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I will never fault someone for asking a tech question that feels “basic,” because we all had to get our start somewhere. Few of us popped out of the w

With COVID-19 continuing. to force many of us to work and socialize from home, most of the big camera brands have released official software that turn

A botched Adobe Lightroom app update on iOS accidentally deleted users’ photos and editing presets. Adobe responded to the widespread-bug reports and

Google Home version 2.27 adds a bunch of new features to the app, including new in-app controls for Nest home security products on iOS and Android and

You have an Android. Check. You have a computer. Check, check. You want to connect your Android to your computer to rip files off of it (or add files

Yes, we’re wading into these waters this week: The classic PC or Mac debate that spawned countless, hilarious ads from Apple and John Hodgman a decade

Have you ever been browsing an older website, only to find yourself face-to-face with a 404 error when you click on a link to a long-abandoned site? W

Teachers create the best hacks. Full stop. No argument. The clever ways they go about managing the number of kids they oversee—and getting around the

A recently discovered vulnerability with WhatsApp—and I use that term more loosely than usual, because this one doesn’t really seem like the app’s fau

With the November election fast approaching, you need to prepare how and when you will vote. The simplest way to be turned away from the polls is to h

How do you manage a multi-platform household? Not everyone is completely loyal to Apple, Google, Microsoft, or any other tech company. You might own a

Amazon recently updated Alexa with a new feature that lets users print to-do lists, recipes, and more, with a quick voice command. The AI assistant wi

With great power comes great responsibility. And I couldn’t emphasize that any more if I wanted to, because I am now going to give you a tool that you

I’m going to cheat a little bit for this week’s Tech 911 Q&A at Lifehacker. I didn’t get this question sent in via email, as is typical, but I was

If you’ve ever been curious about TikTok or WeChat, you only have a few more days to download them before the apps are removed from Apple’s App Store

If you have an iPhone, then you know the joys of iMessage. We love iMessage so much, we’ve covered how its features completely blow other messaging pl

Todoist is already great for managing projects and to-do lists, but the app’s newly launched “board view” turns those lists into customizable—and coll

There’s nothing I love more than troubleshooting an internet connection. It is also my great joy to point out the stupidity of the plans we pay monthl

Amazon managed to cram about a dozen product announcements into a 50-minute presentation Thursday, unveiling everything from new Alexa smart speakers,

I was really hoping Google’s newest integration for Google Maps would allow you to see COVID-19 cases popping up and spreading out on a giant map in t

Google Meet’s Android and iOS apps offer a streamlined version of the video chat service’s desktop interface. The basic controls are simple and should

Fall hardware announcement season continues. Google is on tap today; its fancy “Launch Night” event kicks off in just a few hours. As for what the com

Google’s “Launch Night In” gave us an overview of the company’s upcoming hardware releases, including two 5G Pixel phones, a new Nest Audio speaker, a

Apple loves their “Shot On iPhone” ad campaign, which makes gorgeous billboards out of photos seemingly shot with one of their regular phones. So why

Nintendo recently warned Switch owners that failing to charge their consoles regularly (in this case, at least every six months or so) could impact ba

Bluetooth is convenient AF when it works and annoying to troubleshoot when it doesn’t. Conceptually, it should just... always work. One device pairs w

I never gave much thought to the look of the various icons on my device—especially since I’m an iOS user, which means you’re generally stuck with what

Every time you take a photo with a digital camera or smartphone, your device adds extra information to the image file—metadata about the image that’s

Spotify rolled out its new “lyrics search” feature into all of its apps without fanfare, so you’re excused if you had no idea it even exists. (How man

We all have opinions and beliefs that others may find strange, but sometimes these ideas balloon into dangerous movements like QAnon.QAnon began in 20

Why bother with cables when you don’t have to? It’s 2020. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to wirelessly connect to all of our devices, whether

When I’m looking for somewhere new to go to secure any given service, I turn to Yelp. In addition to giving me a read on a business’ overall quality,

Amazon is changing its packaging to use less material, but it’s also adding quirky QR codes to its new boxes that let you scan and play with 3D models

