It's all too easy for your Mac desktop to get cluttered up with open apps and scattered windows—and there's a built-in solution for giving you more room to work in, besides investing in an extra monitor. The feature is called "multiple spaces" (or virtual desktops, in old computer speak), the equivalent of multiple desktops on Windows.

The idea is you get a series of virtual copies of your main desktop, which can then be used to organize your various apps on. You might have different desktops for different areas of work, for instance, or maybe have one desktop for productivity (Google Docs and Slack) and one desktop for leisure time (Netflix and Instagram).

It's up to you how you make use of them—part of the appeal is their flexibility—but you should certainly be aware of multiple spaces and their potential.

Setting up your first space

Mission Control gives you an overview of your programs. Credit: Lifehacker

To start working with multiple spaces, you need to launch Mission Control, the macOS interface for showing all of your open application windows. You can either tap the dedicated Mission Control button (showing three rectangles, above F3), press Ctrl+Up arrow, or swipe up with three fingers on the trackpad.

Once you're in Mission Control, you'll see all of your desktops at the top—though to begin with, there will just be the one Desktop heading. Click the + (plus) button in the top right corner to create a new desktop space, which will be added to the thumbnails at the top. Click on any of the desktop thumbnails to jump to that space.

You'll notice that every desktop has the same dock and the same desktop icons, though you can have different programs on each desktop. For apps that allow multiple instances—such as your web browser, or Finder—you can run different instances on different desktops. You could have social media websites on one desktop and work sites like Slack and Google Docs open on another, for example.

Other apps, such as Photoshop, can only run once and on one desktop. If you attempt to launch apps like this a second time, you'll be taken back to the desktop where they're currently running. You can move apps between spaces by dragging them to the edges of the screen, or by dragging then around in Mission Control.

If you want to, you can specify which desktop a particular app should open up in, by default: Open the program, Ctrl+click on its icon in the dock, then choose from the options listed. You can specify a particular screen for an application to open up in as well, if you have more than one display on your Mac.

Managing multiple spaces

Mission Control options in System Settings. Credit: Lifehacker

Head to Mission Control whenever you want to jump between spaces. As well as navigating via Mission Control, you can also hold down the Ctrl key and tap on the Left or Right arrow to go left and right between your spaces. Swiping left or right with three fingers on the trackpad does the same job.

You can't rename desktops to make them easier to identify, but you can set separate backgrounds for each one, which helps when cycling through the various thumbnails. You can set a backdrop on any desktop in the normal way: Right-click on a blank area of the desktop, and choose Change Wallpaper from the menu.

To close down a desktop, right-click on its thumbnail in Mission Control, then click on the X icon that appears next to it. Any open apps on the desktop space won't be closed down, so you're not going to lose any work—instead they get shifted over to the primary desktop where you can find them again.

There are various options for multiple spaces, which you can find in the Mission Control section under Desktop & Dock in System Settings on the Apple menu. The toggle switches control whether macOS reorders your spaces based on how you use them, uses separate spaces for separate displays (if you have more than one connected), and groups windows for the same application together on the same space.

We recently featured the Spaceman utility as well, which adds a useful bit of extra functionality to multiple spaces in macOS: It means you can see right on the menu bar which desktop space you're currently in, and even label them with different names. The program is open source and free to use.

Some people have two (or even three?) monitors hooked up to their Windows PC to give them extra room for all the computing they need to do. But even if you're using a single display, there's a way to expand the space you've got to work with: Virtual desktops.

Virtual desktops—or multiple desktops, as they're now officially called—are basically copies of your main desktop you can jump to with a click or a keyboard shortcut, each with its own separate set of open windows and apps. They can be really helpful when you've got a lot of different tasks underway at once.

For example, you could have one desktop for your 9-5 job, and another to use for gaming and social media when lunchtime rolls around. Or, you can have one work project set up on the first desktop, and another project set up on the second.

Multiple desktops are very flexible, and straightforward to use. Here's how to get started.

Setting up your first virtual desktop in Windows 11

Virtual desktops let you put your apps in different silos. Credit: Lifehacker

You can bring up the multiple desktops interface by pressing Windows+Tab, or by clicking the Task View button on the taskbar—it looks like a white square on top of a black one. If the Task View button isn't visible, right-click on the taskbar, choose Taskbar settings, then enable the button.

