Microsoft Is Finally Fixing Windows Search

Microsoft's Windows apology tour continues. After introducing sweeping changes to the Start menu and the taskbar, Microsoft's sights now turn to the infamous Windows Search box. It's no secret Windows Search is bloated with ads and web pages, among other results you likely don't want. Personally, I switched to using the PowerToys Command Palette for all my search needs. But now, Microsoft is slowly testing an updated Search Box that prioritizes local files and apps and doesn't take a century to load. If you're in the Windows Insider program, you can get in line to try the following new changes.

Windows Search has a redesigned UI focused on local search

Credit: Microsoft

Windows Search no longer shows a "Recommended" feed of web content and suggestions. Bring up Search, and what you'll see is a clean list of your recent searches. When you start typing, Microsoft will now prioritize local searches first. That means local apps, files, and folders will show up first and faster. Microsoft is also updating Search with broader parameters, so even if you misspell an app name, it should still show up in the list.

The results page also features an updated design. The results on the left have more breathing room now and show additional context, such as file type, when it was modified, and so on. You'll also see a preview of the file and metadata once you select a result, with better buttons for main actions like "Open." Microsoft is also focusing on reliability, promising a drop in crashes and random glitches. We'll only know how well that really works after testing this out for some time.

The broader search integration isn't completely gone here, however. You'll see a web results section below the local results, though this section also gets a redesign. Before, web search showed a promoted post at the top, hiding the actual result or answer until you scrolled down. Microsoft now shows the direct result at the top, and pushes the promos down below.

You can disable web and Microsoft Store suggestions in search

Credit: Microsoft

Finally, there are distinct toggles in Windows Settings to disable the entire web search and Microsoft Store suggestions section, so Windows Search can focus purely on surfacing local files and quickly launching apps. Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Show Suggested Search Results and disable the toggles for Web Searches and Microsoft Store.

'Claude Reflect' Is Like Spotify Wrapped for Your AI Chat History

We're now well used to AI companies pushing out model upgrades and new features, but one of the most recent updates to Claude added something more unusual: a Reflect tool that looks back on how you've been using the AI bot.

Anthropic says Claude Reflect has been introduced to answer questions like, how often should someone use AI? How can it be used most effectively? When is AI suited to a task, and when is it better left to a human? And also, perhaps, are you letting AI do too much of your thinking for you?

In practice it works a little bit like Spotify Wrapped, rounding up your activity in the app over the past month, three months, six months, or year. And it turns out that its summaries are mostly fair and insightful, based on my testing.

Reflect is available now inside the Claude apps for Free, Pro, and Max users, though Anthropic is labeling it as a beta feature for now.

Getting started with Claude Reflect

Claude will summarize your recent AI chats. Credit: Lifehacker

Before you can use Claude Reflect you need to have the Memory feature enabled: On the web, click your profile icon (bottom left), then Settings > Capabilities. In the mobile apps, tap the menu button (top left), then your profile icon, then Capabilities. If the Search and reference chats toggle switch is enabled, you're good to go.

When you're ready to do some reflecting, you need to be in the web or desktop apps. Click your profile icon (bottom left), then Settings, then Reflect. A summary will be automatically generated for your last month of usage, by default, but you can change the time period via the drop-down menu in the top right corner (click the circular refresh arrow icon to load a new summary).

I must admit up front that I tend to regularly delete my Claude chats as I go—I don't like leaving a long digital trail behind me for a variety of privacy and security reasons—so I can't tell you what it's like to have Claude dig through months and months of conversations. It may be that digging into bigger datasets get you different results.

What I can tell you is that Claude's review of my last month of AI use was still interesting: It correctly identified that I spend a lot of time working on little web apps and widgets that can help with my work, and of course experimenting with Claude's capabilities (also for work purposes, most of the time).