Apple’s iMessage has long been the superior method for sending and receiving texts (only from iPhone to iPhone, of course). With the rollout of iOS 14

Here’s a pop quiz. You drop your phone. When you pick it up, you notice that you’ve shattered the screen. Do you:(a) Use unkind words to express your

With great work-from-home flexibility comes great responsibility. While your job is unlikely to get very upset if you take a moment to do your laundry

Has this ever happened to you: You unlock your phone and just wish that you could change the app icons and fonts into a matching, cutesy theme? Well t

I normally don’t like to wade into other peoples’ business, especially when it relates to their consumption of adult material on the web. As long as y

Learning to edit video and audio is tough, and complicated software interfaces don’t make things any easier. If that rings true for your editing exper

Every chat service should provide, at minimum, three things: a way to mute conversations so your chatty friends never bother you again, a way to leave

We’re all accustomed to taking screenshots on our Android phones, Apple devices, and computers, but you can also take screenshots on your smart TV or

YouTube’s app on Android and iOS is getting some big updates to its video controls, including new gestures and rearranged overlay menus with shortcuts

Halloween is my favorite holiday, but just like everything else in 2020, this year won’t be as festive for most of us. If you’re starved for some good

As many Lifehacker readers know by now, I love a good operating system beta. Risking life on the wild side in return for early access to new features

It’s Election Day, a day otherwise known as digital Hell. Your poor device will be under constant assault by every newsy app that can send a notificat

If you’re a responsible person, you either voted in advance or braved lines (and COVID) to vote today. And that’s it. If you’re not planning to partic

One of Zoom’s best features is finally available in Google Meet: Virtual backgrounds. For now, you’ll only get it if you’re using Google Meet via a de

Google is in the process of replacing the familiar icons for its many apps and web services with minimalist, multi-colored variants. While these new i

Even though none of us should be traveling right now, there are still plenty of people who want (or need) to get away from their home base. I start th

Black Friday seems to be creeping up earlier this year, and as always, a brand-new 4K television is probably going to sit at the top of many a shoppin

In the time it takes you to watch the video above, you will probably receive 3-5 spam calls. Or at least it feels like that.Robocalls are hard to bloc

Staring at our phones all night is the biggest obstacle getting in the way of a good night’s rest. However, there are many ways to mitigate the negati

The day has finally arrived. Google has flipped the switch on Google Photos from “free” to “paid.” Soon, you’re going to have to subscribe to a Google

Now that Google will soon start counting anything you’ve uploaded to Google Photos toward your storage limit—which tops out at 15GB for a free plan—it

A friend of mine recently asked if their plan to move from AT&T DSL to a cable internet provider was a good one. As one who made that same leap ma

Alexa’s Care Hub is now live, giving elderly and special-needs users better access to their family members and caregivers via Echo devices. With Care

The dreaded “Zoombombing” is a risk for all Zoom meetings, even private rooms secured with a passcode and data encryption. All it takes is for the inv

The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X might delivery better graphics and faster load times, but did you ever stop to think about how your next-gen gamin

I’m a bit forgetful, which is why I always use a password manager to remember all of my quirky and complex passwords for everything. Even then, I occa

iPhone owners with the new iOS 14 can now enjoy a customized home screen with widgets and downloadable templates. Android users may feel that they are

Google’s first smart speaker, the Google Home, debuted in 2016, and it’s taken four years for Google to add a single feature in its digital assistant

You should be using a password manager, because it’s one of the best things you can do to secure your digital life. With it, you’ll be able to create

Want custom backgrounds for your many WhatsApp conversations? That might sound like clutter, but adding wallpapers to your chats gives you a great vis

Several new features are showing up in the Google Maps app that could make finding stuff to do—and finding your way there—much easier. The biggest upd

A car is basically a gigantic computer with wheels—or, at least, that’s how I like to think of them. Which always ends up frustrating me, because I ha

Microsoft recently dropped a new collection of MS Paint-themed virtual backgrounds on the Xbox Gear store that you can use in Microsoft Teams, Skype,

If you’ve been trying to find one of this year’s hot holiday gift items, you’ve likely encountered the dreaded “sold out” pages involving dogs wearing