Once you're in the Task View screen, you'll see your open desktops at the bottom. Click New desktop to create a new one to the right of the existing ones—there doesn't appear to be any limit on the number of desktops you can make, though realistically, you won't need more than a handful.

You can then click on any desktop thumbnail to jump to that desktop. Note that the desktop icon shortcuts and the pinned taskbar icons remain the same across multiple desktops. What does change are the open windows and the open apps: If you want to use Edge on two desktops, for example, you'll need to launch it separately on each one.

When it comes to multiple instances of programs and app syncing, each instance runs independently. If you launch Chrome on two separate desktops, Chrome will see it as two separate computers—your browsing data will still be synced if you've got sync turned on, but you can't jump between all of your tabs like you can when you've got two windows open on the same desktop.

Some apps don't support two separate instances, while others do: You can open as many File Explorer and web browser windows as you like, for example, but Photoshop will limit you to one. If you can only run one instance of an application in Windows generally, you can only have it open on one of your virtual desktops.

How to manage your virtual desktops

Right-click on a desktop thumbnail for more options. Credit: Lifehacker

Any time you need to get at your virtual desktops, use the same Windows+Tab keyboard shortcut, or the Task View button on the taskbar, as described above. You can also hold down Windows+Ctrl and tap the left or right arrow to scroll through your virtual desktops. Windows+Ctrl+D creates a new virtual desktop, and jumps straight to it.

To help you better distinguish between your desktops on the Task View screen, you can set a different wallpaper for each one: Just jump into a desktop, right-click on the desktop itself, then choose Personalization. You can also rename desktops by clicking on the name above the thumbnail and typing in something else.

Right-click on a desktop thumbnail in Task View to get at more options. From the menu that pops up you're able to move desktops to the left or right in the overall order, as well as access the options we've already mentioned: Renaming desktops and changing the background. You can pick Close desktop to shut down the desktop and all the apps on it (you can also click the X above any desktop thumbnail to do this).

When you close down a desktop, all of the apps you had open on it will shift to the next desktop to the left—so you're not in any danger of accidentally losing work while you're closing down your desktops. If you close down all of your desktops except the first one, all of your open apps will pile up on it.

You can use virtual desktops with multiple monitors, but you can't have different desktops on different screens: When you change to a different virtual desktop, that desktop fills up all of your displays, so you're free to organize the open windows you've got as you see fit (as would be the case if you're just working with one desktop).

With Samsung set to unveil its next foldable flagship phones on July 10 (here's a quick refresher on what was launched last year), it feels like an appropriate time to reassess the appeal of phones that bend in half. They typically cost more than standard flagships, but do they offer enough to justify that extra cost?

The answer can be yes—but not for everyone. Before you decide to put down a significant amount of money for a foldable phone, you need to be sure you're going to get enough out of it. What follows are use cases where a foldable phone really can make a difference, and if they make sense to you, a folding phone could be your next upgrade.

This list focuses mainly on book-style foldables—the likes of the Galaxy Z Fold 5, the Google Pixel Fold, and the OnePlus Open—but there is a mention of flip foldables, such as the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the Motorola Razr, at the end.

Improved multitasking

This is one of the more obvious ones: With a screen double the size of a typical phone display, you can very easily get one app up alongside another. Whether that's actually useful depends on the specific apps you're going to be spending most of your time in—you don't get a whole lot of room on each side, so it can feel a bit cramped at times.

Get apps alongside each other. Credit: Lifehacker

Bear in mind you can split the screen vertically as well as horizontally. It's great for watching videos while checking your email, or looking up articles on the web while also making notes, or keeping an eye on social media while you also update your calendar. Over time, you'll most likely come up with useful split-screen combinations of your own.

Watching videos

A foldable phone gives you a screen that approaches mini-tablet size when open, and that means videos play at a significantly larger size. There can be some heavy letterboxing, but the extra screen space top and bottom can come in handy too—it means you can watch YouTube clips while also flicking through the comments below the clip, for instance.

Watch videos with the comments. Credit: Lifehacker

The previous tip mentioned watching videos in split-screen mode, and if you use your phone half-folded, it means you've got a video screen propped up for easy viewing (like having a kickstand on your phone, without the kickstand). The lower half of the screen can be repurposed for displaying comments or playback controls for what you're watching.

Playing games

Another scenario where all that extra screen space can come in handy is with games. Most Android titles will happily expand to fill the extra space without any problem, and that means you can see more of the game setting: racetrack, space station, dungeon, or whatever it is. It's great for everything from basic puzzle games to open-world adventures.