However, it does ignore your most recent conversations, depending on the calendar: If you're half way through July, your "past month" summary will only run up to the end of June, so only whole months are counted in the summary. It also seems to ignore shorter, one-off chats in favor of bigger trends.

Digging deeper into the data

The summary splits your AI usage up into categories. Credit: Lifehacker

Your reflection starts with a summary and a chart showing daily activity, but if you scroll down there's more to explore. Claude will break down your time into categories that you spend time on (like a New Tab extension for Chrome in my case), and assess your AI fluency skills too—basically, how good a prompter you are.

I scored highly in terms of "delegation" to the chatbot and "discernment" in terms of assessing the AI output, but apparently my "description" skills could use some work. Claude pointed out an occasion where I could've been more precise with a prompt, and gave me an example of how I could've refined it.

I'm not sure anything I read in Claude Reflect is going to change how I use the AI, but I think it's worth dipping into every now and again just as a self-audit. In the same way Spotify Wrapped can reveal that you're listening to far too much '90s pop, Reflect can help reassess your AI boundaries—particularly for heavy users.

I did find some of the summarizing to be a bit too polished: It's typical of AI bots like Claude to want to write a flowing narrative that can be tied off neatly, rather than a more awkward report that's more accurate, and this is evident again here. On the whole, though, it seemed to give me fair assessments.

If you do feel your Claude use has got out of hand, the Reflect summary includes a Set quiet hours and breaks link that leads to the Time and focus section of the app settings: From here you can set screen time limits for yourself with the AI, and have it remind you to take a break from prompting every so often.

The Out-of-Touch Adults' Guide to Kid Culture: Why Ditto AI Might Be the New Tinder

Welcome back to your weekly youth culture roundup, where I decode exactly what these crazy kids are getting up to. If you've been feeling out of touch, don't worry. I got you covered with everything from World Cup memes, to Generation Alpha slang, to college students outsourcing romance to artificial intelligence.

Ditto AI replacing Tinder

Younger people are using AI to take online dating to new, weird places. Ditto AI is a college-based dating platform that ditches the swiping and profiles of apps like Tinder. Instead, users fill out a survey and the algorithm gets to work finding a match. When a suitable partner is discovered, the app then sets up a date based on the interest of the couple. The idea is to circumvent the "too many choices" aspect of modern matchmaking. Instead of a flood of matches or rejections, Ditto AI sets up a single date, eliminating hours of scrolling, message app small talk, and having to make decisions about what you'll actually do on your date.

According to the company, Ditto AI does more than just match up people who like the same things. The company claims it "brings your 'profiles' to life as agents," that "interact, learn, and evolve." The company promises it will "simulate interactions with everyone in your school, city—even the entire country," until it finds the right person for you."

Ditto AI doesn't offer this service yet, but the logical extension is a conversational LLM AI agent to help people on a date know what to say to each other to eliminate the awkward conversations of the first date. The future of dating is a couple sitting across from each other feeding one another lines perfectly crafted to appeal to the other person, until eventually we cut out the middlemen and let the AI agents date each other while we all run away screaming to live in a jungle.

What does TSPMO mean?

This slang acronym means "this shit (is) pissing me off." It's mostly used by members of generation alpha, and generally just in comment sections.

(If you'd like more definitions of Gen A and Z slang, check out Lifehacker's slang glossary.)

Viral video of the week: influencer vs. grocery store

This week's viral video depicts influencer Catherine Ebs making a trip to a Sam's Club grocery store. Okay, maybe not the most compelling content in the world, but Ebs' incredulous reaction to the perceived deficiencies of the small town market caught people's attention and inspired hilarious responses. Check it out:

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And here's another parody for good measure:

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It's hard to see what, exactly, Ebs is even reacting to—it's a normal supermarket—but influencers can be strange. Maybe she was expecting a display of hand-foraged mushrooms or something. In any case, the internet was quick to rally in defense of normal people shopping in normal grocery stores, with comment sections roasting the influencer mercilessly enough that she nuked the original video and doesn't seem to have posted anything since. Too bad, because I'd love to hear her explanation.