Starting June 1, 2021, all files your create or upload across Google’s services will using the same account eat up some of your allotted storage space

It seems like you just installed the latest OS version, and then they release a new one. With the update comes new designs, tools, and a nature-relate

People forget things. It happens. While I can’t say I’ve ever forgotten the password or PIN for my phone, I totally get how it’s possible. Maybe you s

Amazon Echo devices can now work as your personal translator thanks to Alexa’s new Live Translate mode. Like the translation functions available from

A friend of mine just had their Facebook account broken into the other day, and the attackers employed an ingenious trick to lock her out forevermore:

One of the most notable features of the iPhone 12 is the 5G speeds. However, many users may find that the constant turbo-boosted 5G is detrimental to

As much as you might hope your internet connection, games, and services will be there for you when you need them, guess what? Shit breaks. Facebook go

According to internal T-Mobile documents obtained and verified by Android Police, the company plans to drop mobile network support for 19 devices on J

Whether you’re lazy or in a panicked state because you need to make an Amazon return and you (or someone in your household) threw away your item’s pac

Venmo will soon roll out a new “Cash a Check” deposit feature for all iOS and Android devices. It will allow all Venmo users cash a check using their

The pandemic has been rough on everyone, especially when it comes to maintaining connection with the people we love. Luckily, technology allows us to

It’s probably the first thing you try when your computer is acting up: turn it off and back on again. But should you restart or shut down? Well that a

Microsoft’s Outlook and email apps on Windows, Mac, and the web are getting some big changes in the coming months as part of the company’s “One Outloo

Nvidia and AMD’s high-end graphics cards were already expensive in 2020 (if you could find them), but their prices are only going up. And we’re finall

It’s time to roll up the shirt-sleeves and dive back into my favorite topic: wireless networking. I realize we beat this drum a lot at Lifehacker, but

If, like me, you follow dozens of YouTube channels across a range of topics, you might find you occasionally miss an upload (or a few) as you’re bomba

If you want to contribute to the latest Bernie photo craze before the meme plays itself out—which will probably be sometime around the end of the week

Nobody likes a broken phone screen—especially when you need to access something on your device, but can’t see your display at all. It’s a frustrating

If you still have a Facebook account, then you automatically have a Messenger account. Whether you realize it or not, Messenger is one of the most pop

Otter.ai is a solid service that can magically turn your conversations into transcriptions—ones that typically require little editing after the fact.

Google is bringing back “offline mode” to its web-based version of Google Calendar—at least, for Workspace users. Most of you shouldn’t need this, ass

You can finally drag-and-drop email attachments from Outlook into Microsoft Teams. Sure, it took nearly five years for the feature to show up, but it’

Amazon’s digital assistant can now control some of your smart devices for you—without any prompting needed. But before you start dreaming about a day

If you’re thinking of ditching WhatsApp—for any reason—one of the sticking points might be the difficulty of moving your conversations from WhatsApp t

I never thought I’d hear the phrase “Windows 7" ever again, but a Lifehacker reader recently reminded me that, yes, some people are still using Micros

Google has added a helpful “About this result” menu for its search results. The new menu includes contextual information that you can use to check if

Even though we’ve all had several months of practice working from home, some people still fiddle with their volume, lighting, and other technical sett

Replacing an ancient mechanical drive with a super-speedy solid-state drive is one of the best upgrades you can make to a desktop or laptop computer.

If you use WhatsApp, the incredibly popular messaging app owned by Facebook, chances are you’ve encountered the news surrounding their ever-changing p

Asking your friends, colleagues, and loved ones for feedback is hard. Feedback itself can be scary—it’s generally difficult to hear honest, candid cri

You know you’re stuck in the never-ending loop of pandemic life when you can no longer muster the enthusiasm to change your silly virtual Zoom backgro

You would think, given its recent $6 billion valuation, Reddit would have the confidence to get rid of the pop-up the site serves up whenever you try

By now you’ve probably seen that viral video of the lawyer who accidentally turned himself into a cat during an important Zoom hearing. If you’re look

Microsoft’s Word app has a dark mode that you can use right now, but it’s not as dark as you might prefer it if you’re the kind of person who likes wo