Look at all that screen space... Credit: Lifehacker

The controls can often be easier to use as well, though this can vary from game to game. Remember that with a foldable phone, you're holding it with two hands when it's open—so you've got thumbs on either side, ready to take action. And if you want the traditional experience for any of your games, you can always close up the phone.

Faster typing

Most of us spend a lot of time typing on our phones, and it's a significantly different experience on a foldable phone—and one that's improved, in a lot of ways. You've got more space for the keyboard on screen, and you've got two hands to type with, so a lot of the time your typing speed is going to go up (though it does take some getting used to).

A bigger screen can make you more productive. Credit: Lifehacker

If you need to do a lot of writing on your phone, a foldable can mean you're significantly more productive. Emails, documents, comments, texts—whatever it is, you can get through them more quickly with a foldable. Keyboard options, including autocorrect choices and the phone clipboard, are also easier to access when the phone is unfolded.

Compact form factor

Flip phones (like the Z Flip 5) go in the opposite direction to book-style foldable phones (like the Z Fold 5)—they're the size of a normal phone when they're unfolded, rather than when they're folded. That makes them easier to carry around, and perfect if you're low on space in your pocket, bag, desk drawer, or wherever you usually keep your handset.

A flip foldable might work better for you. Credit: Samsung

These flip phones are still pretty usable when they're folded down to half the size, too. Recent models have decent-sized cover screens, so you can check incoming messages, control media playback, snap photos, set timers, check the weather, and more. You get a lot of functionality from a screen around half the size of a standard phone display.

You don't have to look far to find digital subscriptions for just about anything now: From AI chatbots to photo editors, from cloud storage to music streaming, most of us are paying multiple monthly subs to access our content and tools. What's more, the prices on these products, especially the streaming services, are only going in one direction.

Over time it can be difficult to remember just how many price rises there have been, and you can easily find yourself with a significantly bigger monthly bill because of them. Here then, in cold black and white, are all the video streaming service price hikes we've seen over the last 18 months—since January 2023.

Tracking these price rises isn't an exact science, as sometimes the service you're getting changes together with the price—you might get a broader selection of movies, for example, or access to an extra bundled service—but these are the changes in the monthly prices over time. Head to the end to see what the overall shift has been.

All the numbers mentioned are monthly payments, though some of these services offer discounts for paying full years in advance. The monthly price rises are often, but not always, matched in what you'll pay for a year in advance.

Netflix

The only Netflix price hike of this period came in October 2023, when the cheapest ad-free Basic plan went up $2, from $9.99 to $11.99, and the most expensive Premium plan went up $3, from $19.99 to $22.99. There have been rumors that we're going to see further increases sometime in 2024, but nothing is official yet.

Disney+

Like Netflix, Disney+ raised its prices in October 2023, with the standard ad-free plan going up from $10.99 to $13.99, a jump of $3. That's the only price rise we've had in the U.S. over the last 18 months, and while further price rises before the end of the year are always possible, we haven't heard anything about them.

Hulu

Disney also owns Hulu, and at the same time as the 2023 Disney+ increases, there were ones for standalone Hulu subscriptions as well: The ad-free plan went up by $3, from $14.99 to $17.99 a month. The Hulu + Live TV packages both went up by $7 as well, to $76.99 a month with ads and $89.99 without.

Hulu's last price jump was in 2023. Credit: Hulu

Max (HBO Max)

In February 2023, Max saw its first ever price hike, with the standard ad-free package getting a $1 bump to go from $14.99 to $15.99 a month. Further price hikes then followed in June 2024, with the standard ad-free and ultimate 4K ad-free options both going up by $1 a month, to $16.99 and $20.99 respectively.

Paramount+

Last year, monthly prices for Paramount+ went up from $4.99 to $5.99 for the Essential tier, and from $9.99 to $11.99 for the ad-free plan with Showtime. In August 2024, the price goes up again: $7.99 for the Essential plan (though only for new subscribers, for now), and $12.99 for the Showtime one.

Peacock

Peacock has given us advance notice of July and August 2024 price hikes: The ad-supported Premium plan is up to $7.99 from $5.99 a month, while the Premium Plus plan goes to $13.99 from $11.99. Those plans got bumps in 2023 too: $1 for the cheaper plan and $2 for the more expensive one.