Erling Haaland wins World Cup meme war

His team may have been knocked out of the World Cup contest, but Norway's Erling Haaland has become the star of World Cup 2026 anyway. Haaland basically dragged his mediocre national team to its first ever quarter-final spot in the contest, scoring seven goals of Norway's 13 goals in five games, but Haaland's online fame has as much to do with his charisma and personality as it does with his skills on the pitch. Over the last few weeks, Haaland's Instagram follower count has grown from around 50 million to nearly 70 million followers. Fans are in love with his Viking style, both on the pitch and off, and the way he spent the World Cup drinking in American culture by doing things like buying his entire team cowboy hats, and leaving the U.S. with a taxidermied whiskey raccoon:

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Lionel Messi loses World Cup meme war

Argentinian soccer superstar Lionel Messi is regarded as one of the best players in history and Argentina is favored to take home the cup, but Messi's losing the 2026 meme war. Yeah, he has over 500 million Instagram followers, but the backlash is real.

Messi's been given the nickname "FIFA's Princess," and nicknames are hard to shake. The perception is that Messi has a special place in the heart of FIFA President Gianni Infantino, and that refs are fixing games to make sure that Argentina doesn't get defeated. There's no proof or anything, but when has that ever stopped sports fans, especially when there are funny memes to be made?

Your iPhone Is Hiding a Powerful Document Scanner

I regularly use my iPhone to scan physical documents like medical reports, identity cards, forms from my bank, etc. Since 2015 or so, I've used an app called Scanner Pro to get the job done. It works well enough, but the best features require a subscription and it is no longer as fast as I'd like it to be. I've long known about Apple's built-in scanner in the Notes app, but it isn't as convenient as the app I've been using, so I never made the switch.

That changed when I recently discovered another built-in scanner on the iPhone, hidden away in the Preview app, of all places. This one is fast, free, and well integrated with the Files app, which is a big plus. Here's why you should consider using it

Your iPhone's Preview app has a hidden document scanner

Your iPhone ships with an app called Preview, which was added with the release of iOS 26 in 2025. Now, when you open a document in the Files app, your iPhone will automatically switch to Preview and load the it. However, if you open the Preview app directly, you'll see a "Scan Documents" button front and center. I've been using iOS 26 since the developer betas released, but I only noticed this feature after the recent release of the iOS 27 betas.

When you tap Scan Documents in Preview, your iPhone will fire up the viewfinder, and you can point the device at the documents you want to scan. Like Scanner Pro, the Preview app's scanner automatically identifies document borders, takes a picture to scan, and reopens the viewfinder so you can point the camera at the next page; it'll scan that quickly too. Continue this process till you're done scanning, after which you can hit the checkmark button in the top-right corner. The scanned PDF will automatically be saved to your iCloud Drive folder, without the need to export it. I found this process to be really fast and intuitive enough to recommend to my family members, who resist any technology that requires them to install a new app or press more than two buttons.

When the scanner is open, you'll see four buttons near the bottom of the screen. The big shutter button lets you manually click pictures for the scan, and the other three let you toggle flash, set color filters, and toggle on the auto-shutter feature, respectively. Auto shutter is the best feature of this app, as it automatically scans a page the moment it detects borders, but it's not perfect. If you want more precise control over your scans, you can disable it, and control the shutter manually.

Why Preview's scanner is much better than the one in Apple Notes

I don't enjoy dealing with PDFs in Apple Notes, and that's the best argument for using the scanner in Preview, which immediately saves those documents to the Files app. First, Notes makes it much harder to find and use the scanner: You need to open a note, tap the paperclip icon, and select the document scanner from the menu. The output is saved in the same note, and I find it unwieldy to deal with PDFs from within in the Notes app, which is best suited to viewing text-only notes.

