can type “shutdown” and hit Enter to turn off your computer; other commands include “restart”, “lock”, “sleep”, and “empty recycle bin”. There’s support for searching your OneNote notebooks, if you use that program, and even for launching Shell commands. You can also launch any website—type the URL and hit Enter—and run web searches—type out your search terms and, you guessed it: hit Enter.

PowerToys Run can really change the way you use your computer: you can do almost anything without touching your mouse. Everything is faster with this tool—don’t overlook it.

Shortcut Guide

Speaking of not touching your mouse, take a look at Shortcut Guide. This is admittedly not a utility that will change your life, but it’s still one you may find useful if you want to learn how to get around Windows faster and boost your productivity along the way.

For example, Win+A opens up the Action Center, while Win+M minimizes all the currently open Windows so you can get a look at the desktop. Over on the left you’ll notice shortcuts for snapping windows to either side of the screen, which can be useful for getting two windows up alongside each other.

If you spend a lot of time in Windows, you may be able to memorize these keyboard shortcuts fairly quickly, but it’s always good to have a cheat sheet so you can see how many options are available. Using the Windows key plus a number key is a useful way to jump  between different applications, for instance.

From the main PowerToys window, you can click Shortcut Guide to configure how long (in milliseconds) you’ll need to hold down the Windows key to get the shortcut overlay up, as well as the opacity of the background of the Shortcut Guide window overlay.

FancyZones

FancyZones was one of the earliest PowerToys available when the tools returned in 2019, and it lets you split your open windows into zones to keep your windows better organized. You can create themed zones for websites, office apps, browsing your computer, and so on.

Hit the Win+~ (tilde key) keyboard shortcut to launch FancyZones, or get the PowerToys Settings panel up on screen, switch to the FancyZones tab, and click Edit zones to customize the layout. A new dialog will appear, letting you choose how many zones you want and how they’re positioned. If you think you can do better than the templates provided, open the Custom tab on the right to make your own, or edit existing layouts by clicking Edit selected layout.

Back in the main tab, you can tweak a few details of the add-on: You can use the Shift key to drag windows into different zones (recommended), override the Windows Snap hotkeys (for fixing windows to the side of the screen), have zones flash when the layout changes (also recommended), and more.

With open windows on screen, hold down Shift, then drag a window into a zone to organize it. If you don’t enable the Shift key shortcut in settings, as described above, the zones will be enabled every time you move a window on screen.

Use the Focus layout, for example, to put together a tiered stack of windows, one on top of the other, all neatly arranged; or use the Priority Grid layout as a way to keep important programs front and center, with other apps down the sides of the screen. Once you get used to how it works, FancyZones can add a real boost to your productivity.

Paste as plain text

Anyone who writes on the internet for a living knows how annoying it is to remove formatting from text you copied. At least, it used to be—Paste as Plain Text seems to have saved the day.

When you copy text from a website—this one, for example—and paste it into another application, all the formatting choices tend to come with. This means that if you’re adding a quote from a website to a Word document, you don’t just paste the quote—you paste the quote in the exact font of the website you copied it from. This gets messy fast, and it happens everywhere: in emails, spreadsheets, and even design projects.

Paste as Plain Text lets you paste any text without the formatting, meaning it will match the formatting of whatever you’re working on. The default keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+Alt+Windows+V, is a little unwieldy, though you can change the keyboard shortcut in the PowerToys launcher, if you prefer. Anything you paste with this shortcut will be completely free of formatting. It’s simple but life-changing: no more spending time adjusting the font and size of text after you drop it into its new home.

More Microsoft PowerToys you should check out

Microsoft brought back PowerToys in 2019 with just a couple of tools. The collection has grown massively since then, and also works on Windows 11, meaning there are a bunch more PowerToys that are extremely useful and worth a quick mention.

• Text Extractor allows you to copy text from any image. Use a keyboard shortcut to select text inside an image, and it’ll be copied to your clipboard.
• Image Resizer can resize any picture in just a couple of clicks—right-click any image file, or multiple image files, in Windows Explorer, then click Resize pictures. You can customize the sizes, if you want, as well as what file format images are resized to.
• Awake can temporarily keep your computer from falling asleep. Just click the handy coffee cup icon in your tray and you can choose whether to keep your computer awake indefinitely or for a set amount of time.
• Screen Ruler allows you to quickly measure how many pixels a given area of the screen takes up.
• Quick Accent makes it easier for Windows users to add accents to any letter, which is great for typing in languages like French and Spanish. Just hold the key you want to add an accent to until you see a popup, then use the arrow keys to choose which accent you want to add to the character.

The post Paste text without ugly formatting, and other ways Microsoft’s PowerToys can help you appeared first on Popular Science.

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The Shortcuts app has long been one of Apple’s lesser-used offerings, and that’s a shame, because it can supercharge your iPhone’s capabilities. With a single tap, you could turn on your smart lights, raise the temperature on your smart thermostat, and start an energetic playlist—and that’s just one example.

Like the macOS version, the mobile Shortcuts app is essentially an automation tool that can combine many tasks into one action that you launch with a tap or a word to Siri. Introduced in 2018 alongside iOS 12, the app is built into the iPhone’s operating system, so you’ll find it on one of your home screens or in the App Library. From the app’s Shortcuts tab, you can start manually building your own shortcut, or install a prebuilt one from the integrated shortcut gallery or the web.

1. Get yourself in the mood to focus

A good way to start using Shortcuts is to install one made by someone else—you can always open the tool up to see how it works and adapt it to your needs if necessary. Go to the Gallery tab in the app, look for a shortcut called Reading Mode, and install it by tapping the plus icon on the shortcut’s thumbnail.

Reading Mode is a great example of how shortcuts combine multiple actions: It turns on Do Not Disturb, switches to dark mode, opens your reading app of choice and even starts the Apple Music playlist you specify. Tap the three dots on the shortcut entry once it’s installed to customize any of these actions.

2. Edit images in batches

As you get more confident with Shortcuts, you can start building your own—it helps to think about tasks and groups of actions you do repeatedly on your phone. To create a shortcut from the Shortcuts tab, tap the plus icon in the top right corner and hit Add Action to get started.

That’s a basic example, but there are lots of other image editing actions available, including the ability to remove backgrounds and rotate images, so you can combine them as you need.

3. Use ChatGPT with Siri

It’s difficult to avoid ChatGPT at the moment, and the AI chatbot can be used in tandem with Siri on your iPhone. First, register a free account with ChatGPT developer OpenAI, then grab an API key from its site. API (application programming interface) keys are simply identification codes that let one program (Shortcuts) work with another (ChatGPT).

With the key in hand, open the SiriGPT shortcut in your iPhone’s web browser and tap Get Shortcut. In the Shortcuts app, select Set Up Shortcut, paste or type in your API key, and choose Add Shortcut.

If you’d like to launch this shortcut using your voice, you’ll probably want to rename it to something simpler—do so by pressing and holding it, then picking Rename. Launch the shortcut with a tap or a voice command, and ChatGPT will be at your disposal.

4. Let someone know when you’ll be home

One of the benefits of running shortcuts on your iPhone rather than your Mac is that it provides a much more precise fix on your location. That can come in handy for all kinds of automations.

Head to the Gallery tab and look for the Home ETA shortcut. When you install and run it, it’ll work out how long it should take you to drive home, and then text your estimated time of arrival to the contact of your choice.

[Related: 14 tricks for getting more out of the underrated Apple Maps app]

Open the shortcut from the Shortcuts tab by tapping on the three dots on its entry, and you’ll be able to easily change the address the shortcut defaults to, as well as the contact(s) who receive the message about your ETA.

5. Look back on your day

If you tap Gallery in the Shortcuts app and use the search function, you should find a shortcut called Reflect on the Day that does exactly what its name suggests. You’ll be asked to answer questions about how your day has been, and you can also set goals for tomorrow.

Your responses will be stored in the Notes app, so you can track your progress over time, and the shortcut will also set reminders for the next day so you don’t forget your goals. To edit the questions the shortcut asks you at the end of each day, open it up by tapping the three dots on its thumbnail.

The post 5 ways you can use the iPhone Shortcuts app to improve your life appeared first on Popular Science.

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For the privacy-savvy email user, Proton Mail has a lot going for it: An intuitive, customizable interface, end-to-end encryption, and easy integration with desktop clients.

Whether you’re thinking about giving Proton Mail a try or you want to get more out of your account, these tips and tricks should give you a good idea of the capabilities of the email service.

You can use Proton Mail for free or pay for premium plans, starting at $5 a month. Ponying up will give you access to other Proton products, including Proton Drive and Proton Calendar. In the case of the email service, a subscription extends the limits of the free plan (which only includes 1GB storage, three labels, and three folders), while giving you extra features such as support for custom domains, and auto-reply messages.

You might have one label set up for work, for example, and one for anything to do with the kids. They’re color coded for ease of reference and you can quickly get to them from the navigation bars inside the Proton Mail app.

To apply a label, select an email and then click or tap the label button on the toolbar at the top (web) or the bottom (mobile) of the screen—the button looks like a small luggage tag.

At the time of writing, you’ve got a choice of seven different color schemes to pick from, and a selection of layouts for the various different views in Proton Mail. Select Compact, for example, to reduce the spacing between messages.

Because the message is protected by a password, the recipient won’t be able to open it up like a regular email. They’ll get a link that will direct them to a secure page on the web and the message will appear only after they enter the password. Your contact will also be able to reply to the email directly, even without a Proton Mail account.

Proton Mail will block these trackers by default. On the web, click the shield icon just above a message to the right to see if the platform has detected and blocked any trackers. If you want to turn the feature off for whatever reason, on the web click the cog icon (top right), then choose Go to settings and Email privacy.

Click Add filter and follow the steps. First, you’ll need to give it a name, set the conditions, and specify the actions that the filter will trigger. For example, you could automatically archive newsletters or automatically star emails from your partner. Finally, you’ll get to test the filter out in preview form before you save it. 

Proton Mail also offers another option, Add sieve filter, which lets you code filters in more detail. You need to do this in the Sieve programming language, which is not difficult to master if you want to try it out.

When you’re composing messages on the web, click the little arrow next to the Send button to find the schedule feature, which iPhone users will find by tapping the clock icon. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, the feature hasn’t yet made its way into the Android app.

If you’re on a free Proton plan, you can choose from the suggested dates and times, but if you’re on a premium plan, you can specify the exact moment you want your messages to leave your inbox. Proton Mail keeps outgoing emails in the Scheduled folder until it’s time to send them, and if you need to, you can edit them from there.

The post Proton Mail tips that might convince you to ditch Gmail appeared first on Popular Science.

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Most of us always have our smartphones close at hand, which makes them perfect for taking notes. You can just unlock it, type out what you need from the store, your friend’s new address, the name of a film you want to check out, or anything else, and go on with your day.

There are plenty of excellent apps that can help you take better notes too, going beyond the basics to offer extras like advanced note organization options, the ability to share notes with others, and note reminders.

1. GoodNotes

GoodNotes certainly doesn’t miss a chance for self-promotion with its choice of name, but it really is good—very good, in fact. You can tell a lot of care has gone into the interface, as there are a host of different tools to use across images, drawings, and text. You can even use it to annotate PDFs.

We like the number of features you get inside the app, such as the choice of paper styles, the ability to search through handwritten text, and support for scanned images and audio notes. There’s easy syncing to various cloud services too.

You can work on up to three notebooks for free inside GoodNotes, while a one-off fee of $9 removes this restriction. A beta version of the app for Android has just been launched, but isn’t yet widely available.

GoodNotes is free or $9 for iOS and Android.

2. Agenda

Agenda links your note-taking to your calendar, so you can easily attach dates and reminders to notes where needed. You may be surprised how often this comes in handy, whether you’re planning something big, like a vacation, or handling a smaller task like jotting down the framework of an upcoming work meeting.

The app can work with handwritten scribbles, but it’s geared primarily to handle lots of text across multiple projects and notebooks. You can format text in a variety of ways, attach files to your notes, apply tags for easier organization, and even link between notes. It’s a heavy-duty piece of software.

[Related: Turn your handwritten documents into searchable digital notes]

3. Notion

The main appeal of Notion lies in its flexibility and versatility: It’s basically an open canvas for you to use as you like, whether that’s to detail guidelines for a coding project or prepare a list of household chores to complete before the weekend.

It’s slick, accessible, and a delight to use. You can add text, links, tags, and images to your notes, and simply drag elements around to reposition them. Everything is saved instantly, so there’s no danger of losing your work, and individual notes can reference others. Have a look around the web and you’ll see there are countless ways to use Notion, which is a testament to its quality.

Both free and paid plans are available with Notion. If you pay $5 a month for the premium subscription, you can share notes with more people, access a longer history log for your notes, and upload an unlimited number of files to your account.

Notion is free or $4 a month for Android and iOS.

4. Evernote

Evernote is the venerable old timer of the note-taking app scene, and has been dutifully recording people’s thoughts, plans, to-dos, and agendas since the year 2000. Today, it includes just about every feature you could need in an app like this.

Some of those features include support for text, images, files, audio, and drawings, advanced search and tagging options, the ability to format the information inside your notes in a wide variety of ways, and easy ways to scan in paper documents or link to pages on the web.

[Related: How to export your Evernote content to another app]

5. Squid

Squid has been built specifically for handwritten notes and doodles, so it’s perfect if you want to quickly jot something down. When that’s done, it’s really simple to organize your sketches and get your notes in order, in whichever way you need.

Tasks like copying and erasing are intuitive and straightforward, as is changing the color and line thickness of the on-screen pen. If you’ve got a phone with a stylus or are going to be syncing your notes with other devices that use a stylus, Squid is definitely worth considering—though you can easily use your finger to make notes as well.

You can use Squid for free, but you can also pay $1 a month for a premium package, which includes more tools (such as text boxes you can type into), extra backgrounds, and the ability to import PDFs.

Squid is free or $1 a month for Android.

6. Apple Notes

Don’t neglect the default apps that come with your phone—Apple Notes if you have an iPhone. Apple keeps adding new features to this app, and recently introduced the ability to lock certain notes behind a passcode with iOS 16.

The app makes every part of note taking straightforward, including formatting text, introducing images and checklists, keeping notes organized with tags and pins, importing drawings and scanned documents, and sharing notes with other people (handy for shopping lists and work projects, for example).

[Related: How to undo text in Apple’s Notes app]

7. Google Keep

Google’s note-taking app goes for the colorful virtual Post-it look. It’s simple enough to get started with, but as you dig deeper you’ll find there are plenty of advanced features as well.

For example, you can associate notes with specific dates and times and get reminders about them, and you can share notes with other people if you need to collaborate on something. The app also lets you use tags so you can quickly group different notes together in categories of your choice.

This being a Google product, the search feature is, of course, well done, and if you don’t want to type you can scribble notes or dictate them via voice recordings. It’s one of the best options if you need something simple, but not too simple.

Google Notes is free for Android and iOS.

The post Write these down: the best note-taking apps for your phone appeared first on Popular Science.

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Neither you nor your gadgets can escape the passage of time. A slow computer is generally just a laptop or desktop that’s showing its age. And just as annual checkups can help keep your body healthy, regular maintenance can prevent your device from slowing down too soon.

So the next time you notice your computer running slow, stop what you’re doing and give it a thorough exam. With smart tactics and a little luck, you should be able to bring back at least some of its youthful speed.

Regularly review your list of installed programs, and keep in mind that just because you’ve installed something, it doesn’t need to sit on your hard drive until the end of time. The only apps you should have are those you’re using frequently, so take note of what those are and get rid of the rest. You can always download and reinstall a program if you change your mind.

[Related: When to repair your computer and when to replace it]

On Windows, open Settings via the cog icon on the Start menu, then choose Apps. If you have Windows 11, click Installed apps, and if you have Windows 10, look for Apps & features. You can sort programs by size, name, or when they were installed, so you’ll be able to see tools you may have forgotten about. To remove an app from Windows 11, click the three dots to its right and choose Uninstall. On Windows 10, select the app from the list of apps and hit Uninstall. There are also ways to uninstall a bunch of apps at once if you need the efficiency. 

On macOS, open the Applications tab in Finder, locate the app you want to trash, and then drag it down to the Trash icon in the dock. If you downloaded the program from the Mac App Store, you can also remove it from the Launchpad window—press and hold the Option key until the icons start jiggling, then click the small x button on the top left corner of the application you want to remove. Some apps may leave residual files on your computer, so you may want to make sure you’re completely uninstalling them.