We haven't seen an Apple TV Plus price hike in 2024 yet. Credit: Lifehacker

Apple TV+

In October 2023 Apple TV+ went up from $6.99 a month to $9.99 a month, following a 2022 bump (the Apple One bundle, including Apple TV Plus, went up from $16.95 to $19.95 a month at the same time). As yet there haven't been any murmurings of further price increases happening in 2024.

Amazon Prime Video

Right at the end of 2023, Amazon announced that if you didn't want to see ads on Prime Video, it would cost an additional $2.99 on top of the $8.99 monthly subscription (or $14.99 for the general Prime subscription, which includes Prime Video). That's the only price rise over the last 18 months.

Overall

If you were subscribed to all of the subscription services we've mentioned here at the start of 2023—ignoring bundles, trials, and special offers, and assuming you were signed up for the cheapest plans that have been affected by increases—you would've been paying $76.92 a month. Late in 2024, you'll be paying $98.91.

That's close to a rise of 30% in 18 months, a sign of the pressures on these companies to squeeze more and more money out of the same number of customers. If you've been noticing your bank account apparently draining faster and faster each month, it's really no surprise.

Admittedly, those numbers are simplified for our purposes. You can get Disney+ and Hulu bundled together for less money, for example, and some plans haven't changed prices but have introduced advertising. There are also annual plans at varying rates, and certain tiers have remained at the same level while others haven't.

It's a complicated picture, which is probably how the streaming services prefer it—but it's clear that price hikes have affected just about every platform in the business. What's more, they show no sign of stopping, which means you might have to be even more picky about what you're signed up to going forward.

There's no shortage of realty sites out there, and there's not a huge amount to differentiate them—in the end, they're all built to facilitate property deals. One of the things they have in common is that they all keep details of properties—including listing photos—online, even years after they are sold, rented, or otherwise taken off the market.

In other words, if your home or apartment has ever been listed for sale or rent, there might still be interior and exterior pictures of it online, as well as other sensitive information such as floor plans. This is all useful information for someone who might want to pose as you, or perhaps pay a call to your home in the middle of the night.

The good news is that you can arrange for the images to be scrubbed from these sites, though it does take a little bit of work. You'll first need to claim ownership of a property, and then petition to get the relevant details taken down. Here's how it works for major sites, including the MLS, Zillow, Redfin, and Realtor.

How to remove house photos from an MLS

An MLS listing site. Credit: Lifehacker

A multiple listing service, or MLS, is where the likes of Zillow and Redfin get a lot of their data, so it makes sense to start here. Generally this is where brokers first upload home information and photos, and where real estate agents get a lot of their details when showing you homes.

Only licensed agents and brokers can access MLS portals (membership fees are involved). If you want to get your information scrubbed at the source, then you need to ask a listing agent (either one you employ or one used by the other party involved in a real estate transaction) to do it on your behalf.

This isn't necessarily a speedy process, and there's no obligation on the part of the listing agent to do it unless it's in the contract (the thinking is that leaving the information there saves a lot of work if the property goes up for sale again, or if interested parties are looking at homes in the area and want to see information on comparable sales).

How to remove house photos from Zillow

A llsting on Zillow. Credit: Lifehacker

While you need help removing details from a MLS, that's not the case for sites that pull data from there, including Zillow. To get photos removed from this site, first sign into your account (or create one if you don't have one already). If you haven't already claimed a home as yours, find it on the site, then select More and Claim ownership. You'll be asked a few questions to help verify that you are who you say you are.

Then you can click your account avatar (top right) and Your homes to make changes. Select the property you want to manage, then choose Edit facts from the owner view. To get rid of a photo, select it and click Remove photo. There are options to delete all the images at once, or just hide them from view (so you can still see them). Click Save changes when you're ready.

Note that Zillow won't remove properties and property information completely. "Our mission is to empower consumers with information and tools to make smart decisions about homes, real estate and mortgages. For this reason, we do not remove property pages from Zillow," Zillow says.

How to remove house photos from Redfin

A listing on Redfin. Credit: Lifehacker

If you can find your property on Redfin, the process is the same as it is for ZIllow: Claim your home (if you need to), then edit the listing. After signing in, hover over your profile badge (top right), then click Owner Dashboard and Claim Your Home.

You can then select the property from the owner dashboard, which will give you access to an Edit Photos button. There's no option to delete individual photos here; all you can do is check the box marked Hide listings photos, and then choose Save and confirm your decision.