I now only use the Notes app to scan documents when I specifically want to store the file in the Notes app. But other than the odd recipe I might scan to keep there, I don't foresee myself using the Notes scanner again. In most cases, Preview's scanner does a much better job.

Another third-party scanning app to consider

If you want more features than Apple's document scanner, there are third-party apps that may suit you better. In addition to Scanner Pro, which I mentioned above, Adobe Scan does a great job with scanning, OCR (optical character recognition) and has a generous free tier. In the free tier, Adobe Scan lets you capture unlimited scans, provides 2GB of space in Adobe Document cloud, and offers OCR for documents up to 25 pages long.

The premium tier costs $10/month, and adds a bunch of PDF editing features such as combining PDFs, extracting specific pages from a scan, and editing text in PDFs. You also get to use OCR on scans up to 100 pages per document, up to 20 GB of cloud storage, and a tool called Magic Eraser, which can automatically remove your thumb or fingers from scanned pages. I think the free tier is good enough for most people, but the most annoying thing about Adobe Scan is that even the free tier requires you to sign up for an account. You can sign in with your Apple, Google, or Facebook accounts to make it quick, but it's still an unnecessary step for those who just want an app that'll let them start scanning the moment it's installed.

This M1 iPad Pro Is Still One of the Best Tablets for Creators on a Budget

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The 2021 iPad Pro may not sound especially exciting in 2026, but this is one of those devices that aged unusually well. On sale for $399.99 refurbished on StackSocial, the 11-inch iPad Pro still makes sense for people who want a fast tablet for work, school, or creative apps without spending flagship iPad prices.

The biggest reason for its longevity is the M1 chip. Apple originally brought the same processor from its MacBooks into this iPad, and even five years later, it still handles multitasking, gaming, video editing, drawing apps, and demanding workflows without feeling slow. For someone upgrading from an older base-model iPad or an aging Android tablet, the jump in responsiveness is noticeable immediately. And since this is a Grade-A refurbished unit, it should arrive with little to no cosmetic wear.

The hardware still holds up surprisingly well today—the 11-inch Liquid Retina display supports ProMotion with a 120Hz refresh rate, which makes scrolling, drawing, and animations feel much smoother than standard iPads. Colors look accurate, brightness reaches up to 600 nits, and the antireflective coating helps when using it outdoors or near windows. The quad-speaker setup is also better than what most tablets in this price range offer, especially for movies and gaming. Apple included a Thunderbolt and USB 4 port here too, which means the tablet works well with external drives, monitors, docks, and accessories in a way that cheaper iPads still don't. The front-facing 12MP camera remains solid for video calls, while the rear wide and ultra-wide cameras, along with the LiDAR scanner, are still useful for scanning documents, augmented reality apps, and creative projects. Battery life also remains dependable at around 10 hours for streaming, browsing, or general work (though your mileage may vary, depending on use).

This isn't the right iPad for everyone, though, as the 128GB of storage can fill up quickly for people editing large video files or storing massive game libraries, especially since there is no microSD expansion. And while Apple Intelligence support is included, newer iPads with M-series chips will likely receive software support longer. But for most people, the M1 iPad Pro is a great buy at this sale price.

Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now

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This Self-Emptying Shark Robot Vacuum With LiDAR Mapping Is on Sale for Just $135 Right Now

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Robot vacuums have become much better at navigation and obstacle avoidance over the past few years, but models with self-emptying docks and LiDAR mapping still tend to be pretty expensive. But this Shark Matrix UR2360S Self-Emptying Robot Vacuum is on sale on StackSocial for $134.99 as a refurbished unit. The refurbished unit comes with a Grade-A rating, meaning it should arrive in near-mint condition with little to no visible wear.