Keep an eye on free storage space

One guaranteed way to slow down your computer is to not give it enough virtual space to work with. Beyond removing apps you don’t use, you should always make sure there’s a good chunk of storage available on the hard drive—around 20 percent at least, if you can manage it.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to freeing up disk space on your computer. It’s just a question of monitoring what you have on your disk and deleting what you don’t need—from old documents to installation packages. You should also consider moving files you don’t access regularly to the cloud or an external hard drive. Just make sure you always have two copies of your most important files for backup purposes.

To see which apps are overstepping their mark on Windows, right-click on a blank part of the taskbar, choose Task Manager, and scan the Processes tab (it should open by default, but if not, click the icon on the left-hand sidebar that looks like three squares forming a 90-degree angle). On macOS, type Cmd+Space to open Spotlight and search for Activity Monitor. Anything eating up CPU or memory could be the reason why your computer is running so slow.

If there are apps that shouldn’t be on these lists, there are two things you can do. First, check inside the applications themselves to see if there’s a setting you can disable to prevent them from running automatically. If you can’t find any, stop them from starting up with your operating system. On Windows 11, switch to the Startup apps tab in Task Manager (its icon looks like a car’s speedometer), and on Windows 10, switch to the Start-up tab. For macOS go to System Settings, General, and Login Items.

Update your programs to avoid dealing with a slow computer

Keeping your apps up to date will fix bugs and security vulnerabilities, but most importantly it’ll prevent your laptop or desktop from slowing down. Most programs will handle this automatically, but it’s worth double-checking that you haven’t missed any updates.

You should also make sure that your programs aren’t collecting bloatware, including add-ons you may no longer need, older versions of a software still hanging around, and installation packages you haven’t deleted.

[Related: How to boost your WiFi speed]

This is especially important for your web browser. Every once in a while, check in on the extensions you’ve installed, and remove the ones you no longer use, as having too many of these can seriously slow down this type of program. On Chrome and Edge, the instructions are the same: click the puzzle piece icon at the top right corner of the window and go to Manage extensions. On Firefox it’s similar—click the puzzle piece icon to the right of the navigation bar and go to Extensions on the sidebar. On Safari, go to Settings and click the Extensions tab. 

Another way to prevent your computer from slowing down is to reset your device and return it to its factory-fresh state. This process is easy, but it’ll eat up some of your time—it wipes out all but the bare bones of your operating system, so you’ll need to back up all your files beforehand and reinstall all your programs afterward. But a full reset also clears out redundant data, reverts programs back to their original state, and removes all bloat and clutter from your machine. It may sound like an extreme alternative, but it’s often worth an hour or two of inconvenience just to get a clean slate.

On a Windows 11 computer, head to Settings, System and then Recovery. Once you’re there, click Reset this PC. On older versions of Windows, the path is slightly different, but Microsoft has full instructions you can refer to if you get lost along the way. The instructions to reset a Mac computer will differ depending on the processor inside the machine, but Apple has a complete guide to help you through this process.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on March 21, 2021.

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The Elgato Stream Deck is traditionally associated with livestreaming, but its usefulness goes way beyond. If you own one, there are numerous ways to incorporate it into your daily life, and if you don’t have one because you’re not a streamer, you just might want to reconsider.

The Stream Deck itself is a physical panel of hardware shortcut buttons that can be used to switch views, add sounds, drop in overlays, and manage a variety of other enhancements and options super quickly. This means you can use it and its siblings (the Stream Deck Mini, the Stream Deck XL, and the Stream Deck Plus) as a control panel for all kinds of computing tasks.

That means you can manage anything that’s playing with a single tap, should you need to quickly pause your music or pass by a track you really don’t want to hear. The Multimedia actions include system volume controls as well, making it even more useful.

2. Set custom timers

When you want to time a lunch break or a study session, you could use a phone app or simply type “timer” into Google. No matter what your standard method of timekeeping is, there’s a good chance it’s not as simple or convenient as the Stream Deck timer.

In the Stream Deck desktop program, find the Stream Deck heading, add Timer to your list of buttons, then specify how long you want it to run. Once the button has been set up, press it to see the minutes and seconds tick away on the Stream Deck’s LED panel, and you can choose a sound to play when time has run out.

Once it’s installed, you can quickly toggle between available audio devices or set a specific one with a button push. You’ll never again have audio blaring out of your speakers when it should have been sent to your headphones.

4. Run any kind of task

Essentially, you can assign any keyboard shortcut to a button on the Stream Deck, so your options are wide open for any program you use. One way to do this is via the Hotkey action under the System heading: just specify the keyboard shortcut you’d like it to launch.

5. Level up your video meetings

Many of us have had the experience of fumbling around for the right button to press to unmute a microphone or leave a meeting when on a video call, but the MuteDeck plug-in from the Stream Deck store assigns these key features and several more to buttons. You’ll never fumble on a video call again.

The plug-in is compatible with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Webex by Cisco. You can also use it to start sharing your screen and to switch between multiple cameras if you have more than one webcam connected—all just a button push away.

6. Open websites and programs

Sure, you can open websites and programs the conventional way, but the Stream Deck offers a Website action (for websites) and an Open action (for applications) under System that make the process very straightforward.

You can then go further and combine that plug-in with the Multi Action action (under Multi Action) that the Stream Deck offers out of the box. When you’re done, you’ll be able to sit down at your computer, press one key on the Stream Deck, and launch all your important applications in specific positions on the display.

The post 7 ways to use the Elgato Stream Deck beyond livestreaming appeared first on Popular Science.

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There are many reasons why users choose to do their messaging on WhatsApp: from encrypted messages, to support for audio and video calls, group chats with up to 1,023 other people, and extras like file and location sharing. 

But Meta’s platform also offers an easy-to-use web interface. You might be perfectly happy using WhatsApp on your phone only, but it’s well worth it to get set up in a desktop web browser as well—if only to prevent you from having to pick up your phone every time someone sends a funny sticker to the group chat.

To get started, visit the WhatsApp Web portal in your browser, which will give you a QR code. In the mobile app, tap the three dots (Android) or cog icon (iOS), then choose Linked Devices and Link a Device to scan the QR code and get connected.

If you prefer, there are also desktop apps available for Windows and macOS that you can install. The features and benefits of these programs match up with the web app, but the latter will give you the freedom to access your messages and chat logs no matter what computer you’re on.

Admittedly, you’re just swapping one screen for another when it comes to WhatsApp, but if your phone is staying in your pocket or your desk drawer (or even the next room) then you can keep an eye on important messages without getting distracted by everything else that might be happening on your mobile.

Add in the time saved unlocking your handset and opening the WhatsApp app, and we’re talking about a substantial productivity boost for those times when you need to focus on your computing, at home, or at work.

Having a mouse also helps, as it lets you easily switch between conversations and scroll back through chats more quickly. On WhatsApp Web, you’ll also be working on a larger screen, which means less scrolling to begin with, and a better overview of both individual chats and your conversation list.

There is a full list of WhatsApp keyboard shortcuts on the platform’s official site, but a few of our favorites include Esc to close a chat, Ctrl+Alt+N (Windows) or Cmd+Alt+N (macOS) to start a new chat, and Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E (Windows) or Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+E (macOS) to archive a chat.

You’ll also be able to use keyboard shortcuts to move around your conversation list. Hit Ctrl+Alt+Tab (Windows) or Cmd+Ctrl+Tab (macOS) to jump to the next chat, or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Tab (Windows) or Cmd+Ctrl+Shift+Tab (macOS) to go back to the previous one.  Meanwhile, you can open the search panel by tapping Alt+K (Windows) or Cmd+K (macOS).

To create a new sticker, click the paperclip icon down by the text entry box in a conversation, then choose Sticker. WhatsApp will ask you to pick out an image file from your disk, which you can then crop and rotate as needed. You can also drop emojis and text on top of the sticker to make it your own.

WhatsApp will sync your stickers between devices, so you can then use the ones you created on the web on your phone.

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Just like you need to dust regularly to keep your house clean, and service your car annually to keep it safe and running, you should do a digital spring cleaning so your computer stays speedy and responsive.

We’re not just talking about wiping down your keyboard and your screen but also clearing up the digital clutter accumulating inside your system, including the apps and files you no longer use. Here’s how to get started.

On Windows computers, you can uninstall programs individually or in bulk. The easiest way is by locating the Control Panel by using the search bar in the Start menu and then clicking Uninstall a program. You can sort apps by name, size, or install date to weed out the ones you don’t need, or filter by the hard drive they’re installed on. Then just click an app and select Uninstall to remove it. 

On macOS, open Launchpad, click and hold on any app, and then click the X on its icon when the programs start to vibrate. Some of them might require you to launch an uninstall utility. To do so, open Finder and search “uninstall” along with the app name. If it doesn’t have one, find the Applications folder in Finder and drag the app’s entry into the Trash. Apple’s operating system doesn’t have a built-in way to delete applications in bulk, but you can try a third party app. These tools will also eliminate any trace of the app on your system (including residual files), but they are powerless against the Mac apps that came with your computer, which you won’t be able to delete that easily. 

Doing your digital spring cleaning also means taking care of the apps you want to keep—make sure to download updates for them so they’re running their latest, most secure versions.

Unless you really know your way around Windows or macOS, it’s a good idea to get assistance from a third-party program for this task. CCleaner (for Windows and macOS) has long been one of the best free options in this department. If you can spare a little money, we also like CleanMyMac X ($35 for a one-year subscription) for macOS, and System Mechanic ($40 for a one-year subscription) for Windows.

If you’d prefer not to rely on these programs, you can probably do some simple cleanup yourself. Sit down and spend an hour or so deleting those photos you’re never really going to look back on or clearing out old documents and spreadsheets that are no longer relevant.

On Chrome, go to Settings and click Security and privacy, followed by Clear browsing data to erase cached files, browsing history, plug-in data, and more. This should make your browser a little lighter on its feet. On Firefox, the option is under Preferences, Security & privacy, and Clear browsing data. On Microsoft Edge, you’ll need to go to Settings, then to Privacy, search and services, and scroll down to Clear browsing data. Finally, in the Safari navigation bar, go to History and choose Clear History.

While you’re slashing and burning, check your downloads folder for files you’ve forgotten about and delete the ones you don’t need to free up more space.

Finally, removing unused browser extensions can have the same benefits as uninstalling unused applications. This will streamline your browser, lowering its demands on your computer’s resources and keeping you safer as well. Open up your browser’s extensions or plug-ins page and see if there are any add-ons you can do without.

Sort your system by using the designated user folders (like Documents) and you’ll notice the benefits the next time you need to open something quickly. In particular, you should try to avoid keeping masses of files and shortcuts on your desktop, as it gives your computer extra work. For the same reason, it’s a good idea to spend a few minutes clearing up the Start menu (Windows) or the Dock (Mac), to make sure only the shortcuts you really need are available.

A whole host of cloud services, including Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, and iCloud, can store your files on the web and allow you to delete local copies. This is a handy way to free up some hard disk space and lighten the load on your operating system at the same time. Just be sure you keep the online versions and don’t delete both the local and cloud-based copies of your files—follow the instructions each service has to do this.

Start by powering down and unplugging your computer. Then grab a can of compressed air to blast dirt off of the keyboard and ports. If you want to go all the way, you can read our full keyboard-cleaning guide. Next, take some time to clean the screen of your laptop or monitor. No matter their make, screens are delicate, so you should be mindful of the product and tool you use. When you’re done, use a dry microfiber cloth to wipe down the outside of your machine and any of its peripherals, such as the mouse and keyboard. Cotton swabs are another helpful tool in the computer cleaner’s arsenal, as they help you clear away built-up dirt from nooks and crannies.

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The Android versus iPhone debate continues to rumble on. But one thing is certain: Google’s phone software is more versatile and customizable than Apple’s offering. Dig into the settings and discover Android’s secret capabilities, including a host of clever features and useful tools. We’ve collected 9 of them here.

A quick note before we begin: Android has a wide variety of makes, models, and versions, which makes it difficult to find features that will be consistent across all devices. We only verified the following tips on stock Android 13—they should also work on related systems, but some of the menus and procedures may vary slightly.

1. Cast your Android screen

There’s also another way to set up mirroring. First, check to make sure you’ve installed the Google Home app for Android—you probably already used this program to set up your Chromecast. Open the app and choose your Chromecast and your device’s display should appear on the big screen. On your phone, tap Media and choose from Music, Video, Podcasts, or Radio and select a service to start streaming.

2. Run apps side-by-side

This feature has been around since Android 7.0 Nougat, but it’s one of the few users tend to forget about. This side-by-side or top-and-bottom app view (depending on the orientation of your screen) comes in handy when you want to display photos, optimize your social networking, or multitask.

3. Make text and images more visible

If you’re struggling to see what’s on the screen—or, alternatively, if you want to cram as much content as possible onto the display and don’t mind doing a bit of squinting along the way—you can zoom in or out on text and objects. Not all apps will respond to these adjustments, but most of them will.

To change size settings, open Settings and go to the Display heading. From there, tap the Display size and text and drag the slider under Font size to make text larger or smaller as needed. Android 13 introduced a new slider on this menu—Display size. You can play around with it to make icons and the Google search bar chunkier. 

4. Change volume settings independently

Your device plays several different types of audio—including ringtones, notifications, alarms, phone calls, and media. If you’ve ever gone to the Settings menu and opened Sound & vibration, you’ll have seen that you can use individual sliders to adjust these audio types individually.

However, Android gives you a quick-and-easy shortcut. Tap the physical volume buttons on the side of your device to make whatever’s currently playing quieter or louder (if no media is playing, this action will adjust your ringtone volume). When you do, a small box will pop up on the screen, showing which volume setting is changing and how. At the bottom of that box, you should see three dots. Tap them, and the box will expand to show multiple volume sliders at once. This can save you a trip to Settings.

5. Lock phone borrowers inside one app

This is one of those Android hacks that you need to know if you find yourself constantly lending your phone to a friend or young family member. Because if you do, you probably know that sudden anxiety that comes with the possibility of them going through your private information or posting to your social media accounts. 

App pinning lets you be generous without giving up your privacy and will lock one app to the screen until someone unlocks your device. Essentially, the user won’t be able to access any other parts of your phone without your credentials.

Screen pinning is easy to set up. Open Settings, go to the Security & privacy menu, scroll down to choose More security settings, and tap App pinning. Once you’ve turned on the feature, launch the app your friend needs to use and open the app carrousel by making a short upward swipe from the bottom of the screen. Swipe your way to the app you want to pin and tap on the circular icon at the top of the preview. On the emerging menu, tap Pin. To unpin the app, swipe from the bottom of your screen and hold. This will lock your phone and you’ll have to enter your pattern, password PIN, or biometrics to use it.

6. Disable the lock screen at home

To keep your device safe, you need to set up a PIN code or biometrics scan to unlock your phone. But this makes it more inconvenient to access your apps. Google’s Smart Lock feature lets you remove this obstacle, giving you instant access to your phone—but only when you’re safely at home.

From Settings, tap Security & privacy, go to More security settings and choose Smart Lock. As well as disabling the lock screen when you’re at home (that’s the Trusted Places option), you can also disable the screen when your phone’s Bluetooth is connected to a trusted device, such as your car stereo unit, or when it detects you have it on you.

7. Choose new default apps

One of the differences between Android and iOS is that Google’s mobile operating system lets you choose different default apps for web browsing, texting, viewing photos, etc. A default app is the one that opens automatically when you try and do something on your phone—so when you click a link, for example, your default web browser app will automatically open it.

Take advantage of this flexibility by setting up the defaults as you want them. Head to Settings, go to Apps and choose Default apps. Select any of the categories on screen to see a list of installed apps that can take over default duties. For example, if you’d prefer to chat with friends via Facebook Messenger, rather than your phone’s built-in SMS app, you can make Facebook’s product your default messaging app.

8. Bring back lost notifications

9. Activate one-handed mode

As today’s phones continue to grow in size, they become harder and harder to operate one-handed. So Google’s custom keyboard, which is the default option on certain Android phones, has a solution: A special one-handed mode that you can switch to with a simple shortcut. If you own a Pixel phone, this keyboard will be your default typing option. If you’re on a Samsung or LG phone, you’ll have to first download Google’s version and set it as your default keyboard (as demonstrated in tip 7).

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We shouldn’t have to tell you the benefits of backing up your computer data, but keeping copies of your most important files should something happen to the originals is always a good idea. If you ever need those backups, you’ll be grateful you took the time to make them.

Chromebooks need backups, too. Even if these laptops were designed to mostly operate online, the files you download, for example, only live on the local storage. So if you want to keep a copy of those, you’ll need to back them up manually. Here’s how to make sure all of your documents are safe should you lose access to your machine. 