Only one home photo will then be shown, with a Google Street View picture of your house substituted for whatever was there before. (If you want to scrub images of your property from Google Street View as well, we've got instructions here.) As with Zillow, there's no way to completely remove the listing from the web.

How to remove house photos from Realtor

A listing on Realtor. Credit: Lifehacker

If you've already been through this process for Zillow and Redfin, then you aren't going to come across any surprises with Realtor. Once you're signed into your account, you can click My Home at the top, then enter your home address to find your property, and click Yes, claim it.

You'll need to answer a security question or two to prove you do own the property, and you can then visit the property page as an owner rather than a member of the public. Click the Edit home link, and you're able to make changes to which photos are shown alongside the listing.

There are some extra restrictions on Realtor: After a home is sold, for example, there's a period of six months where changes can't be made to the listing. In some cases, you'll need to contact your listing agent to make the changes instead. And, as with Zillow and Redfin, there's no way to erase the listing completely.

The whole point of cloud-based devices like Chromebooks is to give you a window on to the web that's as uncluttered and straightforward to use as possible. That means ChromeOS doesn't come with the masses of software and settings options that you'll find packed into Windows or macOS. However, it still offers a number of settings you can adjust to make it work better for you.

These customizations cover everything from making ChromeOS a little easier on the eyes with themes, to boosting your productivity by putting your most-used apps within easy reach. Spend a little while working on these tweaks, and you'll end up with a Chromebook that feel much more your own.

How to change wallpapers and themes on Chromebook

Wallpaper and screensaver settings. Credit: Lifehacker

Desktop wallpaper is perhaps the most obvious way to customize your computer, and it's not difficult to switch up your backdrop on ChromeOS: Click with two fingers on the touchpad while the cursor is on a blank area of the desktop, then choose Set wallpaper and style from the menu that pops up.

The next screen lets you customize the ChromeOS wallpaper and screensaver in a variety of ways. For the wallpaper, for example, you can pick a new image from your Google Drive or opt for a solid color—and if you're using a Chromebook Plus laptop, you can also use generative AI to create something completely new.

Next, adjust the theme of the Chrome browser in ChromeOS (you can do this in Chrome on Windows and macOS too). Click the three dots in the top right corner of any browser window, then navigate to Settings > Appearance > Themes. These themes change the colors of the Chrome menus, toolbars, tab header bar and more, and you can cycle between them as often as you like.

How to pin your most used apps in ChromeOS

Pinning apps to the shelf. Credit: Lifehacker

Gathering your most-used apps front and center can be hugely useful, saving you a little bit of time every time you access one of them. ChromeOS allows you to accomplish thin using the Pin setting. When you've got an app open on the ChromeOS shelf, click on it using a two-finger press on the touchpad, then choose Pin—that app will henceforth remain available on the shelf, even when it's not open.

You can do something similar with the apps in the app drawer that opens up when you click the circular Launcher button on the far left of the shelf: Click and drag the icons around to change their positions, putting your most-used ones up at the top, perhaps (the apps you've recently used are at the very top by default). You can also create folders by dragging app icons on top of one another.

One other taskbar tweak you might consider is changing where it appears on your screen. Place your cursor over the taskbar and click it with two fingers, then choose Shelf position. This allows you to move the taskbar to the left or right of the screen, rather than having it at the bottom. The Autohide shelf option on the same menu will hide the taskbar, Windows style, when it's not in use.

How to change your touchpad and keyboard settings in ChromeOS

Changing touchpad settings. Credit: Lifehacker

You're spend a lot of time using the touchpad and keyboard while you're operating your Chromebook, so you should customize them to your tastes. Click the time widget down in the bottom right corner, then the gear icon to access Settings and the Device menu, which has entries for the Touchpad and Keyboard.

Under Touchpad you can reverse the scrolling direction—absolutely essential for some, depending on what you're used to—and change the speed of movement registered by the touchpad too. There are also options for changing how a right-click is registered if you find two-finger clicking awkward

Head to the Keyboard menu to find more customization options: You're able to treat the top row of keys as function keys if you'd like, and change the actions that special keys such as Ctrl and Alt help to trigger. The keyboard repeat rate can also be configured from the same screen.

More ChromeOS settings you can adjust

Changing cursor size settings. Credit: Lifehacker

There are various other ways to customize ChromeOS. Click the time widget (bottom right), then the gear icon, then choose Search and Assistant; here it's possible to change your default search engine. Under Security and privacy, meanwhile, you can modify how the lock screen works (your can set Chromebook to automatically lock when the lid is shut, for example).