I’ve been a mouse guy for as long as I can remember—never wavering. However, what if you want to ditch your mouse entirely? That’s the question put fo

Whether you’ve just unboxed a brand new PC or updated your software recently, when you start up your computer with Windows 10 for the first time, ther

There’s a relatively unknown feature on Xbox Series XS controllers that makes using it with multiple devices much easier: The controller’s “Sync” butt

You do everything right, yet disaster still strikes. Such is the world of troubleshooting a fussy PC, like when a prompt suggests that it’s fixing you

Samsung recently announced a pair of tiny, battery-powered dongles called SmartTags that will help you keep track of your important items.These key-fo

Google is adding a built-in screen recording feature for all Chromebooks in the coming weeks. The new tool lets users capture video of their device’s

There are times when your Windows PC seems to have a mind of its own—launching programs, windows, browser tabs, or whatever else without your direct i

When Apple announced the launch of their pricey AirPods Max, they highlighted a new, unheard of feature: something they called “Spatial Audio”. Grante

Zoom is bringing its Live Transcription feature to free users. Paid users have had access to the service for a while, but free users will soon also ha

Google Photos is going away soon—or at least, the useful free service we used to store years’ worth of photographs is finally getting hit with a stora

People search websites are convenient for finding nearly anyone’s personal information—but not so much if you don’t want your own information, includi

No need to say “quit Facebook” in the comments on this one. For those sticking around on the social service—and there are many of you, it seems, consi

Samsung announced recently that users of its flagship phone, the Galaxy S21 Ultra, will get to add a stylus. Galaxy fans rejoiced at the thought of us

Say you’re holding a virtual class in Google Meet and you want to let your students split off into discussion groups to go over the lesson so far—Goog

It’s more than likely you’ll live happily with your Google account until such time as Jeeves comes back from the dead to reassert dominance in the sea

Sometimes I take on some pretty intense questions for Lifehacker’s weekly Tech 911 Q&A column—hacking this, security that, why-is-there-porn-on-my

Aira is a service that allows blind and low-vision people to receive audio descriptions of their surroundings from a live operator. It’s like a FaceTi

Chrome OS 89 is rolling out now, adding tons of features for Chromebooks and tablets that run on Google’s operating system. You’ll probably notice the

“Zoom” may have overtaken “Skype” as the preferred shorthand for making video calls, but Microsoft’s chat service hasn’t gone anywhere. The newest Sky

While plenty of services have user interfaces that are designed to be easy to use—enough that even a technophobe could figure them out—there’s always

Even those who had a relatively healthy relationship with technology prior to the pandemic may now find themselves in a different position—one where t

Slack has launched a new direct-messaging feature that allows people from different companies to talk to one another. No problems there, right? The se

Why do cats meow? Why do birds fly? Why do hackers break into your account? It’s their nature. Or it’s a hobby. Or they’re just jerks who really want

It seems like everyone is making money off of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, those digital artworks that have been labeled the next investment mania. E

Google recently showed off a slate of new Google Maps features Android and iOS users are getting this year. The first is indoor AR directions for Map’

Whether you’re looking to make a larger investment or you just want to dabble in cryptocurrencies, you can purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, a

Lifehacker’s Tech 911 column has a simple purpose: to answer your tech questions no matter big, small, or chaotic they might be. If you’ll permit me a

Google Chats is officially replacing Hangouts in Gmail. Gmail’s Chat integration first launched for Google Workspace and enterprise Google accounts la

Gazelle used to be a household name for phone trade-ins, but then a lot of companies sprang up to nibble at the service’s lunch. Between that and the

Wireless networking is one of life’s great mysteries. You’ve probably run into plenty of frustrating questions with your own setup: Why are my downloa

If you have one of three different models of an Ellipsis Jetpack hotspot—the same Jetpack hotspot you would have purchased from Verizon to give nearby

Thanks to Clubhouse, and every service now making a clone/competitor to Clubhouse, it might feel a little lonely to be a person who isn’t allowed to h

Taking a screenshot may seem simple enough, but odds are there’s an even easier way to capture what’s on your screen. I say this as someone who has ha

Hi! I’ve been writing Lifehacker’s esteemed Tech 911 advice column for three years and running, with a new installment arriving every Friday at 9 a.m.

