Productivity & Shortcuts
How To: Add, Remove & Reorder the Share Sheet Options on Your iPhone
On iPhones, the share sheet is a powerful yet largely underestimated tool. For the uninitiated, the share sheet is the menu that opens whenever you tap the share button (the box with the up-arrow). This menu features sharing options to first and third-party apps, as well as extra functions like saving, copying, duplicating, and more. Best of all? It's surprisingly customizable.
How To: What's New in Shortcuts in iOS 13
When Apple acquired the popular Workflow app in 2017, many were worried that it would either get replaced with something much worse, or just disappear entirely. Thankfully, Apple put these concerns to rest with the launch of Shortcuts. In iOS 13, Shortcuts is becoming more powerful than ever, providing functionality on the iPhone that the original Workflow team could only dream of.
How To: Return to the Default Font in Mail Drafts After Using a Custom One
One of iOS 13's coolest features is the ability to download, install, and choose fonts in select apps like Pages and Mail. However, you might notice an issue when writing an email with a custom typeface: there's no option to return to the default font. What gives?
2019 Gift Guide: Keep Your Friends & Family Productive with These Essential Smartphone Gifts
Christmas is just one week before Jan. 1. That means a lot of New Year's resolutions filled with promises to better ourselves with increased productivity, focus, and work ethics — but getting started can be challenging. Give the people in your life a leg up this holiday season with these smartphone gifts to keep them on-task in 2020.
How To: Your Google Pixel Has a Document Scanner Built in — Here's How to Use It
Document scanning is possible via the Google Drive app, but my brain doesn't think of opening a cloud storage app to scan a document. I usually just open the camera app and take a picture instead — and apparently, I'm not the only one.
How To: Bulk Delete Messages Faster with This Hidden iOS 13 Gesture
On the surface, deleting conversations in Messages seems harder in iOS 13 after Apple removed the "Edit" button on the main page. Fortunately, they added a new gesture that lets you remove entire threads and individual messages with ease.
How To: Organize Emails Better with Your iPhone's Hidden Flag Colors
The latest update to Apple's Mail app introduces a suite of new colors for flags, unique amongst even the best email apps on the App Store. The problem is they're hard to find — if you try to flag an email the old fashioned way, it'll use the default orange color, with seemingly no way to change it. Of course, there is a way, it's just a little out of the way.
How To: The Fastest Way to Add Someone's LinkedIn Contact Info
When attending networking events, a LinkedIn exchange is a common occurrence. Equally common is the awkward fumbling dance with how to add each other. Fortunately, we have the solution: the ultimate way to add LinkedIn contacts.
How To: Your Galaxy Has a Hidden Document Scanner Built in — Here's How It Works
Android's de facto document scanner is Google Drive, but it's far from the most intuitive method. With One UI 2, your Samsung Galaxy device now has a document scanner built-in, with the ability to automatically detect documents like letters, business cards, and notes that you can scan with just a tap.
How To: Sign Up & Unsubscribe to Apple News' Hidden Daily Newsletter
While the App Store is filled with news aggregators, Apple News is a solid choice when it comes to keeping up with current events. Apple recently made it easier than ever to stay informed, thanks to a daily newsletter sent straight to your inbox. The problem? It's unclear how to sign up for this newsletter, and it's equally unclear how to unsubscribe.
How To: Open Previous Drafts Faster in Your iPhone's Mail App — From Any Mailbox or Folder
All of your partially written, unsent emails live in your "Drafts" folders, in limbo until the day they are sent off or deleted. In Apple's Mail for iPhone, you can access all drafts from all accounts in a combined "All Drafts" folder from the app's main Mailboxes list — but only if you added it manually. But there's an even better way to access all of your drafts in Apple Mail in iOS; it's just not obvious.
How To: Navigate to Home or Work in 1 Tap with Google Maps
Even if you're totally familiar with all the routes you can take to go home or work, you'll still want to use Google Maps to find the fastest route in current traffic conditions. If you're on Android, there's an extremely fast way to do this.
How To: Set Reminders to Alert You on a Particular Day & Time on iOS 13
The Reminders app has always lacked the oomf that would make a person switch from a powerful third-party task manager. But Reminders has received quite the makeover in iOS 13, including a revamped UI and several new features, such as timed reminder alerts, which make the app a worthy to-do list option for the iPhone.
How To: I Tried 5 Different Pomodoro Apps Over 5 Days — Here's Which Helped Me Get the Most Done
Procrastination is an ugly beast. At first, it seems so innocent to spend five minutes checking Reddit or Twitter. You'll get started on work right after. Next thing you know, it's 1 a.m. and that paper is due in seven hours. Before you start another YouTube video, know you don't have to be like Spongebob. You can be like me, taking control of your productivity with the right app.
How To: Change Slack's Default Browser to Chrome, Firefox, or Safari
Slack's in-app web browser works fine, but it just doesn't offer the functionality and features that a dedicated browser such as Chrome, Firefox or Safari can. Features like the ability to bookmark a page, search for specific text, or request the desktop site are missing. Luckily, Slack makes it easy to change your default browser.
How To: Send Higher Resolution Images on Slack for Mobile
By default, Slack optimizes the images you upload and send to other users in your workspace. Although optimization lowers the resolution of the image, it does send quicker, which is better if your internet service is poor. However, you may want to send the highest-resolution image possible, so how do you stop Slack from sending only optimized and lower-quality photos?
Keep Your Chats Private: How to Hide Images & GIFs on Slack for Mobile
Slack is meant for business, but it's inevitably used for personal reasons too, or even just to goof off with colleagues. However, you never know who's looking over your shoulder (nosy coworker? boss?), and you could get in trouble for something sent to you. That's why you might want to hide images and GIFs to help keep your conversations private.
How To: The 5 Best Phones for Staying Productive & Getting Things Done in 2019
For many of us, our work phone and our personal phone are one and the same. Just any old phone isn't going to cut it when you need to meet a deadline — a phone with built-in features that make it easier to get things done is almost a must.
How To: Apple Finally Fixed the Biggest Problem with the iPhone's Files App
The Files app was first introduced to the iPhone with the release of iOS 11. In the two years since its unveiling, we've enjoyed a more desktop-class experience since there's finally a decent file manager for mobile devices. That said, there was always one major issue with the Files app, an issue iOS 13 solves for good.
How To: Copy Text in a Second with This Hidden iPhone Gesture
Copying text is as much an iOS staple as anything else. From its inception in iPhone OS 3.0 (yes, the first two iPhones shipped without copy and paste) until iOS 12, the copy function has stayed exactly the same. While the option is still present in your iPhone's contextual menu, iOS 13 introduces a modern way to copy text using just a gesture.