From the Apps screen, further down in settings, you can opt to have the apps that are open when you close down your Chromebook reappear when you boot it up again. Click Notifications to tailor the alerts that apps and ChromeOS itself are able to show you (and find a full guide to managing notifications on your Chromebook here).

The Accessibility menu has some useful customization options as well. It's possible to change the colors and zoom level used by ChromeOS, bring up an on-screen keyboard, change the size and color of the cursor, and more.

And one final customization worth mentioning: Click Advanced and Date and time from Settings, and you can switch between a 12-hour and 24-hour clock.

Google currently sells two smart displays, the second-gen, seven-inch Nest Hub and the first-gen, 10-inch Nest Hub Max—both are filled with so many functions that you may not have gotten around to using them to their full potential.

If you've been using your Nest Hub or a Nest Hub Max to simply check the time and weather, watch YouTube clips, and chatting with Google Assistant about random trivia, read on to learn a few useful commands to add to the rotation. (These were tested on the second-gen Nest Hub, but should also work on the Nest Hub Max, except where stated.)

1. Wake up gently

One of the reasons you might want to set an alarm on your Nest Hub rather than your phone is that you get more options for a gentle wake up: Swipe up from the bottom of the screen, tap the alarm icon (the clock symbol), then choose Set an alarm and pick a time.

On the next screen you can choose a gentle alarm tone, but there's also a Sunrise Alarm menu. Open that, and you can select a soothing gradient effect shown on the display (and any connected smart lights), as well as enabling a soothing pre-alarm sound.

2. Cast any media

Your Nest Hub will show up as a casting destination. Credit: Lifehacker

Your Nest Hub has Chromecast functionality built right in, so you can beam just about any kind of video and audio over from your phone, as long as both devices are on the same Wifi network. Just tap the cast button in your app of choice on your phone—you could send over movies from Plex, for example, or podcasts you're playing in Pocket Casts.

3. Use gesture control

Sometimes it's more convenient to use gesture controls, maybe when you're dozing in bed or have stuff all over your hands. In the Google Home app on your phone, tab on the hub, then tap the gear icon (top right) and Quick Gestures to get everything set up.

To pause media playback, for example, hold your palm up (Nest Hub Max) or tap the air in front of the display (Nest Hub). Alarms can be dismissed with a palm up (Nest Hub Max) or a wave (Nest Hub). You'll see a full list of supported gestures inside the Google Home app.

4. Broadcast a message

You can broadcast messages from the Communication screen. Credit: Lifehacker

If you've got a bunch of Nest speakers and displays at home, you can broadcast a message (like "dinner's ready" or "we leave in two minutes") to all of them at once. From your smart display, open Communication and choose Broadcast, then speak your message. If you want to talk directly to a specific speaker at home, choose Call another room instead.

5. Get your hub to recognize you

Set up voice recognition (Nest Hub) or face recognition (Nest Hub Max) to get personalized results—for questions about your Google Calendar schedule perhaps, or for listening to your own YouTube Music playlists. It's handy if you live with multiple people who all share the same hub.

This can be configured through the Google Home app by tapping on the Nest Hub you want to work with, tapping the gear icon (top right), and then choosing Recognition and sharing. You can choose which Google accounts get linked, and how recognition works.

6. Enable dark mode

Dark mode can be enabled manually or automatically. Credit: Lifehacker

Your Nest Hub comes with a dark mode you can make use of, if you find it easier on your eyes. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen, tap the gear icon for settings, and then choose Display. You can pick from Light, Dark, or Auto—that last one will automatically adjust the screen based on the time of day and the lighting conditions in the room.

7. Connect to your other smart devices

Any Google Assistant-compatible device that you can add to the Google Home app can also be controlled via your Nest Hub. If you head to the Home control screen on your smart display, you'll see all of your connected devices and their controls available.

You don't get quite as much control as you would in the individual companion apps for these devices, but there's still a lot to play around with: In the case of smart lights, for example, you can turn them on and off, and change their brightness levels and colors.

8. Create a digital photo frame

You've got several options for using the hub as a photo frame. Credit: Lifehacker

To turn your hub into a digital photo frame, select the device in the Google Home app, then tap the gear icon (top right) and choose Photo Frame. Here you'll be able to choose the images shown on your smart display: You can pick from images curated by Google, or from pictures stored in your Google Photos library (sorted by album or particular people).