Navigate around your system using the folder links on the left: Click Camera for example, to see photos and videos saved from the Chromebook’s webcam, or Downloads to see files you’ve saved from the web. You can also click Recent to see documents you’ve saved to your Chromebook in the last few days.

Unfortunately, there’s no app or integrated tool that will automatically and constantly sync all of this data to the web for you. Instead, you’ll need to run the backup manually, so it might be worth setting yourself a reminder to do it every week or so, depending on how often you tend to save files to the local storage.

The good news is that backing up the files on your Chromebook is not difficult to do. Select the items you want to save by clicking on them—to select them in bulk, hold down Ctrl while clicking, or use Shift+click to select an entire range. You can also press Ctrl+A to select all of the files in the folder you currently have open.

You can then drag the selected files to the Google Drive entry in the navigation pane on the left. This will send the documents to the cloud, where you can organize them as needed. Another option is to press Ctrl+C to copy the selected files, browse to a Google Drive folder in the left-hand navigation pane, and then press Ctrl+V when you’re ready to upload the files.

Google Drive doesn’t necessarily have to be the cloud-syncing service you use, either. You could also open up Dropbox in a web browser, for example. Click Upload, and then pick the files from your Chromebook’s local storage that you want to transfer to the web.

But whichever cloud service you use, you’ll need to repeat the process every so often, as ChromeOS doesn’t back up local storage automatically the way Windows or macOS do.

But there are a few exceptions. If you’re working offline in apps like Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides, all changes will live locally on your Chromebook until you’re back online. Unfortunately, there’s no way to back up these changes as you would files—you just need to get back online again as quickly as possible to secure them.

It’s more or less the same story with Android apps. Most of the time, these tools do a good job of automatically syncing your data online, so you don’t need to do anything. One exception might be messaging apps you have installed on your Chromebook and nowhere else. Check the app’s options to see if your messages get synced anywhere, and how you should handle backups if you need to.

[Related: Best Chromebooks under $300]

If you’re not sure if a web or Android app is saving any data locally, it almost certainly isn’t unless you’re working offline, as we’ve already mentioned. Even when files like videos or podcasts live temporarily in your local storage, there will still be copies of them in the cloud, so you don’t need to worry about copying them anywhere else.

It’s worth mentioning that ChromeOS syncs data such as bookmarks and browsing history to your Google account by default, so you don’t need to back it up either. To check what the system is sending to the cloud, click the notification tray (bottom right), then the cog icon, and then Accounts, Sync and Google Services, and Manage what you sync.

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When it comes to getting internet at home, you’ve got a growing number of options: You can get wired broadband, connect to satellites orbiting Earth, or wirelessly pipe 5G into your property.

Having this kind of internet at home works more or less like it does on your phone. You’ll just need a router with a 5G SIM card slot which will then connect to the nearest cell tower and give you all the speed and convenience of this mobile network.

As far as your laptop, phone, and other devices are concerned, a 5G WiFi network looks just the same as standard broadband. You might find the time it takes requests to travel from your device to a server and back (also known as latency), may be higher than on regular WiFi, but faster download speeds might make up for it.

If you’re a gamer, latency problems may be reason enough to forgo a 5G home connection, but this technology will continue to improve with the building of more cell towers. And if you have the budget, you can even run a broadband WiFi network alongside a 5G one, giving you a backup should you ever need one.

You can also look up 5G coverage in your area by checking the maps provided by carriers such as T-Mobile and Verizon. And even if we’re focusing on 5G in this guide, note that 4G LTE is also an option—you just won’t get the maximum speeds if your router falls back to 4G LTE.

You can also set up a 5G network yourself. You’ll need a 5G router (such as the Netgear Nighthawk M6, at a hefty $800) and a 5G SIM with a data plan attached. Just make sure to check with your provider if the SIM card you want will work with a router rather than a phone. Also, you should bear in mind that you’ll need a lot of data to support all of your devices.

That means the position and placement of your router are important: Somewhere central, away from walls and floors, is best. The good news is that a 5G router doesn’t have to be fixed to the broadband entry point, so you can put it anywhere you want as long as there’s a power socket nearby.

However, most 5G routers and mesh WiFi nodes offer the alternative of onboard Ethernet ports, which come in handy for devices where speed is most important, such as game consoles and streaming boxes.

There’s also the advantage of being able to connect a large number of devices to the web without worrying about network congestion or gadgets interfering with each other. But you’ll need to be a little strategic about where you put each device. For example, if your phone controls your smart home lights and thermostat, they will all need to be on the same WiFi network. Likewise, if you’re Chromecasting movies from your tablet to your TV, they’ll also need to share a WiFi network.

Any gadget can connect to a 5G WiFi network, but if you’re using it as a backup, think about connecting devices that don’t use too much bandwidth or need a constant internet connection. Gadgets that don’t necessarily need to connect to any other pieces of hardware in your home are also a good fit for your 5G network.

In the case of the router supplied for Verizon 5G Home Internet, for example, you can see which gadgets are currently connected and set up a guest network.

Correction — March 2, 2023: This story has been updated to reflect that T-mobile has reportedly, at the time of writing, the best 5G coverage in the United States.

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These apps are getting better with time, and they can give you a good idea as to what AI can do and where it might be headed in the future.

Magic Sketchpad

If there’s an artist inside you, Magic Sketchpad could help bring it out. This free AI tool is an experiment from a team at Google that gets a neural network to draw along with you. Every time you let go of a line, the platform will respond to your scribble by finishing the drawing according to a set category.

The neural network has been trained on millions of doodles mined from the also highly entertaining Quick, Draw! browser-based game. Start Magic Sketchpad by picking a category from the drop-down list at the top right of your screen—there are plenty available, from frogs to sandwiches. The tool knows the sorts of shapes and lines people tend to make when they’re trying to draw simple concepts like a bird, a ship, or a cat, so it can predict what you’ll draw next and finish the doodle for you.

Magic Sketchpad can also help artists augment their work or provide new prompts for creativity, and as far as AI websites go, it’s one of the most entertaining. Maybe one day we could see computers doodling as well as humans do.

AI Duet

Pros

• Not just for musicians
• You’ll get results quickly

Cons

• No export options
• Can struggle with rhythm

If you’re more of a musician than a sketcher, AI Duet might suit you better. Built by an engineer at Google, AI Duet puts a keyboard down at the bottom of your screen and produces an automatically generated response based on what you play on it. You can click the keys on your screen, hit them on your keyboard, or even connect a MIDI keyboard to your computer.

A traditional approach to a project like this would have involved a programmer coding in hundreds or even thousands of responses to specific patterns a user might play. But AI Duet comes up with its own responses based on a huge database of tunes it has trained on. This gives the program the ability to generate melodies that match a user’s input without any specific instructions.

[Related: These music recording apps are your first step to winning a Grammy]

This is another example of how AI can work with artists to produce new creations, whether that’s for movie soundtracks or background music in games. Theoretically, you could rework one riff an endless amount of times.

Craiyon

Pros

• Unlimited images
• Each prompt creates multiple responses
• Lots of flexibility

Cons

It is as simple as typing out what you want to see in the box at the top and clicking Draw. As far as free AI tools go, it couldn’t be much more straightforward.

You can combine two of your favorite fictional characters in a setting of your choosing, or reimagine a famous work of art in a different style— you’ll soon figure out which prompts work best. 

To generate images, Craiyon pulls in information from millions of photos online and their captions. That means it has a vast visual knowledge of everything from celebrities to national landmarks.

The results produced by Craiyon are a little rough around the edges for now, but it’s not difficult to see how we could eventually use this technology to generate highly realistic images from scratch using only a text prompt. For faster responses and no ads, you can pay from $5 a month for a paid plan.

Even Stranger Things

Pros

• No graphic design experience needed
• One of the quickest ways to experience AI

Cons

• Only really has one trick

Even Stranger Things is worth a look even if you’re not a fan of the Netflix show that inspired it. The platform lets you submit a photo of anything you like and turns it into a Stranger Things-style poster.

The site was built by creative technologist David Arcus, and it taps into the Google Cloud Vision API, a machine learning system trained to recognize images based on a vast database. So by processing thousands of pictures of dogs, for example, the AI learns to more accurately spot a dog in other photos.

Even Stranger Things will try to identify what’s in the picture you’ve submitted and incorporate it into the finished design, usually with broadly accurate results.

It’s quite a simple AI tool, but it shows how we can use databases to teach machines to spot new patterns that aren’t in their training materials. The platform is also a great example of how algorithms can apply a particular visual style to photos to create something new.

Talk To Books

Pros

• Good for existential questions
• Very simple to use
• Offers multiple answers

Cons

• Prompts need to be carefully worded

Talk To Books is yet another artificial intelligence tool created by engineers at Google. In this case, the platform uses the words from more than 100,000 books to automatically respond to a question or text prompt.

While you can’t really hold a conversation with the site, you can ask questions like “How can I fall asleep?” and “How did you meet your partner?” to get answers that generally make sense. Type your prompt, then press Go to see the results, and you can filter by literary genre if needed.

This is another example of how machine learning enables AI to predict a good response to a question or prompt by analyzing patterns in text. It’s perhaps a glimpse into how free AI software could change web searches in the future.

Pix2Pix

Pros

• Fast results
• Offers helpful tips along the way
• Ability to use random prompts

Cons

Scroll down the page and you’ll see there are four different examples to try out: cats, buildings, shoes, and handbags. Sketch out your drawing in the window on the left, and click Process to see what the AI makes of it.

This is another engine based on a GAN, where two neural networks work in tandem to produce realistic results, and even figure out where the edges of objects in images should be.

Turning sketches into realistic photos can be useful in all kinds of areas, from building construction to video game design. And the quality of the results is only likely to improve as these neural networks get smarter.

ChatGPT

Pros

• Sounds natural
• Will chat about almost any topic
• Responds to feedback

Cons

• Not always accurate
• Requires you to create an account

ChatGPT has attracted plenty of attention for the way it can generate natural-sounding text on just about any kind of topic, and it feels like a watershed moment in artificial intelligence.

This is what’s called a Large Language Model, which, as the name suggests, is trained on large volumes of sample text. Very, very, large, in fact. It’s then able to predict which words should go together and in which order, and it can improve its own algorithms as human beings rank its responses in terms of quality and appropriateness.

ChatGPT is somewhat like a sophisticated autocorrect engine, and you can try it out for free (though you’ll need to create an account and might find it’s unavailable at busy times). Test its knowledge on a topic you know a lot about, and feel free to offer feedback.

Deep Dream Generator

Pros

• Wide range of picture styles
• Can work with a base image
• Images can be refined

Cons

• Limited number of free generations
• Requires you to create an account

Fire up the Deep Dream Generator in your web browser, and you’ll be asked for a text prompt to create an image—it works like Craiyon in that respect, though you’ll get extra options in terms of image generation and refinement.

You can, for example, specify a particular style, such as photorealistic or fantasy. You can also add artists you want to mimic, or even digital camera models you’d like the AI engine to try to emulate. Another option is to supply your own base image for Deep Dream Generator to work with.

Underpinning Deep Dream Generator is a neural network trained on a huge database of images that the engine is trying to replicate, and it’s impressive in terms of the breadth and speed of the results that can be achieved. The platform requires users to spend “energy” to generate images, though, and the less you’re paying them, the fewer pictures you’ll be able to make at a time.

Runway

Pros

• Vast number of AI tools
• Simple interface
• You can train your own AI models

Cons

• The best features require payment
• You’ll need to create an account

Runway is an AI playground with a lot of different tools you can experiment with: create images from text prompts, create new images from existing images, erase parts of images, quickly remove backgrounds, generate a transcript from a video, and more.

For the text-to-image generator, for example, just type out a few words—such as “artistic painting of a solitary figure in an open meadow filled with flowers”—and Runway will go to work. You can choose from artistic styles, mediums (like chalk or ink), and even moods to refine a picture.

Other tools, like the one that colorizes black and white photos, require even fewer clicks. You can use Runway for free, but you’re limited in terms of export resolutions, storage space, and image generations—paid plans start at $15 a month.

It’s all based on advanced machine learning models that can recognize and repeat patterns. You can even use Runway to train your own AI models, making it suitable for advanced users: You might want to train it on photos of your face, for instance, and then generate endless portrait images of yourself in all kinds of styles and settings.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on June 23, 2022.

The post The best free AI tools you can try right now appeared first on Popular Science.

Articles may contain affiliate links which enable us to share in the revenue of any purchases made.

Apple unveiled the HomePod Mini in November 2020, and not long after that users discovered the smart speaker had an integrated temperature and humidity sensor that the company hadn’t told anyone about.

With the rollout of the 16.3 software patch for iOS and iPadOS, you can now enable this sensor and use it to keep tabs on what’s happening in the room your speaker is in.

You can also find a temperature and humidity sensor in the second-generation HomePod Apple launched in January 2023—and this time its existence was disclosed upfront. So if you’ve got a HomePod Mini or a HomePod 2, it’s time you use its integrated sensor as part of your smart home setup. 

Once that’s done, you can check the software of your HomePod. Open the Home app on your iPhone or iPad, then tap the three dots (top right), and select Home Settings and Software Update. If an update is available, you’ll be able to install it from this screen.

Don’t be surprised if you find all of this has already been automatically done for you—iPhones, iPads, and HomePods are all capable of applying updates in the background, so you may not have anything to install. As long as you’re using software versions higher than 16.3, you’re good to go.

You don’t have to use your voice if you don’t want to—you can also get readings through the Home app on your iPhone or iPad. From the front screen of the app, either tap the room where the HomePod is to see the conditions there or select Climate at the top to see readings from every temperature and humidity sensor in your home.

In rooms where there’s more than one sensor (if you’ve got two HomePods set up, for example), you’ll see an average reading for the room. Tap through on any device to see more details about it, including its position and whether its sensor is active.

To create an automation, head into the Home app, tap the room your HomePod is in, select either Temperature or Humidity, and then choose Add Automation. You can then set the temperature or humidity threshold that triggers the automation, the time of day or night it’s active, the people who need to be at home for it to be actioned, and what you want to happen with another smart home device as a result.

You can find, edit, and delete these automations from the same Temperature or Humidity screens used to create them, and you can come up with multiple ones for the same speaker. A warning, though—note that Apple says that extended periods of playing music at a loud volume on a HomePod can interfere with temperature and humidity readings.

The post You can now use your HomePod Mini as an indoor weather station appeared first on Popular Science.

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Whether you’re in an open office where colleagues regularly wander past, or live somewhere—like a college dorm—where you feel comfortable leaving your laptop unattended in the presence of relative strangers, it can be all too easy for someone else to sneak a look at your computer.

If you want to keep your device secure in communal environments, your best bet is to stop unauthorized access in the first place. Still, there’s some detective work you can do if you suspect someone else has been using your device.

On macOS, you can get back to the lock screen at any point by opening the Apple menu and choosing Lock Screen, or hitting the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Cmd+Q. It’s straightforward on Windows, too. From the Start menu, click your avatar, then choose Lock. Alternatively, the Win+L keyboard shortcut works as well.

[Related: How to remove Bing results from your Window Start menu]

If you keep leaving your desk in a hurry or just always forget to lock your computer when you step away from it, set your laptop to lock itself after a certain amount of idle time. On macOS, open the Apple menu and pick System Settings, then scroll down to Lock Screen. Find the option to Require password after screen saver begins or display is turned off, and use the dropdown menu to choose exactly when your computer will lock itself after it’s been idle. You can use the options and dropdown menus right above this to change the time it takes for a screen saver to appear or the display to turn off.

To automatically lock Windows 11, click the Start menu, then the cog icon to open your settings. Then go to Accounts > Sign-in options and find the Additional settings heading. Click the dropdown menu next to If you’ve been away, when should Windows require you to sign in again? and choose When PC wakes up from sleep. To set when your computer should start snoozing, choose System from settings, then Power & battery, and click Screen and sleep to adjust the various options to your liking.

On Windows 10, open the Start menu and hit the cog icon to access your settings. From there, go to Accounts > Sign-in options and make sure the Require sign-in option is set to When PC wakes up from sleep. To set idle time duration, go to your settings and pick System, followed by Power & sleep.

The duration of your PC’s various sleep and idle options is up to you—a shorter time is better for security and battery life, but also means your computer might lock itself while you’re still in front of it if you haven’t touched the keyboard or mouse for a few minutes. Start with something around five minutes, and adjust it if you feel that time is too short.

