💬 Office warfare: Google rolled out Gemini Enterprise, their Microsoft Copilot. For $21 to $30 a month, it connects with tools like Google Workspace, Salesforce and Microsoft 365, so your team can literally talk to your data. Think: instant answers from emails, docs or CRM info, no tab-hopping required. If you’re drowning in spreadsheets, this is worth a serious look.
Free cloud storage: What you really get and what to do when it runs out
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You set your phone to back up photos, turn on file sync, and next thing you know, you get a message: “Storage full.” Wait, what the heck happened?
Let’s clear up your cloud storage confusion.
🎁 What you get for free
- Google (Drive, Gmail, Photos) → 15 GB
Shared across your Gmail inbox, Drive files and Google Photos. That’s enough for a few thousand photos and emails. But once it’s full, Gmail might stop working.- To see how much space you are using, go to Google Drive > Storage.
- Price: 100 GB for $1.99/month or $19.99/year.
- Apple iCloud → 5 GB
Shared across your iPhone backups, photos, files, email and more. For most people, a single phone backup eats up 3–4 GB. Add a couple hundred photos, and boom, you’re over the limit.- Price: 50 GB for $0.99/month.
- To see how much space you are using, go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Storage.
- Amazon Photos → Unlimited full-resolution photo storage
But only if you’re a Prime member. Videos are limited to 5 GB unless you pay. If you have Prime, this hidden gem is worth using.
📸 How fast does it go?
I want you to have an idea of how much space your stuff takes.
- 1 minute of HD video = ~100 MB
- 1,000 photos = ~2–3 GB
- iPhone backup = 3–6 GB
- Gmail inbox = 1–10 GB over a few years
So if your monthly costs for iCloud or Google storage are higher than you want, get in there and start removing duplicates, screenshots, old backups and movies. I was guilty of having a bad Nicolas Cage movie in my backups so I could watch it offline. Why, I have no idea.
🧠 The smart approach
You want to sync what matters and vault the rest. Keep only the essentials on iCloud or Google so you stay under their free limits, or get on an affordable plan. This way, you can use iCloud or Google to sync your everyday stuff like contacts, calendars, emails and device backups.
I pay for iCloud+ and save money by using Apple’s Family Sharing plan, which lets me share cloud storage with up to five other people all without anyone losing privacy or access to their own data. It’s a smart way to avoid each person paying for separate plans, especially if you have lots of photos, videos or device backups.
Google offers a similar setup through Google One, which also allows family sharing for their cloud storage tiers. Both services make it easy to manage storage across multiple accounts, and the shared plans are typically more affordable than buying individual subscriptions.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Stop swiping all your open apps closed. Folks like to think that helps battery life, but it’s a myth. In fact, most apps are meant to keep running in the background.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Going overseas? Use WhatsApp or Signal for free messaging over Wi-Fi, and skip roaming fees entirely.
Help out remotely: Next time your mom or dad is stuck on a PC, avoid the phone call nightmare. Install Chrome Remote Desktop on both computers, sign in with Google and connect. You can see your parents’ screen, move the mouse, open files and run programs. All free, streamed online.
Organize Kindle books: Your Kindle doesn’t have to be chaos. Create Collections (mini folders) to keep your favorite reads together. In your Library, select the three-dot icon on a book, choose Add to/remove from Collection, hit (+), name it, tap Create and Save. Then repeat with other books to add them.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: If an app, service or your internet seems down, check Downdetector. Search the name to see current outages along with problems reported in the past few hours. And if there are none, reboot your device.
📖 Make your Kindle feel like a real book: Love this little change. Go to Settings > Screen and brightness > Show covers on lock screen.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Old Chrome extensions can slow things down. Click the three-dot icon (top right), go to Extensions > Manage Extensions, pick the ones you don’t need, and hit Remove.
📧 Search Gmail by date: Pull up emails from a specific time frame using the search bar. For example, type: after:2025/08/01 before:2025/10/01 to see emails from Aug. 1 through Sept. 30, 2025.
📚 Make Kindle pages cleaner: Ever notice a faint imprint of the last page after you turn? Fix it by forcing a full refresh each time. Go to All Settings > Home and Library > Reading Options > Page Refresh. FYI: It may nibble a bit more battery, but you’ll barely notice.
Chromebook slow? Press Search + Escape to open Task Manager to see apps and tabs eating up memory or CPU. Click one and hit End Process to close it. Next, in Chrome browser, tap the Extensions icon (top right) > Manage Extensions and Remove any you don’t use anymore.
📧 Split view in Gmail: Tired of bouncing between your inbox and an open email? You can split the screen so your inbox stays on one side while the message you’re reading shows on the other. Go to Settings, scroll down to Reading pane, and choose Right of inbox (side by side) or Below inbox (stacked). Wunderbar!
🔍 Make Chrome easier to read: If text feels too small, open the three-dot menu > Settings > Appearance. Under Font size, set it to Large, and under Page zoom, bump it up to 125% (or more). You can also use Customize fonts to choose a style that’s friendlier on your eyes.
📝 Take note: Looking for a free note-taking app that won’t smack you with ads or sell your data? Try Notesnook. You can jot things down, make to-do lists, attach files and organize with tags or pins. It also works offline, syncs later and runs cross-platform, so you can pick up anywhere. Nice one, right?
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Want page numbers in Google Docs? Go to Insert > Page elements > Page numbers and choose the position. Docs update them automatically.
📄 Type faster in Google Docs: Instead of retyping long phrases, create shortcuts that expand into full text. Go to Tools > Preferences > Substitutions and tick Automatic substitution. To add your own, type “YTV” under Replace and “YouTube video” under With, then hit OK. Next time you type YTV, it auto-changes to YouTube video. Nice.
⚙️ Reset your browser: If Chrome or Firefox is running slow, faulty settings or extensions may be the issue. In Chrome, go to Settings > Reset settings > Restore settings to their original defaults. On Firefox, open Menu > Help > More Troubleshooting Information, then click Refresh Firefox and confirm.
⚡️ 3-second tech genius: In Chrome, right-click any tab and select Duplicate. It opens the same page in a new tab. Handy when you want to compare two sections side by side.