In theory, our smartphones are incredible resources that should help us reach our full potential. Just look at all of the productivity apps: built-in timers, calendars and contact books promise to help us stay on top of our work. In reality, though, many of us don’t keep our digital lives very tidy.
Before you know it, you type a name in to start a new text message or send an email, and you’re met with a ton of results — and the person you actually want to contact is way down at the bottom.
Here’s a fast, simple way to clean up your Google contacts. If you’re a Gmail user, don’t miss this.
If your smartphone is more cluttered than a pack of sardines, you should cast a wary eye toward your Contacts app. Over time, we tend to accumulate many names, phone numbers and email addresses we don’t even need.
(Sure, you want to keep in contact with people just in case — but remember that the human brain can only keep track of so many relationships. So if you have 500 contacts, we recommend clearing out the data for people you no longer call. If there are any names you flat-out don’t recognize, use those as your starting point.)
SPEAKING OF WHICH…Gmail storage suddenly full? This could be the reason why
Aside from that, we’re willing to bet your Google Contacts app is stuffed to the gills with duplicates. Maybe you even have multiple entries for the same person. That’s why we recommend tackling the issue of duplicates: Not only is it incredibly easy to do, but you get a lot of good work done in a snap.
Basically, it’s a great first step for cleaning up your address book.
First, you can check out a free app like Smart Merge Pro, which searches your contact book for duplicates. It merges those unnecessary entries. (Make sure you backup your contacts — just to be safe.)
Don’t want to download any software? Just head to Google Contacts. The page looks something like this:
When it comes to apps, there’s plenty to choose from. Whether you’re using an Android device or an iOS phone or tablet, you have options for productivity apps, entertainment apps, sleep apps or even meditation apps.
Not all are destined to stay in the app stores for long, though. Both Google and Apple are known to remove apps that are problematic or violate their terms of service. Both Apple and Google pulled the social media app Parler recently, too.
💻 Microsoft Office 2024 is here: Expect new features like adding live camera feeds to PowerPoint slides and pasting images into Excel without messing up the formatting. Prefer to pay once, like in the old days? For one device, Office Home 2024 costs $149.99, and Office Home & Business is $249.99. FWIW, Microsoft 365 is $69.99 per year with regular updates.
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There are so many apps out there that it’s hard to know which ones you need and which ones you should avoid. That’s true not only for games or entertainment apps, but productivity apps are just as abundant.
You probably have tons of unused apps on your phone right now. Apps that looked promising but ended up being useless, expensive or security issues. You might even have some dangerous apps on your phone that need to be deleted right now.