Start with your web browser and call up the browsing history to see if someone else has left a trace. From the Chrome menu (three vertical dots in the top right corner of your browser), go to History, then History again; from the Firefox menu (three lines), choose History, then Manage history; from the Microsoft Edge menu (three dots), choose History, then either All to view recent pages in a dropdown menu or the three dots in the top right of that menu followed by Open history page; and from the Safari toolbar on macOS, choose History, then Show All History.

Most programs on your computer have some kind of history or recent files list. In Microsoft Word, for example, click File, Open, then Recent. In Adobe Photoshop, you can choose File and Open Recent. Whatever the applications on your system, you should be able to find similar options.

If you’re not sure what program a would-be laptop infiltrator might have used, check the file system—your intruder might have left something behind on the desktop or in your computer’s download folder, but you can dig deeper, too. On macOS, open Finder from the dock, then switch to the Recents tab to see all the files that have been edited lately. There’s a similar screen on Windows too, accessible by opening File Explorer and clicking Quick Access (this may appear by default).

If you’re still using Windows 10, you’ve got another screen you can check: the timeline. Click the Task View icon on the taskbar, which looks like two stacked rectangles with a scroll bar to their right. If you don’t see it, right-click your taskbar and choose Show Task View button. Scroll down your timeline to find any files that have been opened, websites that have been viewed, and Cortana commands that have been run. The Task View still exists on Windows 11, but it functions differently, and there’s no timeline.

You can dig into absolutely everything that’s happened on your laptop or desktop recently, but the utilities involved are quite difficult to decipher. You might have to run a few web searches to make sense of the information they provide. The utilities will also log all system actions, including those taken by the computer itself. Just because you see activity at a time you weren’t around doesn’t mean someone tampered with your device—it could have run a task itself.

[Related: Set your computer to turn on and off on a schedule]

On macOS, you can do so with the Console—find it by opening Spotlight (Cmd+Space) then typing “console” into the box. If you don’t see anything, you’ll have to click Start streaming to begin viewing system log messages, but this may slow down your computer. These logs will give you a comprehensive list of everything happening on your computer, and you can narrow down the entries via the Search box. Type “wake up” into the box to see all the times your Mac has woken up from sleep, for example.

Over on Windows, you have Event Viewer—look for it in the taskbar search box. Again, it’ll provide you with a mass of information, presented in mostly technical language. Click the right-pointing arrow next to Windows Logs to view a number of subcategories, select System and then right-click System. Choose Filter Current Log, find the Event sources dropdown menu, select Power-Troubleshooter and click OK. This should present you with a list of all the times your laptop woke up.

Get some extra help from apps

If you’re serious about catching laptop snoopers in the act, some third-party software might be in order. One of the best we’ve come across is Spytech Realtime-Spy, which works for Windows or macOS through a simple web interface. You can test out a demo version online, too.

The program shows you the apps that have been used, the websites that have been visited, and the connections that have been made on your computer. It will even take screenshots and record individual key presses. It’s a comprehensive package but will set you back $80 per year.

Another option is Refog, which concentrates mainly on logging keystrokes on your laptop’s keyboard, but which also monitors web usage and takes screenshots. The software costs about $30 per month for Windows or macOS, but there’s a free trial if you want to test it first.

While these programs can alert you to potential snoopers, they can also be used to spy on other people. Of course, we’d strongly advise against doing this. Otherwise, you’re the creep.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on July 20, 2019.

The post How to check if your computer has been tampered with appeared first on Popular Science.

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It’s been difficult to get away from ChatGPT lately. The advanced artificial intelligence chatbot has been trying its hand at writing emails and even books, and Microsoft has added a customized (and rather controversial) version of it to its Bing search engine.

It’s not difficult to see what all the fuss is about if you try it out for yourself. You can engage the bot in conversation on just about any topic, and it will respond with coherent, human-like answers by using its text prediction technology.

Once you’ve played around with it, you might wonder if there’s actually any real use to ChatGPT—other than ethically dubious purposes, like cheating on essays. But there are already a lot of ways it can help you day to day.

Just ask ChatGPT to give you the code for a specific functionality, like “write the HTML to center an image,” and that’s what you’ll get back. It’s that simple. You can also use the bot as a debugging tool by copying and pasting lines of code into it and asking it why they’re not working. If you need clarification on anything, just ask.

If ChatGPT’s suggestions aren’t suitable, you can get the bot to refine them. Ask for games that need less preparation or don’t take as long to play. You can also request ideas for activities you can do in any kind of weather or that people of any age can enjoy. The bot won’t get tired of throwing out more recommendations.

The more specific you can be about the type of job you’re going for and the format of the interview, the better. Type in something like “questions asked at face-to-face customer service jobs,” for example. While there’s no guarantee that ChatGPT will get it exactly right, it will be able to draw on its training to make some decent guesses.

However, the bot can be great at giving you prompts for writing ideas, which you can then work on yourself. Ask it about character or scenario prompts, for example, or get its thoughts on what might happen next in a certain situation. This can work for any kind of writing, from a novel to a wedding speech. It may not be able to write as well as you, but it can help you brainstorm

You can also ask ChatGPT about obscure and little-known songs by your favorite bands that are worth discovering. We tested the platform by asking about the works of R.E.M. and it came up with a really good and appropriate answer (the song “Camera”), before proceeding to give us incorrect information about the track length and style. That’s ChatGPT in a nutshell.

Obviously, ChatGPT won’t know the intricacies of your own situation, but it can generate a list of considerations to weigh up, some of which you might not otherwise have thought about. We wouldn’t recommend living your life entirely based on ChatGPT’s opinions, but it can still be helpful if you don’t know where to start tackling a particular problem.

The post 6 ways ChatGPT is actually useful right now appeared first on Popular Science.

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There’s a whole world outside the English-speaking corner of the internet, so you have likely come across a website in a language that’s not your own.

When you do, resist the temptation to instantly tap the back button, as modern-day mobile browsers can translate the text with just a couple of taps. The accuracy of these tools isn’t perfect but the technology behind them is getting better, and even with some errors, you’ll still be able to understand the main idea and details in a story. 

What you need to do to translate a website on your mobile device will depend on your browser of choice. In most cases, the app will assume the language you’re fluent in is the one your phone is set to, which is controlled via System and Languages and input in Settings on Android, and via General and Language & Region in Settings on iOS.

The translation will continue throughout the website until you turn it off, so if you’re browsing around links on the site, text will still appear in English automatically. If you need to jump back to the original language on an Android device, tap it on the translation bar. On iOS, tap the Google Translate icon to the left of the address bar and select Show Original.

Tap the three dots (Android) or cog icon (iOS) on the right-hand side of the translation pop-up to automatically translate certain languages or sites. You can also manage these options by tapping the three dots in the top-right (Android) or bottom-right (iOS) corner of the Chrome interface and choosing Settings and Languages.

To go back to the original language, reload the page and don’t accept the translation when prompted. You can also configure how the browser manages translations through the browser app settings: Tap the three dots at the bottom of the Edge interface, then choose Settings, General, and Microsoft Translator.

You’ll also need to tap Enable Translation on the next dialog box to confirm that you’re happy with Apple sending the site’s text to its servers for translation. If you’re not, you’ll have to rely on your own language skills. Safari will remember which sites you’ve given it permission to translate for the next time you visit them.

The translation will stick until you leave the current website, so any links that you tap within the same site will be automatically translated, with no extra privacy pop-up to get through. To return to the original language on a page, tap the translation icon to the left of the address bar, and then View Original.

On iOS, simply select a block of text and the Translate option should appear (if it doesn’t, tap the right arrow icon). You’ll need to confirm that you’re okay with Apple analyzing the text, and if you are, you’ll then get a panel showing the translated text. You can have it read out to you, or copy it to the clipboard on your iPhone.

The post 5 ways to translate websites on your phone appeared first on Popular Science.

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When you buy an Xbox Series X or an Xbox Series S, the obvious move is to use the wireless controller that comes in the box. But if need them, these Microsoft consoles can also work with a keyboard and mouse—just like any Windows computer.

Hooking up extra peripherals to your console can make typing and navigating menus much easier, and if you want, you can also use them to play compatible games.

We couldn’t find any reports of any keyboards or mice that didn’t work with Microsoft’s gaming machine, perhaps because the underlying architecture is similar to Windows. So if you can plug the gadget into a USB-A port, you should be okay.

[Related: Xbox Series X vs. PS5: How to pick between the two biggest new game consoles]

Input devices with their own wireless USB dongles should also work well, but it’s more of a hit or miss. If you’re using a piece of hardware you already own, just give it a try to see if it’s a good match. But if you’re buying new, take a minute to look at the specs and make sure there’s a mention of Xbox compatibility. 

A keyboard and mouse setup allows for a lot more precision and fluidity in games, as you’ll know if you regularly game on PCs and consoles. However, while your keyboard and mouse will work everywhere in the Xbox menus, you won’t be able to use them in every game you play. And that’s not least because it would give you an unfair advantage over other players online using standard controllers.

If you need to know whether a specific title supports a keyboard and mouse, a quick web search is the easiest way to find out. Various sites maintain updated lists you can check out, but at the time of writing, some of the popular Xbox Series X/S games that support peripherals other than controllers include The Sims 4, Halo, Sea of Thieves, and Minecraft. Keep in mind that some games only offer limited support, so you might be able to use the keyboard for in-game chat but not for gameplay, for example.

If you’re these ports are already taken by other accessories such as a gamepad controller or external storage, you can connect a USB hub. This takes up one port on your console but adds a few extras for whatever you want. There’s no definitive list of compatible hubs to refer to, but most devices out there should work seamlessly. If you’re buying a new one, we’d recommend making sure that it specifically mentions Xbox Series X/S support, just to be on the safe side.

Note that the Xbox Series X/S consoles use USB Type-A ports, not the smaller USB Type-C, so pick your keyboard, mouse, or hub accordingly. If you already have your peripheral but it connects via USB-C, a simple and inexpensive adapter should easily do the trick: they’re about $10 and available from most electronics stores.

If you’re using a keyboard or mouse with a wireless USB dongle, follow the instructions that came with your device. Most of the time, connecting them to your Xbox is just a matter of plugging the dongle in and waiting a few seconds—it’ll automatically find the devices and get them working with the console they’re plugged into.

The Xbox Series X/S have their own keyboard shortcuts as well. Tap Y to run a search, for example, Tab to go forward through items on the screen (or Shift+Tab to go backward), or Win+I to open up the main Settings panel. And if you can’t momentarily reach your keyboard, you can always keep using your standard controller, as one doesn’t replace the other.

[Related: The best Xbox One controllers of 2023]

Unfortunately, testing a mouse isn’t quite as easy. The peripheral won’t work on the main Xbox interface and menus, so you’ll need to open a compatible game or app to see if everything is working fine. You can refer to one of the online lists we mentioned earlier, but you can also try Microsoft Edge, which comes pre-installed in your console.

If you want to personalize your experience, there aren’t many configuration options you need to know about. There are none for a connected keyboard, but when it comes to the mouse, you can select the cog in the top right corner of the interface to get to the Settings screen. There, pick Devices & connections and then Mouse—you’ll able to change the pointer speed and swap the functions of the primary and secondary (left and right) mouse buttons.

The post You should try connecting a keyboard and mouse to your Xbox appeared first on Popular Science.

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Coming across text in a foreign language in your desktop browser no longer requires hiring an interpreter or pulling out a translation dictionary. Thanks to regular improvements in artificial intelligence and translation engines, you can now convert text into your own language with just a couple of clicks.

These solutions aren’t yet 100 percent accurate, especially when it comes to slang, turns of phrase, or more obscure and technical terms. But they should give you a very good idea of what’s being said and what the gist of an article is. If you find that your browser of choice doesn’t have the necessary tools built in, there are third-party apps and extensions you can turn to.

You can also click the three dots to the right to have specific conversions (e.g. Spanish to English) run automatically or to exempt a site from automatic translation. The same menu enables you to flag up an incorrectly identified language. If the pop-up doesn’t appear, you can right-click anywhere on the actual webpage to find the translation option, and it’s also possible to translate specific blocks of text by highlighting and right-clicking on them.

Should Microsoft Edge be your browser of choice, this program also has its own integrated translation tool. As with Chrome, it should kick in automatically when you visit a website that isn’t in your browser’s default language, which you can set by choosing Languages from the main settings pane (click the three dots in the top right corner to see it).

When you visit a foreign website in Edge, an address bar will pop up—just click Translate to run the suggested translation. Use the drop-down menu to pick a different language to translate into, or click More to always or never translate websites in this language. You can also exclude specific sites from conversion. As in Chrome, you can also right-click on pages to translate them, as well as selecting text and right-clicking on the selection to translate specific sections.

Then there’s Apple’s Safari, which matches Chrome and Edge by having its very own built-in translation engine, which should offer its services instantly as soon as you visit a webpage that’s not in the language set for macOS. You can check and change what this is by opening the Apple menu, then choosing System Settings, General, and Language & Region.

If a translation is available in Safari, you’ll see a translate button (two speech bubbles) up in the address bar at the top of the interface. Click on the icon, choose the Translate to English option, and confirm the action. The same menu lets you edit your preferred languages, and go back to the original if you want. Just like on Edge and Chrome, you can also translate specific blocks of text by highlighting and right-clicking on them.

It’s worth noting that Safari will politely ask if it can send the web text to the cloud for processing, which is something that Google’s and Microsoft’s tools also do,  but don’t ask you about. This is crucial for the tool to work, so if you’re not comfortable with that, the translation won’t happen.

Change the languages that the extension has detected if needed, then click the Translate button to run the translation. Via the Options button on the right of the extension’s toolbar, you can also turn off translation prompts and disable translations for a particular website. Click Options and then Translation preferences to set your default language in Firefox, and edit the lists of languages and webpages the add-on should ignore.

[Related: Learning a new language? Here’s how to perfect your pronunciation.]

There isn’t an official Google Translate extension for Firefox, but there are plenty of compatible extensions that make use of Google Translate’s engine. One example is To Google Translate, which doesn’t translate entire webpages, but it sends text you’ve selected and right-clicked on to Google Translate for processing. It can be a nice complement to Firefox Translations.

You’ll find multiple translation extensions for browsers running on the Chromium code (including Chrome, Edge, and Opera). One of the more interesting ones is DeepL Translate, which pops up as soon as you select text on a page to offer a translation. This add-on can also read foreign text aloud and translate what you write in your browser into a new language.

Another option is Translator uLanguage, which brings a whole host of translation features right into your browser. You can convert entire pages or text selections into different languages, have translations read out to you, look up words in a dictionary, and save specific words and phrases to your own vocabulary list for future reference. It’s ideal if you’re learning a language.

We also like Mate Translate, which is also a comprehensive suite of various language tools. You can look up words and phrases and save them for later reference, convert entire pages or selected blocks of text, and hear translations read out loud. The add-on is also able to translate Netflix subtitles, though this doesn’t happen automatically—you’ll need to highlight the subtitles to translate.

The post How to translate any website from your browser appeared first on Popular Science.

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The DualSense gamepad that comes with the Sony PlayStation 5 does a fine job controlling the gaming action on screen, but it’s not quite as good for entering text, running searches, or typing out passwords.

That’s where a keyboard and mouse come in. You can attach these PC peripherals to your PS5 to make typing a whole lot easier, so you won’t struggle to get through menus and fill out forms.

The games that will work with a keyboard and mouse tend to be those with a slower pace, such as Minecraft or The Sims—the sort of games where you’ve got time to reach for a mouse or look down and type. A quick web search should tell you if your favorite game will work with a keyboard and mouse, and you can also find full lists online.

[Related: This year’s best mechanical keyboards]

It’s also worth bearing in mind that the PS5 won’t work with every keyboard and mouse out there. Most models will function fine, but it’s not guaranteed. If you want to use a piece of hardware you already own, just try to connect it and see how it goes. If you’re buying something specifically for this purpose, check online or in the product listing to see if it supports a PS5 connection.

If a keyboard or mouse spec sheet doesn’t mention PS5 support one way or the other, it’s difficult to know for sure if it will work besides actually trying it. There are lists you can consult on sites such as Reddit, and you’ll see that some peripherals won’t work wirelessly but will work if you plug them in directly, so it’s worth trying both options before giving up.

How to connect a keyboard or mouse to a PS5 via USB

The easiest way to connect a keyboard and mouse to your PS5 is to simply plug these peripherals into spare USB slots on the console: You’ve got a USB Type-A port and a USB Type-C port on the front, and two USB Type-A ports on the back, and any of them can be used to hook up a keyboard and a mouse.

You won’t have to configure anything, and the peripherals should work straight away. Try running a search, for example, via the magnifying glass icon in the top right corner of the interface, to verify that the devices are properly connected. Even if a game doesn’t support a keyboard and mouse, you should be able to use them in the PS5 menus.