9. Discover the Google Assistant

Don't neglect the tab on the far right of the Nest Hub home screens, which is titled Discover. It showcases some of the useful questions you can ask Google Assistant: You can bring up recipes, find nearby restaurants, open your photo library, and more.

These are just suggested examples though. Say "hey Google" and then ask anything you want to know—from how long it will take to drive somewhere, to what time sporting events start—and the Google Assistant will give you an answer right on screen.

10. Pair a bigger speaker

The hub can connect up to other speakers too. Credit: Lifehacker

The Nest Hubs have decent built-in speakers, but you can also pair them with bigger Bluetooth speakers if you need more audio oomph. Swipe up from the bottom of the display, tap the gear icon to open settings, then choose Bluetooth to pair a new device. You'll need to put your separate speaker in pairing mode in order to make the connection.

11. Track your sleep

This one only applies to the Nest Hub, because it has a tiny, built-in radar that can keep track of your tossing and turning in bed. To get started, tap Calibrate your device to get sleep data on the Wellness screen, and then follow the instructions for setting it up.

The Nest Hub does have to be fairly close to your bed for this to work, so a bedside table is ideal. Over time, you'll be shown details of your sleep duration, schedule, and quality—areas where you can improve your sleep routine will be highlighted for you.

Most of us will have all kinds of audio pumping out through our Windows PC speakers (or headphones)—but you don't necessarily want your background lo-fi chill-out mixes at the same volume level as the video calls, or your notification sounds playing quite as loudly as the podcasts you're listening to.

That's where individual app volume control comes in. Right out of the box, Windows has its own built-in options for making your own volume mix on your desktop or laptop. There are also third-party tools you can turn to, if the controls available in Windows aren't quite what you're looking for.

If you use macOS as well as Windows, you can control individual app volumes on Apple's desktop operating system too—we've written about that here.

Controlling volume levels in Windows

Volume slider options in Windows. Credit: Lifehacker

You've got a few choices when it comes to controlling the overall volume level in Windows: You can click on the volume icon on the far right-hand side of the taskbar and adjust the slider that pops up, or if you've got function keys you can hit F6 for volume down, F7 for volume up, and F5 for mute.

Plenty of keyboards come with dedicated volume keys as well, so you might be able to make use of those. Then of course you've got the volume controls on your speakers, your monitor, or your headphones—these physical dials can sometimes be the easiest and quickest way to turn down or turn up everything at once.

When it comes to controlling the volume of apps separately, you need to right-click on the volume icon on the taskbar, then choose Open volume mixer (you can get to this from System > Sound in Settings as well). You'll see volume sliders for each app you've currently got open, which you can adjust as needed. Click Reset to undo your changes and go back to the default levels.

You can even change which input and output device each program is using, by clicking on the little arrows to the right of each app name. You could have your music playing through your headphones, perhaps, while leaving system notifications and other audio to go through the speakers built into your monitor.

If you've got a hankering for the old Windows 10 volume mixer, it's still there in Windows 11 at the time of writing—you might prefer it if you've just upgraded. Search for "control panel" from the Start menu, launch it, then click Hardware and Sound and Adjust system volume to bring up the sliders.

Controlling volume levels with third-party apps

Volume slider options in EarTrumpet. Credit: Lifehacker

With Windows having its own built-in options for controlling volume levels, there's not so much of a need for third-party tools, but there are some out there worth mentioning. One is EarTrumpet, which you can download and use for free: It simply gives you individual volume sliders for every app that's running.

Once the utility is installed, you can click on its icon in the Notification Center (in the bottom right corner), to bring up the sliders. Right-click to get a few options and settings: You're able to adjust the volume levels from all of your connected audio outputs, as well as set up keyboard and mouse shortcuts for EarTrumpet if you need them.

Then there's another free app called Sound Lock. It's not quite the same in terms of functionality as EarTrumpet and the built-in Windows options, but it's along similar lines, and you might want to consider installing it if you need more control over volume levels—especially when it comes to a maximum volume.

You can't control the volume by app, but you can control it based on a channel (like stereo or 5.1), and you can control it based on an output device. If you don't want your external speakers going above a certain volume, for example, or need your headphones to be quieter than your speakers, Sound Lock can help.

It's also worth double-checking the software that comes with your computer, monitor, headphones, or speakers (or that's available as a download, if it's not already installed). Quite often, especially with more expensive headphones, you'll get custom utilities for controlling the audio mix of the output.