Welcome back to another week of Lifehacker’s tech-advice column, Tech 911. And thanks to everyone who sent in their questions from last week’s prompt.

It goes without saying that we’re tired of seeing our coworkers’ faces in small boxes on Zoom—and maybe we’re even looking forward to being in the sam

Every Windows PC can benefit from a spring cleaning. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be spring. If you can’t remember the last time you saved all your c

Apple is all about the three Ss these days: subscriptions, services, and saturation (for its new iMacs, at least). And while you can hardly blame the

Say it ain’t so, Calibri. I’ve always favored Microsoft’s default Word font—much more so than Times New Roman, at least, which Microsoft replaced with

I can’t resist a good wireless mystery, and this week’s question-writer for Lifehacker’s Tech 911 has a good one—an issue that you don’t even think ab

You can now use Google Assistant’s Family Broadcast feature to send messages to Android devices and iPhones using the Google Assistant app. Your famil

Aukey makes good chargers, or so the many reviews and roundups of them lead me to believe. However, if you’ve been Amazon shopping lately, you might b

Amazon recently announced new versions of its Echo Show 5 and Echo Show 8 smart displays. Each of the model refreshes includes an upgraded camera and

Encryption is a wonderful thing. While I don’t run full-drive encryption on my Windows desktop at home—courtesy of BitLocker—that’s only because I’m t

By now we all know the importance of a long, secure password. With every new data breach in the news, we know we should change them. And if you can re

It sounds like a headline ripped from an ‘80s cyberpunk novel, but the U.S. is facing a sudden gas shortage after a ransomware attack against Colonial

I tuned in to Google I/O this year with privacy on the brain. Chalk it up to the recent drama of Facebook-exec-turned-Apple-employee-turned-unemployed

I love fussing with wifi, but when I’m building the backbone of my network in a new location—a house, apartment, or wherever—I tend to go wired as muc

Entering virtual reality is fun, but it can also be productive: Lately, I’ve found it a fairly decent way to get in a quick workout. However, strappin

There’s an obvious appeal to off-the-shelf, “install this to fix everything!” software suites. Or, they sound great on paper, anyway: Dump an app (or

Remember HDTV? Full 1080p? Well those days are long gone, baby! Now 4k is the minimum acceptable definition you want to watch anything. Otherwise, wha

Unless you’ve been avoiding the news completely in recent months, you’ve probably heard about the wild ride that is the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin

We’ve covered why you may want to get a third-party password managing app to handle all your passwords; however, if you don’t want to deal with an out

Ever sign up for a free trial of an app because you’re curious about what it’s like, but you really don’t want to be locked in to paying for it? If yo

A solid-state drive is one of the best upgrades you can make to your desktop computer. And it’s not very hard to set up: Physically install it, connec

If you’re an iOS user, you no longer have to go through the tedious process of taking a screenshot of a tweet in your Twitter app, switching over to I

While I appreciate everything a smart speaker assistant can help me with, I don’t want to get caught in long conversations with Alexa. I certainly don

If, for some reason, you have taken photos on your phone that you don’t want just anyone to see, you may want to use some sort of privacy feature. Whi

When you’re taking a course on YouTube or watching a recipe video, there’ll be times when you’ll want to save the spoken content in text so that you c

The “continue watching” section is the first thing you see when you open your favorite streaming service, and it often has a helpful list of series th

Though it feels like we’ve been Zooming and FaceTiming and using Google Hangouts for an eternity, most of us have still not figured out how to look go

Custom Routines are one of the handiest features of the Amazon Echo—you can use them to launch a cascade of home automation actions before bed or play

Listen, we’ve all spent way too much time on video calls in the last year-plus, but we’re hanging on to whatever we can to make our time on Zoom (or T

It’s easy to get lost in a sea of open tabs between multiple browser windows—sometimes even with the same website in multiple tabs. Instead, use the b

Just because someone is getting up there in years, that doesn’t mean the should internet-connected world need leave them behind. Yes, even the silver-