While these devices should start working straight away, there are a few settings you can tweak for further customization. Open up Settings (the cog icon in the top right corner of the PS5 interface), then select Accessories, and Other Accessories. You can configure the keyboard layout and its repeat rate and repeat delay, the pointer speed of the mouse, and whether you’re using it with your left or right hand.

You can also use a USB hub to connect a keyboard and mouse to your console—you’ll only use one PS5 port this way. As with the peripherals themselves, check that the USB hub has PS5 compatibility before you buy it. Most will function fine, but it’s worth double-checking by reading the product listing or reviews from other users.

How to connect a wireless mouse or keyboard to a PS5

You can do away with cables and connect a keyboard and mouse over Bluetooth too. First, get your input device in pairing mode, so it’s ready to connect. If you’re not sure how to do this, check the instructions that came with it, or run a web search using the model name of the keyboard or mouse.

Open up Settings on your PS5 via the cog icon in the top right corner, then choose Accessories, General, and Bluetooth Accessories. The console will start looking for nearby Bluetooth devices, and the peripheral you’ve put into pairing mode should show up—select it to make the connection.

[Related: This year’s best wireless mice]

The post Improve your PS5 experience with a keyboard and mouse appeared first on Popular Science.

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Because Netflix and other streaming services are more amorphous and unmoored than traditional hard-wired cable and other forms of media, it’s become common to share passwords and other login information with friends and family. That may be changing, as streaming platforms appear poised to permanently claim a majority share of watchers and listeners.

Most popular streaming services have built password-sharing hurdles into their platforms, and they can always add more as users become more siloed and reliant on individual companies. In this ever-changing environment, maybe you’re wondering if you should even share streaming accounts at all. Might you run into technical or legal problems down the line? We’ve taken a detailed look at the major streaming services to help you figure out those answers.

How to share Netflix with other people

Each of the four Netflix plans gives you access to a certain number of concurrent streams. Both Basic plans (with and without ads) let you watch on one screen at a time, the mid-tier Standard plan ups that to two, and the most expensive, 4K- and 8K-ready Premium plan lets you watch on four screens at once.

You can set up multiple profiles (perhaps for you and your kids) inside a single account, and although Netflix itself once tweeted “Love is sharing a password,” the streaming service has begun shrinking the circle of people it allows you to “love.” Still, you’re fine to pass on your details to a handful of people, as long as you stick to the simultaneous streaming limits and make it work within the platform’s rules and regulations.

Per the Netflix terms of use, you can’t share login details with people outside of your household. What that means is not clearly defined, but the platform’s sharing page uses the words “live together.” Although the company won’t automatically charge you if you share your Netflix account with someone who doesn’t live with you, it may try to verify that their device is allowed to use the account. To do so, Netflix will email a link to a verification code to the main account holder, and that code must be entered on the unverified device within 15 minutes.

Can you share HBO Max?

If you’re thinking of sharing HBO Max logins to watch The Last of Us, you need to know it’s something the streaming service doesn’t encourage. Dig deep enough into the HBO Max support pages, and you’ll see that your HBO Max password “should not be shared with anyone outside your household.” It’s not clear what the company means by “household,” but it does say your account can have up to five profiles for kids and adults.

HBO Max also says simultaneous streams are “limited,” without specifying what the maximum number of streams actually is—perhaps you could try to find out by loading up additional streams on your account until you get an error message.

When to share Hulu account details

Like Netflix, Hulu lets you set up multiple profiles within a single account for all the members of your family. It’s more restrictive when it comes to simultaneous streams, though: the standard plans only allow concurrent viewing on a maximum of two screens.

But if you’re paying extra for Hulu Live TV, you can pay another $10 a month for the Unlimited Screens add-on, which lets you watch simultaneously on as many devices as you like. But even with this service, you’re limited to five screens at once for the HBO, Cinemax, Starz, and Showtime channels.

Hulu’s subscriber agreement only mentions sharing passwords to make it clear that you’re responsible for everything that happens on your account. So if you do share your account information, you do so at your own risk.

How to share Disney Plus

Disney is notoriously protective of its copyrights and anything else it owns, so it’s no surprise that the company’s terms of use explicitly require you to agree that “you will not share your account or account information with others.” You can, however, create seven total Disney Plus profiles per subscription. That doesn’t mean seven people can watch Disney Plus at once, though—the streaming service limits simultaneous streams to four.

How to share Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime Video is, as the name suggests, part of the Amazon Prime package. You can share this streaming service with one other adult, up to four teenagers, and up to four children within a single Amazon Household. Everyone doesn’t have to live at the same address, either, just the same country or region is fine. Each Amazon account within a household has a three-stream limit for simultaneous Prime Video streams, and you can’t watch the same video on more than two devices at once.

Beyond that household, though, sharing your personal Prime Video login credentials with someone else will give them access to much more than TV shows and movies. They’ll also be able to shop for stuff on Amazon, get at files in your Amazon cloud storage, read your e-books, and so on. Ultimately, unless you’re setting up an Amazon Household, it’s probably not worth the risk to share your Prime Video password.

How to share YouTube TV

YouTube TV just has the one $65-per-month plan, and that gives you the ability to share YouTube TV with up to five other people at no extra charge. This is part of the same family group sharing you get with Google Drive and other Google services: everyone logs in with a different Gmail address, but can access some of the same shared services.

Sharing a YouTube TV account with someone outside your family group is much riskier than sharing a Netflix or Hulu login. Because each YouTube TV account is tied to a Google account, someone using your Google login information will also have access to all your other Google apps and services, including Gmail.

Can you share a Spotify account?

Spotify accounts are clearly designed to be used by one person and one person only. You can register as many devices as you like, but you can only listen to your tunes on one at a time. That might cause problems if you’ve passed your login credentials on to friends and family.

Paying for Spotify Premium lets you bundle multiple accounts, with plans for two to six people. Each person gets their own login information, but everyone needs to live at the same address. That means it’s not a great option for sharing among people living in different places.

Naturally, Spotify lets you and members of your family plan listen to your music wherever you go, but it’s presumably applying some background checks to make sure you actually live at the address you’ve specified. Considering sharing your password is specifically prohibited in the Spotify user agreement, a family plan is your best bet for getting other people on your account.

How to share Apple Music

Because an Apple Music subscription is so tightly tied to an Apple ID on specific devices, and that ID gives access to everything else Apple offers (from email to iCloud), it can be risky to share your Apple Music login. Plus, you can only stream Apple Music tracks to one device at a time.

The post How to share streaming service logins while you still can appeared first on Popular Science.

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Browsing sessions can quickly lead to dozens of tabs popping up along the top of your screen. And when you can no longer read the tab titles, you know you’re in trouble. This is not only demanding on your brain, but also on the available memory and battery life of your computer. 

Luckily, web browsers are getting savvier when it comes to managing that tab overload. To help mitigate the issue, they’ve added a feature that allows you to snooze tabs you haven’t visited in a while, reawakening them only when you need them.

Your browser doesn’t let go of the contents of these sleeping tabs, it just puts them into storage until it’s time to go back to them. This reduces the demand on your computer’s resources, making the tabs you are actually using fast and responsive.

To turn this feature on and off, click the three dots (top right), and choose Performance. If Memory Saver is on, you can prevent certain tabs (such as music sites on pause or chat pages, for example) from going to sleep. To do this, just click the Add button and enter the site URL.

[Related: Google Chrome’s new search function will help you keep tabs on your tabs]

But that is only a precaution, as Chrome is smart enough to know what tabs need to stay active, even if you haven’t manually added them to the list. Pages with partially filled-out forms, active audio or video playback, live screen sharing, or active downloads won’t get snoozed.

If you need more control over the process, you can get browser extensions like Snoozz. The free add-on for Chrome gives you more choices over which tabs get tucked into sleep, how long they need to be inactive for before they’re targeted, and when they come back.

You can find the feature by clicking the three dots (top right), then choosing Settings and System and performance. There you can toggle the feature on and off, choose whether or not sleeping tabs show as faded on the tab bar, and set the period of inactivity required before a tab goes to sleep.

Certain websites won’t be snoozed automatically, such as those playing audio or those currently using your microphone or webcam, even if they’re in the background. You’ll also be able to prevent certain pages from getting paused: Just click on the Add button to specify one of these URLs.

If the built-in feature isn’t giving you what you need, you can choose one of several third-party alternatives. A free option is Tab Suspender, which offers settings including a customizable idle time and the ability to disable tab suspensions until your laptop reaches a certain battery level.

The feature isn’t quite as easy to access as it is in other browsers. Type about:unloads into the address bar and hit Enter to see the system resources each open tab is using up, and when you last accessed them. The sites at the top of the list will be first in line for snoozing—but remember Firefox will only do it when memory is running low.

Clicking the Unload button will manually snooze “the least-recently-used” tabs, though the exact criteria for this aren’t clear. If you’d rather disable the feature completely, type about:config in the address bar, hit Enter, and then change the browser.tabs.unloadOnLowMemory value to false (search for it using the box at the top, and then double-click to change its value).

A busy third-party extension market has built up around Firefox, and several tools will let you snooze tabs in a slightly more user-friendly way. One that you might want to try out is the free New Tab Suspender, which automatically puts inactive tabs into stasis after a period you specify.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any third-party extensions you can turn to either. Safari is quite restrictive when it comes to what add-ons are allowed to do, and functionality such as putting tabs to sleep is off-limits to outside developers. If this is a feature you absolutely need, you’re going to have to swap browsers.

The post How to snooze your browser tabs appeared first on Popular Science.

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Connecting a device such as a laptop or a console to a television or monitor only requires a cable. Unfortunately, sometimes making that link isn’t as straightforward as it should be.

You not only have different connection standards to deal with—all with their own specific port shapes and sizes—but you’ve also got various versions of those standards to consider. Choosing the wrong one can result in a picture that’s not as good as it could be or, in the worst-case scenario, no picture at all.

With a little research, you can ensure you’ve got the right cables connecting your TV or monitor to your favorite devices. As a plus, you’ll also get a better idea of what’s possible from the display tech you’re using.

Start by looking into the specs of your main device, whether it’s a PlayStation 5 or a Mac Mini. A quick web search or a careful read-through of the bundled instructions should tell you what display standards the hardware is compatible with. This is the first step in knowing which cables to get.

[Related: Best HDMI cables for 2022]

Next, turn your attention to your TV or monitor—you’ll find you have a bit more flexibility here, as perhaps you’ve got several different displays at home you can choose from or you’re already thinking about an upgrade, giving you the opportunity to get one with a certain specification. Look up the model name and number of your display online and you should be able to tell which standards it supports. Most TVs and monitors provide multiple options, and you only need one of them to match up with your primary device.

You’re looking for a matching connection standard, and chances are it’ll be one of the most popular ones such as HDMI, DisplayPort, USB-C, or Thunderbolt. But don’t get it wrong: each of these has a number of nuances and variations you need to know about in more detail to make sure you pick the right cable.

What to know about the HDMI connection standard

High-Definition Multimedia Interface, commonly known as HDMI, has the familiar plug where the top is slightly larger than the bottom. It’s a well-established standard, especially for TVs and set-top boxes, but because the port takes up a lot of space, it’s becoming less common as laptops get thinner and lighter.

The latest version at the time of writing is HDMI 2.1, bringing with it the ability to handle 10K resolution video at 120 frames per second. When you enable HDR (which keeps dark and light parts of the frame well balanced), you’ll be able to get a 4K image at 120 fps or 8K at 60 fps. In total, the newest HDMI version can transmit 48 Gigabits per second to your television or monitor. Compare that to the previous iteration of the standard, HDMI 2.0b, where the Dynamic HDR-enabled resolution immediately drops to a maximum of 4K at 60 fps. 

There are a few other extras in HDMI 2.1 that HDMI 2.0b doesn’t have, such as the Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) used by some PC graphics cards, the PlayStation 5, the Xbox Series X, and the Xbox Series S. With that faster 4K refresh rate and VRR, it’s really gamers who benefit most from the standard.

If your primary device and your TV or monitor both support HDMI 2.1, and you absolutely want those top specs, you need a cable that supports it. Older cables will work, but won’t provide the top resolutions and refresh rates. Look for the HDMI 2.1 and “Ultra High Speed” labels on the packaging, as they indicate support for the full 48 Gbps speeds. If a cable isn’t advertising its HDMI 2.1-ness, it’s probably using an older standard, but if you want to make sure, a quick web search on the cable’s brand and model should tell you for sure.

What to know about the DisplayPort connection standard

DisplayPort isn’t as ubiquitous as HDMI, but it’s still extensively used in the world of Windows and macOS computers. While the standard goes up to version 2.1, at the time of writing it’s highly unlikely you’ll see any device on the market that goes beyond DisplayPort 1.4 or 1.4a, as demand for upgrades is not that high and companies are sticking with older technology. DisplayPort 1.4a supports up to 32.40 Gbps of total bandwidth, and resolutions up to 8K at 60 fps and 4K at 120 fps with HDR enabled.

Fortunately, choosing a DisplayPort cable is pretty straightforward—you just have to look for that 1.4 or 1.4a support on the packaging or the listing. There are some DisplayPort 2.0 cables on the market at the moment, but it’s unlikely you’ll find hardware to plug them into, so there’s no point getting a cable that supports the latest standard unless you want to futureproof it for several years to come.

It is also worth looking for a VESA logo on the packaging, which means the cable has been certified by the Video Electronics Standards Association, the organization that develops the DisplayPort spec. That’s not to say cables without this badge won’t work as well, but it’s another mark of quality that could well help you 

Another point to bear in mind is that USB-C and Thunderbolt ports and cables support DisplayPort technology as well, which is why some specs lists might seem confusing. But this doesn’t really change which types of cables you need to get, as you’re first and foremost looking at the physical connector ports when choosing what to buy.

What to know about the Thunderbolt connection standard

Another display standard you’re likely to see in the computing world is Thunderbolt, with the latest version being Thunderbolt 4. It brings with it 40 Gbps of bandwidth and is capable of driving not one but two 4K displays at 60 fps with HDR. This works via a daisy chain system, so you can connect one monitor up to your laptop, for example, and then a second monitor to the first monitor.

Thunderbolt 4 can transmit data and video and uses DisplayPort 2.0 technology for the latter. Physically, it uses a smaller version of the DisplayPort connector or the well-known USB-C standard. This can make things confusing as you won’t be able to tell the difference between Thunderbolt 4 and standard USB-C ports and cables just by looking at them. To make sure what you’re dealing with, you’ll need to carefully check the spec listings on the product for a mention of the Thunderbolt tech. One example is the Apple site for the MacBook Pro, where they list Thunderbolt 4 among the device’s specs.

The same applies when you’re shopping for cables, as you’ll also need to look for that mention of Thunderbolt 4. If you find it, the cable connector will always be USB-C. Your monitor may have a USB-C-shaped Thunderbolt 4 port or a DisplayPort port instead, in which case you can buy a cable with USB-C on one end and DisplayPort on the other.  

What to know about the USB-C connection standard

Many modern laptops only come with USB-C ports now, which means you’ll need a cable that fits accordingly to output video. 

But it’s important that you understand that USB-C is not in itself a video transmission standard like HDMI or DisplayPort, but a connector system—it describes the physical ports and connectors on cables and devices, not their transferring abilities. 

[Related: How to connect a soundbar to a TV: HDMI ARC vs optical]

If you want to output video using USB-C you’ll need to make sure the port and cable are also Alt Mode, meaning they can transfer video on top of all the normal USB jobs, such as charging and transferring data. Depending on the hardware or cable, this connector system is able to support any one of the standards previously mentioned on this list: DisplayPort (up to version 1.4), HDMI (up to version 1.4b), and Thunderbolt (up to version 4). If your device’s USB-C port or cable support video transfer you’ll see one of these standards mentioned (and probably Alt Mode too) when looking at its specs list.

Many monitors now come with USB-C ports as well, but you’ll need to check the display’s specs to see whether it uses DisplayPort, HDMI, or Thunderbolt. It’s the same when choosing cables: Look at the product description to make sure it supports the same video standard as your primary device and monitor. The maximum resolution will depend on the video tech, but you can typically get 4K at 60 fps with HDR.

The versatility of USB-C means you can find USB-C-to-HDMI and USB-C-to-DisplayPort cables as well. These may be a better option for you depending on the monitor or TV you’re using, and the product specs should tell you the resolution and fps you can expect from the cable.

The post What cables to connect to your TVs and monitors for the best picture appeared first on Popular Science.