Suction performance is strong enough for everyday cleaning on hardwood floors and carpets, although, like most robot vacuums in this category, it's still better at maintenance cleaning than replacing a full upright vacuum for deep carpet jobs. Its biggest advantage is the combination of LiDAR mapping and Shark’s Matrix Clean system. Instead of bouncing around randomly, the UR2360S maps your home using 360-degree LiDAR and cleans in a more structured grid, making multiple passes over dirtier sections instead of rushing through them once. The self-cleaning brushroll is another useful addition for pet owners because it reduces hair tangles that can otherwise stop the vacuum mid-clean.

This model also leans heavily into convenience—its self-emptying base can hold up to 30 days of dust and debris before needing manual emptying, so you're not constantly dealing with the bin after every cleaning session. It also supports app controls along with Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands, making it easy to schedule cleanings, target specific rooms, or run a quick spot clean without much setup. At just over four inches tall, it can also slide under couches, beds, and other low furniture that upright vacuums often struggle to reach. That said, battery life tops out at around 90 minutes, which should cover smaller homes and apartments comfortably, though larger spaces may require recharging between runs. Overall, this $134.99 sale is a great deal.

Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now

Apple AirPods 4 Active Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $148.99 (List Price $179.00)

Apple Watch Series 11 (GPS, 42mm, S/M Black Sport Band) — $299.00 (List Price $399.00)

Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 1070Wh LiFePO4 Battery Portable Power Station — $429.00 (List Price $799.00)

TCL Tab A1 Plus 128GB 12.2" Tablet With Expandable Storage — $239.99 (List Price $299.99)

Sony WH-1000XM5 — $248.00 (List Price $399.99)

Shark AV2501AE AI XL Hepa- Safe Self-Emptying Base Robot Vacuum — $269.99 (List Price $289.99)

Blink Outdoor 4 2-Camera Kit With Sync Module Core + Doorbell 2K+ — $129.99 (List Price $179.98)

Fire TV Stick 4K Plus Streaming Player With Remote (2025 Model) — $29.99 (List Price $49.99)

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How to Keep Android Backups From Filling Up Your Google Drive Storage

If you're an Android user, you may want to keep an eye on your Google storage space. As of July 7, all of the data included in your backups count toward your cap (whether you have 15GB for free or pay for more via Google One). However, Google is also giving users more granular control over what's backed up and what isn't, so you can prevent redundant or unnecessary data from pushing you over.

Google's updated storage policies

As Android Police describes, Android backups include app data, call history, contacts, device settings, and SMS and MMS data, among other things. Previously, only images and videos uploaded to Google Photos and MMS counted toward your Google storage quota, but all of the data in your Android backup settings will now apply.

This isn't the only recent update to Google's storage. In May, Google began testing a new policy that caps some new Gmail users at just 5GB of free cloud storage—compared to the 15GB that has been available since 2013—unless you link a phone number to your Google account. While the initial test appeared to affect sign-ups mostly in African countries, it is possible that users in the future may be required to be on paid tiers to access more storage. Google's own support page states that each Google account includes "up to 15 GB of storage" in describing what counts toward your quota.

Manage your Android backups to clear up storage space

According to Google, Android backups should only increase by 40MB under the new settings, so most users likely won't have to worry much about this pushing them over the limit if they weren't already close. But if you need to manage space, Google is also allowing users to exclude SMS/MMS messages, call history, device settings, and/or app data from backups.

On your Pixel, you'll find these toggles under Settings > Accounts and backup > Google backup > Other device data. Simply toggle off anything you don't want or need backed up. Alternatively, you can search "backup" in your device settings.

There are a few other considerations when it comes to Google storage limits. In February, Google announced that it would start copying and uploading local files from your Android Downloads folder to Google Drive and is now rolling out a Documents backup feature covering file types like .DOC, .PPT, .XLS, and .PDF. If you don't want this to eat up space, you can change your preferences in your device settings.

Finally, if you're close to running out of storage, Google has a support page for cleaning up space and troubleshooting storage issues. I also wrote a guide to creating a comprehensive backup plan that doesn't rely solely on a single storage method.