After Office and Xbox, Microsoft went ahead and put Windows in the cloud. With the Windows 365 service, businesses will be able to stream Windows devi

There was a time long past when cellphone cameras were hot garbage. These days, however, smartphones shoot incredible video. Hollywood has even made a

The iPad is one of—if not the—best tablets on the market, but it’s also expensive. While the base model iPad is more budget-friendly, it’s a steep cli

If your Google Drive is constantly, inexplicably overflowing, you maybe be among those users may be losing out on their storage space due to a glut of

We all hopped on the group video game train early in our transition to remote-work life—and while Jackbox parties are a pretty poor replacement for “s

Making iPhones and Android devices work together isn’t quite the challenge it used to be, but it can still be frustrating. Apple’s ecosystem is locked

When you install a beta on your device, you’re gaining access to new features and changes before almost everyone else on the platform. Apple, Google,

Sometimes large Zoom calls can get a bit rowdy, especially when children are involved. But Zoom realizes this and, in response, has launched a new “Fo

The workflow between iPhones and Macs is pretty seamless (especially thanks to features like Handoff), and the same can be said for using an Android a

The iCloud app for Windows lets you access your iCloud photos, mail, calendar, and more on your Windows PC, but one thing that’s been missing is iClou

You can now demo Windows 11 from your internet browser, thanks to a new webpage created by a resourceful developer known as “Blue Edge.” The webpage l

One of the great things about iCloud is that you can store lots of pictures. One of the bad things about iCloud is that you can store lots of pictures

As we near ever closer to iOS 15’s fall 2021 release, more and more features are being added to the beta builds. One of the latest additions is a new,

An inconvenient side effect of a power outage, especially one that extends for days at a time, is the inability to charge your devices—especially thos

When you live with someone, you share your stuff. You both use the smart speaker to listen to music around the house, and you both use the smart light

It’s pretty unlikely that the noise level in your home is consistent. At any given time, there’s a mix of people talking and appliances running and so

I recently got a notification that my Gmail account was 90% full. I thought that was impossible since Gmail must have unlimited space. Then I remember

How many times has this happened to you? You’re on a Zoom call and launch into a fantastic speech, only to look upon a sea of confused, concerned, and

Unless your social media accounts are locked down with the highest levels of privacy settings, you probably have some followers you wish couldn’t see

Email phishing scams are in no way new, but with people living so much of their lives online during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, there are increased

If you find that your home internet is constantly going down, or if you often find yourself in an environment without reliable wifi, you may be tempte

Apple devices tend to retain their value, even after a brand new model is announced. So if you want to resell an iPhone or iPad, or trade in your olde

Putting your phone out of reach or, heaven forbid, turning it off entirely, can be an unreasonable option for minimizing screen time. What if there’s

If you’re trying to reach new Instagram followers, hashtags are still one of your top tools in 2021. But where should your hashtags go? For years, the

You can take a Live Photo and give it a boomerang effect using the Photos app. But if you wanted to take a real Boomerang, you always had to use the I

Our laptop and phone chargers go through a lot. Some cords tear and fray so easily, it’s almost as if they’re designed to break so you need to replace

If you have an iPad, you’ll probably want to add the pencil accessory to make drawing, writing, and multi-tasking a whole lot easier. Whether you have

With every new data breach or controversy that comes out of the Facebook corporation, you may consider anew simply deleting your account and all your

It’s painful to snap what seems like a fantastic photo, only to find an unwanted intruder in the frame. Maybe you didn’t realize you had a huge coffee

As my family’s in-house tech support center, I know that it’s easy for certain family members to get overwhelmed when their electronics aren’t doing w

You might not think about what you plug your phone, tablet, or laptop into as much as you do finding something to give it power. After all, once your

As cool and convenient as wireless charging can be, boy is it slow. We’ve talked about how inefficient wireless charging is, especially compared to tr

You usually want a response when asking your Google Home device a question. When you issue a command, however—say, telling your Google Assistant to tu

Many modern operating systems and apps include settings that make them more accessible to users who are colorblind (or color deficient)—here’s how you

Whether you changed internet service providers (ISPs) or need to upgrade your password, switching your wifi comes with some challenges. Manually conne