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With the launch of iOS 16.1, Apple introduced a new way to share pics and videos with a small group of people. It’s called iCloud Shared Library and you can use it straight from your iPhone, but it’s also accessible from iPads and Mac computers.

The old way of sharing photos and videos, Shared Albums, hasn’t gone away, but iCloud Shared Library is a more comprehensive option. It’ll give people the ability to not only see an image collection but also curate and edit it. It’s also ideal for when you want to stop bombarding the group chat with an endless string of photos of your toddler. 

Finally, iOS will ask you if photos and videos you take in the future will go to your shared or personal library by default. You can switch between them on a case-by-case basis inside the camera app by tapping the library button: it’s the icon showing two silhouettes, top right in portrait mode. You can also change the default destination of your images at any time via Photos, Shared Library, and Sharing from Camera in Settings.

Every participant in the shared library will have full curation permissions and the same options in their Photos app, allowing them to add and remove items, as well as edit them. The only privileged member of a shared library will be the person who created it in the first place: they’re the only ones who can kick out members or add new ones by going to Photos then Shared Library in their phone’s Settings. From this screen, the administrator can also delete the shared library, and if you’re a guest, you can use this menu to leave.

Shared libraries also show up in the Photos apps on iPadOS and macOS. If you’re on a Mac, launch Photos and you’ll see a drop-down menu at the top, just to the right of the main navigation pane. Click on it to switch between Personal Library, Shared Library, and Both Libraries, and right-click on any image or video to move it between your personal and shared library, and vice versa.

Note that, by default,  the photos and videos inside an iCloud Shared Photo Library will count against the storage quota of the person who created the library, but not of those who’ve been invited to share it. So if you’re expecting to create a large image collection, it’s probably a good idea to have someone paying for extra iCloud storage to host the library.  

You can have up to 200 Shared Albums at a time, each one with a maximum of 100 participants who can add photos and videos, but not edit them. Meanwhile, you can only have one iCloud Shared Library at a time, which you can only share with up to six participants, everyone with full control over the collection. Shared libraries are more spacious as well: they can have as many photos and videos as your iCloud storage will allow, whereas shared albums can only include up to 5,000 items.

There’s also the tighter integration shared libraries have with the Camera app on the iPhone—the ability to send photos and videos directly to an iCloud Shared Photo Library is really convenient. But to take full advantage of this feature, your shared library should be a space you’ll be using a lot, rather than a bunch of photos and videos you only check back on occasionally.

The post This new iOS feature lets you share entire image libraries. Here’s how to set it up. appeared first on Popular Science.

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Even if you conscientiously save your data to the cloud, having remote access to computer files on your home or office machine can be a game-changer. Maybe you’re sitting in a hotel room and need to run a program on your home PC. Or you’re out and about and want to run a desktop app on your phone.

That’s where remote desktop tools come in. Once configured, these programs allow you to securely connect to a computer from another device. You’ll be able to fully control your computer from any location, and it’ll almost be like actually sitting down to the real machine from afar. Just a decade ago, you’d need a degree in computing to wrap your head around the ins and outs of remote access programs. Now, as we’ll demonstrate, you can manage these tools with just a few clicks or taps.

To set it up on macOS Ventura, open the Apple menu, go to System Settings, click General, hit Sharing, and turn on Screen Sharing. With that set up, click the info button (an “i” in a circle) to decide who can share your screen. If you’re still using macOS Monterey, the steps are slightly different: from the Apple menu, go to System Preferences, Sharing, and tick the box next to Screen Sharing.

Once you’ve set this up, you can access your original Mac from any other macOS machine that’s signed into the same iCloud account. Just open Finder and go to the Shared section of the sidebar. Find your home computer in this section, click it, and choose Share Screen.

While Screen Sharing works great for Mac devices, it complicates the process of accessing your Apple computer from any other operating system. While you can hook up to macOS from Windows and other devices using this method, it will require some advanced network tweaking—and isn’t really worth the hassle. Instead, consider using a third-party remote desktop tool instead. We’ll get to those.

Microsoft makes its own Remote Desktop tool free for both Windows and macOS, but there’s a caveat: You can only connect to a Windows machine running a Professional or Enterprise version of Windows. You tend to find these systems on office devices, not personal ones, which will count out most home users. Of course, if you have installed one of these pricier versions of Windows, you can use the Remote Desktop Connection program to configure access. Otherwise, we’d recommend using a third-party option.

Third-party tools: Google Chrome and TeamViewer

While Apple and Microsoft offer pricy remote tools aimed at IT professionals, anyone can use the free remote-access option Google built into Chrome. You gain access through your Google account, and the tool employs the same syncing technology that keeps your passwords and login information available in Chrome on multiple platforms. You can get Google’s remote tool for your browser, as an Android app, and even for iOS and iPadOS devices.

Connecting to a computer only takes a few clicks or taps. Open the web app on the computer you want to access remotely, and click Share my screen. On the next page, make sure you select Remote Access from the left-hand sidebar and click the download button under Set up remote access. As you set it up, you’ll need to give your computer a name and a PIN to access it.

[Related: Where to find, edit, and remove everything your browser knows about you]

Next, turn to the device from which you plan to access your original computer. If you’re on a different computer, launch the web app, and your original machine will appear under the My Computers listing. Click on it, enter the PIN you set earlier, and you’ll be up and running. The remote machine will open a remote access window, within which you will see your original computer’s desktop screen and be able to interact with it via the remote mouse and keyboard. You’ll also see options to perform tasks such as creating a new window, changing the size of the desktop, and sending a Print Screen command to copy the screen. You can access these options from the icon at the very top left of the remote access window: click it to open a drop-down menu.

If you’re on a phone or tablet, you’ll use a similar process to gain access to your original machine. When you fire up the Chrome Remote Desktop app for Android or iOS, you’ll see a list of computers where remote access has been enabled. Tap on any of them to enter the PIN and connect. Drag down from the top of the screen to access mouse and keyboard controls.

Another free and easy option is TeamViewer, though you can pay to add more devices (starting at $84 a year). First, download the app onto the computer you’ll want to connect to. Then open it and choose the option marked Installation to access this computer remotely (the other option is for accessing the computer while somebody else is using it). TeamViewer will guide you through the process of setting your computer up for unattended access, which basically involves giving it a name and a password. Your linked computers connect to each other through a TeamViewer account, which is free to set up and lets you see your devices wherever you sign in.

Next, install TeamViewer on the devices you want to connect from. This time, you’ll want to connect rather than set up unattended access. As soon as you sign in with the credentials you just created, the original computer should appear. You can connect by entering the password you’ve already set up. Along the top of the connection window, you’ll see all the controls you’re going to need, including options for transferring files between computers and setting the screen resolution and quality. You’re essentially live-streaming your desktop, so reducing the quality a little might lead to a smoother experience.

Windows makes its built-in OneDrive available for macOS, Android, and iOS. Initially, OneDrive gives 5GB of free space for your files, but you can get more by paying extra. The cheapest upgrade level is $1.99 a month for 100GB of space, and it goes up from there.

Apple bakes iCloud into macOS and iOS and also offers a basic client for Windows (at the moment, no Android app is available). Users get 5GB of space for free, and upgrades start at $0.99 a month for 50GB of data. You can use iCloud to sync and back up any files you’d like.

Dropbox saw the potential of file syncing before either Apple or Microsoft, and it offers client apps for all the major desktop and mobile platforms. You only get 2GB of space for free, though. If you’re going to need more than that, you’ll need to fork over $11.99 a month or $120 a year.

Finally, Google Drive is available on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. While it focuses mainly on document editing in the cloud, it’s also a perfectly functional file-syncing service. You’ll get 15GB of space in the cloud (spread across all your Google products) for free, and upgrades start from $1.99 a month for 100GB.

All of these services work in a similar way: You install them on your computers, phones, and/or tablets, and then you choose which folders to sync to the cloud. Make changes on your devices to instantly update the online copies of those files. Even if you haven’t installed the apps on a computer, you’ll still be able to access your files through any web browser window.

This story has been updated. It was originally published on September 9, 2017.

The post Set up remote access to your computer so you can use it from anywhere appeared first on Popular Science.

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With nearly 3 billion daily users to its name, Facebook is buzzing with activity—particularly if several hundred of those people happen to be friends with you. Between wedding photos of friends-of-friends-of-friends, angry articles from your political uncle, and all-caps updates from the girl you haven’t seen since middle school, your News Feed can get cluttered with information you couldn’t care less about. Don’t settle for reading every other post—here’s how to clean up your feed so it will only show the people and news you actually care about.

1. Unfollow your friends

Facebook includes more options than you might think for cleaning up your News Feed, including the ability to unfollow your friends. This isn’t the same as unfriending someone; you’ll stay friends with them but their posts won’t appear in your feed. It’s perfect if you want to occasionally check up on or message people, but aren’t interested in the minutiae of their daily lives. And don’t worry—they won’t know you’ve unfollowed them.

[Related: How to make your Facebook account more private]

Click on the three dots next to any post in your News Feed and choose the Unfollow option to unfollow your friend. Alternatively, go to your friend’s profile page on the web, click the Friends button at the top, and select Unfollow from the drop-down menu. If you’re viewing a profile on the mobile app, tap the Friends button and choose Take a Break.

2. See fewer posts from someone

Let’s say you don’t want to see as many posts from someone, but you’d still like to get the occasional update. Instead of unfollowing that friend, you can opt to see fewer posts from them. You’ll find this setting via the same drop-down menu as the unfollow option: in the top right of any post in the News Feed. Click Hide post, and you won’t see as many posts from that person in the future. If you hide a post from an ad or a Page, you won’t hear about it again.

When you hide a sponsored post, rather than something from one of your friends, Facebook asks for some feedback about why you took the action you did. It uses your response to decide which ads to serve you in the future. If you decide to tell Facebook why, you’ll see another menu with other privacy-related steps you can take. Click the Make changes to your ad preferences option to take more control over the ads Facebook shows you (see below for more on this).

3. Prioritize your close friends

In any group of acquaintances, there will be some people you care about more than others. To help you focus on your nearest and dearest, Facebook creates a custom friends list for you called Close Friends. Updates from anyone in this select group will always prompt a notification (if you’ve got them enabled) and put the post high up in your News Feed. Fortunately for your friends’ self-esteem, they won’t know whether or not they’re on your Close Friends list.

[Related: You don’t have to delete Facebook, but you could definitely be using it better]

To set up your list, you’ll need to open Facebook in a web browser and look at the scrollable menu on the left side of the screen—these options aren’t available in the mobile app. Click Friends and find the Custom Lists option. Click that, then the Close Friends link. You can add or remove friends via the Manage button in the top right. While you’re there, you might notice that Facebook has suggested other lists for you, such as Acquaintances. More on that feature below.

4. Set up your own friend lists

You don’t have to settle for the friend lists Facebook makes for you. From the Custom Lists screen, click Create List, and you can make a group based on the buddies you play cards with, the relatives you’re closest to, or any other mix of people you like.

The lists you make for yourself won’t affect how often you see your friends in your News Feed, but you can bookmark each list for quick access. Facebook used to offer the ability to see only updates from people on a given list, but that no longer appears to be the case. Now, the most you can do is click on the individual profiles of people on a list to see what they’ve posted recently.

That said, custom lists remain useful as a way to limit the audience who sees anything you post on Facebook. For example, you might want to tweak your settings so only your closest friends and relatives will see all the baby photos you’re uploading. To do so, click the audience drop-down menu under your name when you are creating a post. Scroll down to find the desired list, select the circle to its right, decide if you want this to be your default audience, and hit Done.

5. Choose who you see first

If you’d rather not get notifications each time your close friends post, you can use a different setting to choose who comes first in your News Feed. Go to Facebook in a web browser, click your profile photo in the top right, open Settings & privacy, and select Feed. The top option (Favorites) lets you set who you’ll see first in your News Feed. Just click the star icon next to any page or profile to mark them as preferred.

[Related: Make Facebook useful by turning off all its annoying features]

This works a lot like Close Friends, but you won’t get notifications about everything these people or pages do—their posts will just be prioritized in your News Feed. If you’re using the mobile app, you can tap the Menu button in the bottom right, select Feeds, and choose Favorites from the top of the screen to see only posts from these accounts. Again, your friends won’t get any alerts about how you’re sorting them, so you don’t have to worry about hurting anyone’s feelings.

6. View posts in chronological order

Another option for your feed is to switch to seeing posts in chronological order. On the web, go to the scrollable menu on the left-hand side of the screen and click Most Recent. This will clean up your News Feed so the newest posts are at the top.

Unlike the tips we’ve already mentioned, this actually gives you less control over what appears in your News Feed. But it’s still a useful way to switch up what’s displayed, and perhaps see updates from people you haven’t checked in on for a while. To go back to the normal view, click the Home icon (a house) at the top of the screen, or the Facebook icon in the top left.

7. Adjust your ad settings

Facebook uses a lot of personal data to decide which ads to display on your News Feed. To view and edit some of this information, click your profile photo at the right end of the toolbar at the top of the Facebook site. Pick Settings & privacy from the list, then Settings, and select Ads from the menu on the left to open the Ad Preferences page. Follow the same steps in the mobile app, but tap Ad Preferences after Settings.

From here, you can edit a lot of different options. Click Ad Settings, Categories used to reach you, Other categories, and See all categories to view what information Facebook is using to serve you ads, and click the Remove button next to any one of these to eliminate it. From this same series of menus, you can prevent Facebook from showing ads based on details such as your relationship status or job title. Back on the Ad Preferences page, behind the Advertisers option and Advertisers whose ads you’ve clicked button, it’s possible to block Hide Ads from certain companies.

Facebook can also show you ads based on what you do on sites and apps beyond the social network, and it goes the other way as well: Your behavior on Facebook can affect which ads you see when you’re browsing around the rest of the internet. You can manage and learn about some of these options from the web (Ad Preferences > Ad Settings > Data about your activity from partners), but you have much more control from the mobile app.

The post 7 ways to clean up your Facebook News Feed appeared first on Popular Science.

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By design, it’s very easy to publish to social media from just about any location and any device connected to the internet, so there are going to be times you wish you could undo a post. Maybe you wish you hadn’t said what you said, shared a photo without permission, or simply made an embarrassing typo.

Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all enable you to go back and edit your posts, or delete them completely. We can’t guarantee that no one will have reacted to or screenshotted your original post in the meantime though, so quicker is better when it comes to making these changes.

How to edit a tweet

The wrinkle with Twitter is that you need to be a paid-up member of the Twitter Blue club to edit tweets. Twitter Blue costs $8 a month for the web ($11 if you sign up on a phone), and gives you extras such as app themes and folders for bookmarked tweets, as well as editing functionality.

If you have a Twitter Blue subscription, you’ll get a 30-minute window after you post a tweet to make edits to it. After that, you’ll need to leave the tweet as it is, or delete it. What’s more, other users will be able to see a label that says the tweet has been edited, and can select the tweet to see the earlier versions of it.

To edit a tweet, you must be on the same device you used to post it. If that’s a phone, tap a tweet on your profile, then touch the three dots to the right of it. If the edit window hasn’t closed, you’ll see Edit Tweet on the menu that pops up. Choose that, and you’ll be able to make whatever changes you want. Finally, tap Update to send the new version live.

On the web, you’ll also see three dots next to all of the tweets on your profile—click on them to find the Edit Tweet option, and if you see it, you’ll be able to make alterations. To get rid of a tweet completely, the Delete Tweet option is in the same menu, and you’ll be asked to confirm your decision before it’s erased.

How to edit an Instagram post

Unlike Twitter, there’s no time limit for editing Instagram posts, so you can fix typos going back years. On the web, go to your profile and select the post you want to change. Then click the three dots (top right) and choose Edit.

You can adjust the caption of your photo or video, change who’s tagged in the photo or video, and add or edit a location tag. If you’re editing a multiple-image carousel post, you can delete individual pictures or videos from the group. You can’t swap out the photo or video though, or add new content to the post—you’ll need a whole new post for that. When you’re happy with the way the post looks, click Done.

[Related: Why the web version of Instagram is better than the app]

The process is similar on the mobile apps. Tap your profile picture (bottom right), then pick a photo or video. Touch the three dots in the top right, choose Edit, and you make your changes. To confirm them, tap the blue checkmark (Android) or Done (iOS) in the top right corner. The post stays where it is in your timeline, and although it gets marked with an “edited” label, people won’t be able to see past versions.

You can find the option to Delete an Instagram post in the same menu as the edit option: behind the three dots. And while you can’t edit comments you’ve left on other people’s posts, you can remove them: Click or tap the three dots next to a comment you’ve left, then pick Delete on the next dialog.

How to edit a Facebook post

As on Instagram, there’s no time limit on editing Facebook posts. If you have the site open in a web browser, head to your profile via the link on the left, then scroll down to the post you want to alter. Next, click the three dots at the top right of the post, then Edit post.

You can change just about everything in a Facebook post, if needed, including the text, attached images, and the location and contact tags. You can even change the post audience by clicking the current audience label at the top (it will say whatever the current audience is, such as Friends or Public). Tap Save when you’re done.

On the Facebook mobile apps, tap your profile picture (top right), then your name. Touch the three dots next to the post you want to change, then Edit post, and you’ll be able to make your changes. All the same options are available as on the web, and you can tap Save when you’ve finished. Note that anyone who can see the post can view its edit history via the menu behind the three dots.

Tapping on those three dots also gives you the option to delete posts. You can also edit and delete any comments you leave across Facebook, whether they’re on your own posts or on posts from other people: click or tap the three dots to the side of a comment, then choose Edit or Delete as needed.

The post Instantly edit Facebook posts and other social media mistakes appeared first on Popular Science.

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You’re likely already familiar with keyboard shortcuts for Windows and for macOS, but you may not know that Gmail on the web has its own set—and they’ll work in any browser on any desktop platform.

The best keyboard shortcuts help you get computing tasks done at a faster pace, with no need to reach for a mouse or trackpad—and when it comes to managing an overflowing and chaotic email inbox, any kind of productivity hack is going to be useful.

If the ones we’ve picked out below aren’t enough, you can create your own. From the main Gmail settings screen, click Advanced, find the Custom keyboard shortcuts option, and select Enable. Click Save Changes, and a new Keyboard Shortcuts tab will be added to the settings page. You can use that tab to edit existing shortcuts or create new ones.

The basics

C: Compose a new email

• Tap the C key anywhere in Gmail and a new compose window will pop up in the corner of the screen, with the cursor in the To: field of the new email.

D: Compose a new email in a new tab

• You don’t necessarily want to obscure your current Gmail view with a new message, and the D key will start a new email in a new browser tab.

Slash: Run a search

• Tap the / key anywhere in Gmail, and the cursor will fly up to the search box at the top, ready for you to type out some search terms and dig into your archive.

Period: Open the More menu

• The More menu (which may show up as three dots, depending on your settings), holds options including the ability to mark emails as read and mute threads.

V: Open the Move to menu

• The Move to menu (which may appear as an arrow inside a folder icon) lets you quickly apply one of your Gmail labels to the current message.

L: Open the Label as menu

• Use the Label as menu (which may be display as a bookmark-like icon) if you want to apply several labels to a message simultaneously.

Composing messages

Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+C: Add CC recipients

• Ctrl or Cmd+Shift+C, (depending on if you’re using Windows or macOS, respectively) is the shortcut for adding carbon copy (CC) recipients to your email—contacts who are copied in along with the original recipient.

[Related: Use Google Tasks to help organize your Gmail inbox]

Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+B: Add BCC recipients

• This does almost the same task as the previous shortcut, only blind carbon copy (BCC) recipients can’t see which other email addresses have been BCC’d in.

Ctrl/Cmd+Enter: Send an email

• Once you’re happy with the way your message looks in the compose window, you can use this shortcut to immediately send the email.

Ctrl/Cmd+K: Insert a link

• Use this if you need to refer the recipient to a website address. You can either highlight the text to link from first, or enter the URL in the dialog that pops up.

Shift+Esc and Esc: Shift focus

• These shortcuts switch focus between the compose box and the main Gmail window, so you can sift through your inbox while you’re writing.

Ctrl/Cmd+M: Open the spelling suggestions

• Gmail comes with its own spell-checker, and this shortcut will bring up replacements for words that look incorrectly spelled.

Managing emails

X: Select a conversation thread

• With a list of messages on screen, you can use the cursor keys to move between them, and then the X key to select one or more of the emails.

E: Archive

• Once you’ve selected one or more emails, or if you currently have a conversation thread open, tap E to move them (or it) from your inbox to the archive.

[Related: 38 advanced Mac keyboard shortcuts for productivity]

S: Add a star

• As with the archive shortcut, tapping S adds a star to any selected or open emails. If you have several star types set up in your Gmail settings, repeated taps will cycle through them.

M: Mute

• With one or more emails selected (or open), you can use M to mute the conversations, so new messages in those threads don’t bring them back to the inbox.

R: Reply; A: Reply all

• These shortcuts can be used when an email thread is open, and if you add Shift in front of either of them, the reply will opens in a new pop-up window on your screen.

# : Delete emails

• In Gmail, the # key isn’t used to apply hashtags, but to send any selected or open emails directly to the trash folder, ready to be deleted.

• Several shortcuts help you jump around the interface, and you can press G, followed by I (in succession) to go to the inbox from wherever you are in Gmail.

G, then S: Go to your starred messages

• Pressing G, followed by S will take you straight to the messages you’ve starred for later reference.

G, then D: Go to your drafts

• If you’re ready to carry on working on an email you already started at some point in the past, tap G, then D to open your drafts.

G, then T: Go to sent messages

• The G and T shortcut (tap them one after the other) is the one to use if you want to review the emails you’ve recently sent from your Gmail account.

G, then N: Go to the next page; G, then P: Go to the previous page

• Whatever view you’re in, from your inbox to the drafts folder, these keys will let you move through pages of conversation threads.

U: Go back to the conversation list

• If you’ve opened an email from one of Gmail’s views (like starred or sent messages), tap the U key to go back to the previous list of emails.

Handling threads

Asterisk, then A: Select all conversations

• Tap *, then A (in succession, not together) to select all of the conversation threads currently on your screen in whatever view you have open.

Asterisk, then R: Select read conversations; Asterisk, then U: Select unread conversations

• Tapping R or U after * will restrict your selection to just read or just unread threads.

Shift+N: Update a conversation

• Sometimes you’ll have a thread open and a new email will appear in it (indicated by an alert in the corner). Shift+N will refresh the thread.

[Related: 4 tips to bring your Gmail inbox to zero]

] or [ : Archive the thread and move on

• Tapping ] or [ will archive the thread you’re currently viewing and move to the previous or next one in your current Gmail view.

Underscore: Mark an open thread as unread

• If you’re viewing a thread but want to mark it as unread again, tap _ to do just that and return to the previous view.

Semicolon or colon: Expand or collapse the entire conversation

• The ; and : keys are handy for expanding or collapsing all the messages in the thread you’re currently viewing.

The post 29 Gmail keyboard shortcuts to help you power through your inbox appeared first on Popular Science.

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Whenever your hands are full, or you don’t want to be walking around with your phone in front of your face, your smartwatch can take over navigation duties. Some models will even guide you along your route without being connected to a phone.

Displaying turn-by-turn direction only adds to the capabilities of the latest smartwatches, which can also track steps, place calls, play music, make payments, show your daily schedule, and more. It’s another reason why if you’re trying to use your phone less, a smartwatch might be the solution you’re looking for.

How to get directions on an Apple Watch

If you have an Apple Watch with LTE functionality, you’ll be able to find your way without an iPhone, because it will be able to connect to the web to get mapping information itself. If not, your smartwatch will rely on your iPhone to get directions and send them to your wrist, but you can still do everything from the smaller device.

To start, open the Maps app on your watch screen. From there, you can either look for a place using the search option at the top, or tap Location to choose somewhere on the map itself. You’ll also see lists of places you’ve favorited and visited recently on the same screen. Once you’ve picked a destination, you’ll be asked to choose the type of navigation you want: Driving, Walking, Transit, or Cycling.

After that, you’ll see step-by-step directions on screen (tap the map icon at the bottom to switch to the map view). Your watch will also make sounds to help you on your way: a low tone followed by a high tone means “turn right,” while a high tone followed by a low tone means “turn left.” You’ll feel a vibration when you’re on the last leg of the journey, and then another when you’ve reached your destination.

Google Maps is also available for the Apple Watch, but the experience isn’t quite as comprehensive. When you open the app on the wearable, you can only choose from locations you’ve already saved in Google Maps on your phone, including your stored home and work locations. Select any location from the list, and you’ll get turn-by-turn directions on your Apple Watch screen.

How to navigate with Garmin smartwatches

Garmin makes a host of smartwatches, many of which have GPS and navigation capabilities. We’ll focus on the models with full navigation and map support, offering similar functionality to Apple Maps and Google Maps. In other words, these wearables give you the ability to pick places and see your location on a map, rather than just pointing you in the right direction with an arrow from your current spot.

Garmin smartwatches with full navigation support at the time of writing are the Fenix 7 series, the Tactix 7 series, the Gen 2 Epix, the Forerunner 955, the Forerunner 945 LTE, the Enduro 2, and the Descent Mk2 series. All of these require a connected phone except the Forerunner 945 LTE, which offers phone-free navigation.

[Related: Smart ways to travel efficiently, no matter where you’re going]

On these watches, press the upper right button to get to the main menu. From here, you have two options: Map and Navigation. If you pick Map, you can then choose somewhere on the map that appears by zooming in and out and scrolling around. Once you’ve selected a destination, press the upper right button again, and you can start moving immediately (Go) or store the place to get back to later (Save location).

Choose Navigation, and you can pick from places you’ve previously saved, nearby points of interest, or even the location where you started an activity like a run or a bike ride.

Once you’ve chosen a destination (using either Map or Navigation), you’ll see your route plotted on a map. To switch to step-by-step instructions, press and hold the middle left button, then hit Turn By Turn.

Google Pixel Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch, and Fitbit smartwatches

To get directions on the Pixel Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch, Fitbit Sense 2, or Fitbit Versa 4, you’ll need to launch Google Maps. If you’re using a Pixel or Samsung model with LTE connectivity, you can get these directions even if you don’t have your phone with you. Otherwise, you’ll need to rely on a linked smartphone for a connection to the internet to figure out your turns. At the time of writing, navigation also only works on Fitbit smartwatches if they’re paired with an Android phone, though the company says iPhone support is coming in early 2023.

There are three icons at the opening Google Maps screen: the microphone (so you can verbally tell your device a destination), the keyboard (so you can type one in), and the map (so you can pick a spot via the map view). Lower down, you’ll also see a list of places you’ve recently visited or searched for. Once you’ve used one of those options to find a specific location, your watch will offer a choice of travel methods (driving, walking, transit, or cycling), together with the estimated travel time for each one.

Choose your mode of transport, and Google Maps will calculate a route. When  turn-by-turn instructions show up on the screen, tap Show map underneath these steps to switch to the map view, then tap the menu icon (three lines) to go back. You’ll get a small vibration on your wrist when a turn is coming up, prompting you to look at your watch. With any luck, you’ll get to your destination without a hitch.

The post Stop using your phone for directions and use a smartwatch instead appeared first on Popular Science.

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In recent years, social media platforms haven’t shown a whole lot of respect for user privacy, and have constantly proven to be detrimental to our mental health and bring out the worst in people. This has led some to believe the age of social media is drawing to an end and if you’re one of them, you may be wondering how will you invest your newly available digital time. 

Private group chats in messaging apps have become a popular way to share photos and videos away from the glare of social media feeds. But if you still want some level of exposure, blogging is a way to get your thoughts, pictures, links, and other content out into the world. It goes back to an earlier, simpler time on the internet, and if that sounds appealing to you, this is how you post like in the good old days.

Gradually, social media platforms began to take over this same role, as they were easier to use, better suited for mobile apps, and easily connected users to hundreds or thousands of people, which meant that a person’s audience could get exponentially bigger pretty quickly.

[Related: 5 healthy and productive alternatives to doomscrolling]

But as all the connectivity and speed we associate with social networks starts to seem less appealing, blogging‘s slower, more structured and controlled approach has begun to look attractive again. The reduced exposure can be an asset, too—even if you choose to make your posts widely available online, the bigger attention span required to read a blog post will make it more likely to have a following that’s genuinely interested in your voice and not only reading for the sake of hating. 

Just as with social media, your Tumblr home page also has a timeline with a rolling feed of posts from other blogs you’re following on the platform. It also includes mechanisms you’re very much familiar with from social networks: On Tumblr you’re able to give likes, comment on other people’s posts, and even reblog them to your own page.

The platform balances all of the speed and convenience of these social features with the added extras of a blog, like your choice of layouts, your own personal URL, and the ability to tag your posts, for example. You can also manage multiple blogs from the same account, and make some of them password-protected if you don’t want the internet at large finding them or seeing what’s on them.

There’s a lot to explore on Tumblr, but you may be interested in the big art community that set up shop here, along with a lot of fandoms based around popular culture. Tumblr is free to use without any restrictions, but you can pay $5 a month to remove ads from your feed. 

There are thousands of templates for you to choose from, both paid and free, and when it comes to your blog’s structure, you can have static pages (like the classic ‘About me’) as well as chronological posts and even drop in features like web forms or polls. The posts themselves can include images, links, galleries, or straightforward text, and you also get control over other elements such as post comments.

But the social networking features are rather rudimentary. You can follow other blogs, and comment on and like posts, but it’s all a lot more basic and less intuitive than it is on something like Instagram or Twitter (or indeed Tumblr).

There are two ways to use WordPress. Without paying anything, you get your own URL on the WordPress.com domain, and you’ll see ads embedded in your posts and dashboard. If you pay a monthly fee (starting at $11), you get extras like your own domain name, no ads, video upload functionality, and the ability to earn revenue through your site.

The platform is a bit old-fashioned and staid, and you don’t get specific post types as you do on Tumblr or WordPress—everything is a standard post, but you can easily include images or links if you need them. On the flip side, Blogger is free, easy to use, and includes a lot of advanced features like traffic statistics and the option to make money from ads on your site.

The theme options are a little more limited than on Tumblr or WordPress, but if you want and know what you’re doing,  you can tweak the HTML and CSS that makes up your blog yourself. You can also organize posts with tags, and there are plenty of widgets to pick from—from those that will show off your most popular posts, to those able to provide a contact form. You can also enable multiple authors for your blog, so several people are allowed to post on the same page.

Blogger doesn’t really have any social media features. The closest you’ll find is the ability to enable comments on your posts and a simple reading list feature that lets you keep up with new content from other blogs on the platform. 

Everything that Blogger offers is free to use, but if you want to use your own domain (rather than one on blogger.com) you’ll have to pay a hosting provider for it. 

Creating posts on Medium is much easier than on WordPress and Blogger, and as soon as you try it, you’ll see that the emphasis is on minimalism and ease of use. You can quickly drop in videos and images and apply formatting with only a couple of clicks, but the platform keeps most of the screen blank to focus on the text you’re writing. 

[Related: 3 Twitter alternatives, in case you’re looking]

There are some social media features here, including the ability to follow other Medium blogs, and the option to add comments and ‘claps’ (likes) to posts. You don’t get any real theming options, and other than the header image and the color palette you choose, every Medium blog looks more or less the same. 

Something unique about Medium is that authors can lock access to any of their posts, which means they’ll only be available to users paying a monthly Medium subscription of $5, which also removes the ads from the interface. This model also allows writers to generate money for their posts if they get enough traffic.

The post The best social media alternative is old-school blogging appeared first on Popular Science.

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Many of us have come to rely on the Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Cmd+Z (macOS) undo shortcuts to get us out of trouble when a key tap accidentally wipes out three hours of writing or a misplaced click has suddenly turned a photo entirely green.

But if you need to retrace more of your steps over a longer period of time, you’ve also got options. This feature is technically known as file versioning, and it keeps old versions of files available should you ever want to go back to them. This can be particularly useful if, for example, you suddenly realize you’ve been inputting the wrong figures into a spreadsheet for the past week.

Some applications come with file versioning built in, so if you want to go back to a proto version of a document, you should start there. You’ll also find the feature in several cloud backup services, and there are integrated options you can turn to in Windows and macOS as well.

Most online apps automatically store different versions of a document in the cloud, so you’ll probably find file versioning there. In Google Docs, for example, go to File, Version history, and pick See version history to see older iterations of the open file. Click on any item to go back to it. If you know you’re about to make some significant changes, for example, you can also name a particular edition of a file to make it easier to get back to later.

[Related: Save space on your laptop and in the cloud by compressing files]

The same option is available in Microsoft Office applications. In the Windows editions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, click File, Info, and Version History to see the saved versions of your file: They’ll appear in a list on the right and you can pick any past iteration to go back to it. If you’re on macOS, click on the name of the file at the top of the window, then pick Browse Version History.

The Adobe Photoshop image editor has an extensive and well-known undo feature, but it also had file versioning built right into it. To get the relevant panel up on your screen, choose Window and then Version History. You’ll see a list of older versions of the image you’re currently working on, which you can jump back to with a click.

We’ve already mentioned how you can access versions from inside Google Docs, and it works the same for Sheets and Slides. To retrace your steps with other types of files on Google Drive, open up the web interface, right-click on a file, and then choose Manage versions to view a list.

The same functionality is built into Microsoft OneDrive. Open up the service’s web interface in your browser, click the three dots next to the file you want to work with, then choose Version history from the pop-up menu. Office files will open up in a new browser tab with the version list next to them. When it comes to other types of files, you’ll see a list of old versions of those on the right.

Then there’s Apple’s iCloud. Version histories aren’t available through the iCloud Drive interface on the web, so you’re unable to roll back files from there. Still, many native applications (including Pages and Numbers) use iCloud behind the scenes to store old versions of files, so if you’re using those programs, you’re better off checking their interface. 

But before your computer can start saving multiple versions of your files, you’ll also need to specify a second hard drive (either internal or external) to save those copies, which you can do via Select drive. Use Exclude folders to set up locations you don’t want File History to touch, and use Advanced settings to configure how often you want your computer to store file versions and for how long.

[Related: How to securely store and share sensitive files]

Even though macOS relies mostly on the built-in file versioning feature on their apps,  users also have an integrated backup solution that covers all files in a Mac computer.  It’s called Time Machine and you can get to it by opening the Apple menu, then choosing System Settings, General, and Time Machine.

As with File History on Windows, you’ll need a separate hard drive to store the copies of files, and in this case, it has to be an external storage device. You’ll be able to select this drive through the Time Machine settings, as well as exclude certain folders from the backup. You’ll also be able to set how often your computer automatically backs up your files, including any new versions.

The post How to recover old versions of files on programs like Excel and Photoshop appeared first on Popular Science.

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The simplicity and convenience of email have made message overload a real problem. Now, companies, friends, committees, colleagues, social networks, apps, organizations, relatives, spammers, and bots are bombarding our inboxes day and night, turning this once seemingly magical form of communication into a bloated mire of unimportant messages that we’ll never get around to reading.

But you can make things better by using whitelists. This feature has been present in most email clients for years and gives you more control over which messages actually get through to you. 

Rather than letting everything through and then trying to filter out the junk—the normal approach to email management—a whitelist is a more proactive alternative. You’ll be setting up a roster of contacts you’re actually happy to get messages from, and your email client will demote the rest from the get-go. It’s your inbox after all, and perhaps it’s time you get stricter in terms of what is allowed to access it.

[Related: The 5 best email apps to rescue your inbox]

For all those non-whitelisted emails, demotion will look different depending on the email app you use and how you set up your whitelists. Unless you’re very brave, you probably don’t want to dispatch everything that’s not on your whitelist straight to the trash folder. A more practical alternative is marking these messages as less important or moving them to a different folder for checking later, for example. Deprioritizing these emails will make them less distracting,  so you can focus on messages that actually require your attention instead.

Keep in mind that when using whitelists you’ll always risk missing something genuinely important from someone who isn’t on your roster. This is why it’s always a good idea to make a habit of checking your non-whitelisted messages occasionally. 

In Gmail on the web, click the search options icon (three sliders) to the right of the search box at the top of the screen, and enter the email address for the person you want to whitelist in the From field. Click Create filter and decide what whitelisting means in Gmail: You could automatically star whitelisted emails, use labels to mark them as important, or categorize them as priority emails, for example. And whatever you choose to do, don’t forget to select Never send it to Spam.

You can then use these labels to help you manage your email. You can set Gmail on the web to show starred messages first (click the cog icon in the top right corner, then Starred first); or you could set the Gmail mobile app to only send you a notification when a priority email comes in. You could even create a dedicated whitelist label and then use it to prioritize these messages on the web and on your phone.

[Related: Use email aliases to organize your inbox—and stay private]

The Microsoft Mail app that comes with Windows doesn’t have a whitelist feature, but Outlook on the web does. To use it, click the cog icon (top right), then pick View all Outlook settings, Email, Rules, and Add new rule. You can have Outlook pin emails from specific senders to the top of your inbox, mark them as important, categorize them, or add them to a specific folder.

In Apple Mail on macOS, you can start whitelisting by clicking Mail, Settings, and Rules. Select Add Rule, and create one for the contact you want to whitelist. In Apple Mail you can move these messages to a specific folder, apply a flag to them, or set them to be a specific color to help you manage them better. You can also make sure these emails play a sound or prompt a macOS notification when they arrive, so only the most important emails grab your attention.

The post Why you should use whitelists to manage your email appeared first on Popular Science.

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In theory, social media promises to connect you with the world. In practice, it compromises your personal privacy, puts you at risk of online abuse, and makes you angrier. 

If you’re irritated by Twitter or depressed by Facebook, you can avoid social media for limited periods of time. But when you’re ready to say goodbye for good, the next step will be to delete those apps from your phone and shut down your accounts entirely. Here’s how to do it, one network at a time.

Next, make sure you’re deleting your account for the right reasons. If you’re ready to bid farewell to the whirlwind of social media for the sake of time or mental health, that’s fine. But if you’re only closing your accounts so you can create a new one and get a fresh start, we recommend hitting pause. Your first step should be to check the do-over options some platforms offer. On Instagram, for instance, you can change your username without shutting down your existing account. Once you’ve exhausted your options, you can move on to deactivating or deleting your account.

To deactivate your account from a web browser, visit the site and click your profile picture in the top right corner of the screen. Choose Settings & privacy, then Settings, Privacy, and go to Your Facebook Information. From there, click Deactivation and deletion, select Deactivate account, and hit Continue to account deactivation. On the next screen, Facebook will prompt you for your password and ask you to give a reason for leaving, such as privacy concerns or wasted time. Make your choice and click Continue to finish up.

You can also deactivate your account through a mobile app. On iOS, open the app and hit the menu button (three lines) in the lower right corner. Then tap Settings & privacy, Settings, Personal and Account Information, Account Ownership and Control, and Deactivation and Deletion. Finish by tapping Deactivate Account and then Continue to account deactivation. On Android, you can follow the same process, but the menu button looks like three horizontal lines and you can reach Account Ownership and Control from the first submenu.

Deactivation is a good way to test the waters and see if you can live without Facebook. Give it a few months and see how you feel. When you’re ready to say goodbye to your account forever, delete it. To do so, follow the same steps for deactivation, but choose Delete account when given the option. As far as your friends are concerned, you will disappear immediately. However, Facebook will only erase of your data after 30 days, so you may change your mind within that timeframe. But once it’s done, there’s no going back.

To trash Twitter, you’ll need to visit this page in a web browser and click Deactivate your account. Read the information Twitter provides, then click Deactivate. You’ll receive a prompt to enter your password and confirm that yes, you really do want to deactivate your account.

Once you do so, the process of erasing your Twitter presence starts. As far as other users can see, your profile and tweets will vanish immediately. However, Twitter hangs on to your data for a grace period of 30 days (verified users get the option of a full 12 months) to make sure you don’t change your mind. During this time, you can still log back into the site, an act that will restore your profile and all of your tweets from the digital grave.

After that 30- or 365-day period ends, Twitter will officially delete your data and you will lose it forever. So if you repent and decide to return to Twitter, you’ll need to sign up for a brand-new account.

To deactivate online, go to the Instagram website. Log in, click your profile icon in the top right, choose Settings, and Edit Profile. Scroll all the way down and select Temporarily deactivate my account—you’ll notice this is not so much a button but a link to the right of the Submit button, so it’s easy to miss. Once you do that, you’ll have to decide on a reason why you no longer feel the Instagram love—options range from Just need a break to Too many ads. Finally, enter your account password and click Temporarily Deactivate Account.

Much like Facebook’s deactivation option, this choice will put your account on hold. As far as other users know, your Instagram page will be gone, but the social network will hang on to your photos, comments, and other data. Log into the site again, and it will instantly restore your account.

For a more permanent fix, you’ll need to go to the dedicated Delete Your Account page online. Log in, give a reason for your desertion, and enter your password. Finally, click Delete [username]. This will wipe all traces of your Instagram life from the network’s servers, including the likes and instant messages. But before this happens, you’ll have 30 days to change your mind. If you do, just log in again and everything will be right where you left it. But wait too long, and you’ll have to start from scratch. 

If you have an Android phone, you’ll have to go through all of these steps on the web, but if you have an iPhone, you can also find these options on the app. Tap your profile icon, then the menu button (three lines) Settings, Account, and Delete account. There, the app will ask if you want to disable your account instead of deleting it, but both options are available.

To proceed, you must first decide what you want to do. You can tap Deactivate account, which, as in other platforms, hits the pause button on your page. Your content will disappear and users won’t be able to find you through the search feature. Tap Delete account permanently instead, and TikTok will delete all of your account information after a 30-day period where you can change your mind and come back. If you truly want to call it quits, the app will ask why you are leaving, and—depending on the reason—offer a solution to try to retain you. For example, if you think you’re spending too much time on the platform, a message will appear offering you to set up a limit to your watch time.  

If you’re sure and just want to get out of there, tap Skip at the top right corner of your screen and bow out. You’ll still get 30 days before your account is completely gone, so if you change your mind before then, just log into the platform with your credentials and tap Cancel deactivation at the bottom of the screen. 

From this point on, your friends won’t be able to contact you on Snapchat, but as with Twitter, you’ll get a 30-day grace period before permanent deletion actually occurs. If you log back into the network before that time is up, your account will reappear and you can carry on as before with the same username and contact list.

After the 30 days pass, Snapchat will permanently erase your account. To come back from that, you’ll have to start adding friends and collecting Snaps all over again.

Keep in mind that if you requested your data from Snapchat and haven’t received it yet, you should wait until you hear back from them before terminating your account. Once you finish the process, all your ties with the platform will be cut, so when your data is ready, they won’t be able to notify you or send you a download link. 

If you decide to go through with deletion, the platform will immediately log you out of your account and other users will be unable to find your content and profile. BeReal gives you a 15-day period for you to change your mind. If you do, you can regain access to your account (and everything you’ve posted on it) just by signing in again with your credentials. But if you let that grace period go by, the platform will obliterate your data and your content will be lost forever. 

As on other platforms, BeReal will ask you why you’re leaving. You can make your choice or just tap Other, and finalize your decision by tapping Yes, I’m sure. The next screen will show you the date your account will be deleted if you don’t log back in, and then the app will automatically kick you out. 

The post Reset your digital life by deleting all your social media accounts appeared first on Popular Science.

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If you’ve got yourself a brand new PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, or Nintendo Switch, your first instinct will probably be to dive in right away and start gaming. And as much fun as that sounds, it’s worth pausing and spending some time tweaking the console’s settings first.

From making sure the graphics are optimized on your television screen, to reducing the amount of power your gaming machine draws, playing around with these settings can make a significant difference. Once you’ve configured them to your satisfaction, the gaming can begin.

Another feature we’d recommend turning on is the variable refresh rate or VRR. This feature pushes frame rates higher by allowing your hardware to change the game’s refresh rate on the fly, resulting in smoother gameplay and less stuttering on compatible games and screens. To set this up on the PS5, open Settings and head to Screen and Video, Video Output, and VRR. Only some titles, TVs, and monitors support VRR, so if you’re not sure if your setup is among them, search online for the make and model of your display to find out. 

To get a better idea of how much power your PS5 is using up, go to Settings and head to System, and then Power Saving. There are three options to configure here: How long the console should wait before going into rest mode, which features (such as internet access) remain accessible in rest mode, and how long the delay should be before the controllers automatically turn off. Each option affects how much energy the PS5 consumes.

It’s also a good idea to take some time to customize the setup of your controllers—you’re going to be spending a long time holding them, after all. From Settings, choose Accessories and Controller (General). As well as options for adjusting the intensity of vibrations and trigger effects, you can change the controller’s speaker volume and even remap certain buttons to suit your way of playing.

To customize the level of energy your Xbox needs through features like Remote Access and Sleep mode, go to Settings, pick General and then go to Power options. You can either pick one of the presets or choose Customize power options for more detailed control. Notice the bar on the right: it will keep updating to show you how much power your device will use while it’s off under the current settings.

You definitely don’t want to dive into gaming without customizing the screenshot options—otherwise, you might miss capturing a moment of glory. In Settings, you can pick Preferences then Capture & share to change which controller buttons do what in terms of screen capture, and set defaults for the video capture resolution and clip length.

It’s also a good idea to make sure that notifications from games and the Xbox system itself work just how you like them before you load up any games—you don’t want a pop-up appearing in the middle of the action. Choose Preferences and then Notifications from the Settings screen, to configure which type of events generate notifications, how long they show up for, and where on screen they appear.

You’ll also want to control when your Switch console goes to sleep, which you can configure through Settings by picking System Settings and then Sleep Mode. Here you’ll be able to set the amount of time your device should sit inactive before it starts to conserve energy. And if you’re using your Switch to watch a lot of videos, you might want to check the Suspend Auto-Sleep While Playing Media Content option so that the screen doesn’t suddenly go dark in the middle of viewing.

Finally, remember that Nintendo built the Switch to be social. Select your profile picture (top left) from the main home screen, and you’ll be able to add specific friends and see suggestions the Switch has for you. You should also pay attention to the User Settings option—here you can set which friends can see which bits of your activity on the device, as well as configure what you’re sharing to your social media accounts.

The post What to do with your brand new console before you start gaming appeared first on Popular Science.

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You pull out your phone to snap a spontaneous photo… but get an error message because you have no space for the pic. Running out of room on your phone can be a disaster, but it’s totally avoidable.

And listen: We’re not here to judge you for filling your phone—it could happen to any one of us. While the best way to free up space on your phone is to maintain your storage as you go, it’s relatively easy to clear out the junk when it’s past the point of no return.

Move your photos and videos to the cloud

Photos and videos can take up a huge chunk of the space on your device, so it’s a good idea to offload these files at the earliest opportunity. You can manually transfer them to a hard drive from an Apple or Android phone, but not everyone has the time or patience to do so. Don’t worry: There are plenty of apps that will get the job done for you. Just know that if you have gigabytes worth of images, you’ll probably have to pay a few dollars a month to store them on any cloud service.

One of the best options is Google Photos. It works across Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and the web, and it lets you store up to 15GB of photos and videos for free. But that’s only if your Google Drive and Gmail accounts are empty, as the space you use with Google Photos counts toward that storage.

[Related: Organize your catastrophic digital photo library]

In the past, Google Photos users had unlimited cloud space for their photos as long as they agreed to resize their images down to a maximum of 16 megapixels and movies to 1080p full HD (so no 4K). In 2020, Google announced the end of this sweet deal, which meant any new files would count against the 15GB of space the company grants to its free-tier users. 

The good news is that this change only applies to new photos and videos, so if you’ve been using Google Photos since before June 1, 2021, anything you stored in the cloud before then is living there for free. Nice.

If you want more space, you’ll have to pay for the Google One service, which starts at $20 a year for an additional 100GB.

Other paid options include Apple’s iCloud (which will not work on an Android phone), Microsoft’s OneDrive, Amazon Photos, and Dropbox. They’ll all hang onto your mobile pictures for a few dollars a month. The iCloud and Dropbox tiers are similar, at about $10 a month for 2TB of online space, but you’ll have to check the individual sites for more details. Amazon Photos is a bit of an outlier, as unlimited, full-resolution photo storage comes bundled with an Amazon Prime subscription ($139 a year or $15 a month). And if you’re looking at OneDrive, you won’t be able to get more than 100GB of space without subscribing to Microsoft 365 ($70 a year or $7 a month).

Whichever option you go for, your app of choice will automatically take care of uploading your photos and videos. You can then delete the local copies—some apps, like Google Photos and iCloud, will even take care of this for you—which will open up extra storage on your phone. For more details, check out our complete guide to cloud-based photo backups.

Cut down on apps and games

The next-biggest space hog, after photos and videos, will likely be your apps and games. To avoid completely running out of room, regularly remove apps you’ve not using. You can always re-install them without paying a second time—Apple or Google will keep track of what you’ve already paid for.

But not all apps are equally greedy, space-wise. To see which ones are taking up the most room, iOS users can go to Settings, then General, then iPhone Storage. On Android, open Settings, then Storage, then tap Free up space.

You can then delete the worst offenders. On iOS, press and hold on an app icon until a dialog box appears, then hit Remove App. On Android, press and hold on an icon in the app drawer, then drag it up to the Uninstall link at the top. On Google’s OS, you can also use the Free up space feature to remove apps you haven’t opened in a while. Just tap Select files under Delete unused apps, and choose the ones you can do without—the heftier tools will be at the top of the list.