Turn off blood oxygen sensing to save battery

The Oura ring uses significantly more battery with blood oxygen sensing turned on. It may make sense to use this feature if you have a specific health concern, but most of us don’t need it on a daily basis. 

You’ll find Blood Oxygen Sensing under the hamburger menu, and can turn it off from there. You’ll lose the “average blood oxygen” and “breathing regularity” metrics, but you’ll gain an extra day or so of battery life. 

Sync workouts so you don’t have to log them all with your ring

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Oura ring is not a great workout tracker. Wearing the ring interferes with weightlifting workouts and it doesn’t have enough precision to seriously track other workouts like running. 

Oura is a great companion to other workout apps, though. If you track workouts with another device or even with a phone app like Apple’s Fitness app, you can make sure those workouts get synced properly so they show up in your Oura timeline. Go to Settings, and then to Apple Health (iPhone) or Health Connect (Android). Turn on those integrations from there. 

Tag auto-detected workouts (and laugh, if appropriate)

Aside from synced workouts, Oura will automatically detect workouts it thinks you’re doing. You’ll then see a card asking you to label the workout. Don’t just ignore those cards—Oura learns from your tags. 

So if you went for a walk, make sure that activity is tagged as a walk. But sometimes it will tag another activity as a workout when it actually wasn’t. I’ve seen hair brushing and yarn winding tagged as various forms of exercise. Take a look at the time the activity was logged, and think back to what you were actually doing at the time. (You can dismiss the activity if it wasn’t a workout or isn’t something you care to track.) 

Consider the charging case

The Oura ring only needs to be charged once or twice a week, but that means it’s hard to get into a routine of charging it regularly. I found that the perfect balance was charging it while I’m at the gym; some people prefer to charge while they’re in the shower. 

Short top-ups every few days are ideal for battery health. (Daily charging is arguably too much; only charging when the battery is dead is probably too little.) Oura recommends keeping the battery between 25% and 80% most of the time, if you can. 

So figure out where and when is most convenient to charge, and keep a charger there. That’s why the charging case is convenient—you can carry it in your gym bag, for example. Unfortunately it costs an extra $99 to buy the charging case, but nobody ever said owning an Oura ring is cheap. 

Check the ring’s tags and trends

The Trends item in the hamburger menu is one of Oura’s best hidden features. Tap it and you’ll be able to see things that have changed over the past several weeks. For example, as I’m writing this, I can see that my resting heart rate has improved over the past 8 weeks, getting back to my “baseline” after some time in which it was higher than normal.

If you’ve been diligent about tagging behaviors and lifestyle factors, you can see their effects on your readiness, sleep, activity, or stress. For example, I’m curious whether my mood is better when I take a vitamin D supplement in the winter. Mood isn’t one of the items that Oura tracks, but I can tap Trends and then choose from Stress or Sleep or even Activity (all things that suffer when I’m feeling down) and see whether the days I tagged “vitamins” tend to correlate with higher or lower levels. 

Log meals without tracking calories

Meal tracking was introduced as a companion to glucose tracking, but you don’t need to track your glucose to use the meals feature. Log your meals (you can even snap a picture of your plate) and Oura will give you feedback on how healthy the meal is, and keep track of whether you’re eating on a regular schedule or not. Calorie tracking is not involved. In fact, if you’d rather keep calories out of your Oura app entirely, check out the next item. 

Adjust your activity goal

Oura will give you an activity goal each day, usually a certain number of calories. If you feel your goals are too ambitious (or not ambitious enough), go to the Activity screen and select Edit activity goal. You can choose a different goal, and you can also choose whether you’d like to see this goal in calories or in steps. 

If you want to avoid seeing calories anywhere in the app, there’s a toggle for that. On the same screen, select Calorie opt out. This sets your target to steps and ensures that calorie mentions anywhere else in the app will be hidden. You can also access the calorie opt out from Settings and then Activity. 

Use Rest Mode for travel, menstrual cycles, and more

Oura has a Rest Mode setting that is intended for when you’re sick or recovering from an injury. (Oura may even prompt you to turn it on if your data indicates you may not be feeling well.) 

But it’s useful for more than just that. Rest Mode pauses your goals, and stops giving you readiness scores. It’s great for any time you don’t want the app to bother you about what you should be doing. I’ve seen Oura users say they use it for days of their menstrual cycle when they aren’t feeling up to their usual activity; it’s also useful for travel when you know you’ll be stuck in a car or airplane all day, or when your sleep will suffer due to jet lag. 

Use Labs to participate in studies (and get a sneak peek at new features)

If you like to beta test new features, check out the Labs item in the hamburger menu. The offerings will change from time to time, but often they are new features in the making. Right now, the only offering I see is a blood pressure profile study, in which Oura is collecting data to hopefully offer blood pressure estimates in the app in the future. 

When I signed up for this, I had to fill out a questionnaire and sign a research consent. (Not all Oura Labs items are studies, but they can be.) I can see that Oura thinks I probably don’t have hypertension (correct) and that it’s basing that in part on my good resting heart rate and activity level. Other Oura features like meal tracking and Symptom Radar first made their appearances in Labs. 

Download your data from the cloud

This is one of Oura’s lesser-known features: a web dashboard where you can view long-term trends, and a “membership hub” where you can download all your data. This spreadsheet download is available even if you don’t have an active subscription, but you do need a subscription for the trend viewer and for all of the software features I mentioned above. 

For the web viewer, go to cloud.ouraring.com. Here, if you click on Trends, you can see all your data—five years’ worth, for me. You can even compare two variables and see a calculation that shows if they’re correlated. My sleep score and total sleep time are highly correlated; my HRV and sleep time are not. 

To download CSV spreadsheets of your data (with or without a subscription), go to the membership hub and sign in. Select Export data and then Request your data. You’ll get a zip file filled with spreadsheets you can analyze to your heart’s content.

Download the Quest Games Optimizer for Your Meta Quest 3

If you choose just one hack, it should be downloading Quest Game Optimizer. QGO is a third-party utility that lets you control a ton of hidden settings for any Quest game or app. Meta typically locks its hardware to conservative clock speeds to preserve battery and thermal headroom, but QGO lets you force the Quest’s chip to work at its maximum power. Most impressively, it lets you to increase the internal render resolution up to 300%, effectively “supersampling” your games to match the high-fidelity density of the Quest 3’s pancake lenses. It really makes a difference.

As you might have guessed, you won’t find QGO on the official Meta Store, and it takes some lightly hacker-ish work to set up. To get it running, you’ll need to:

• Purchase the software. It’s currently $9.99 on itch.io.
• Create a developer account with Meta. This is free, and you can do it from inside your headset.
• Enable Developer Mode on your Meta account.
• Uncompress the QGO app. Either sideload the compressed Android file on your PC using a tool like SideQuest, or unzip it straight in the headset using a file manager like AnExplorer or Mobile VR Station.
• Grant Accessibility Permissions within the headset to allow the optimizer to override system defaults.

That’s the gist, but check out these deeper guides for how to do all of the above with just your Quest headset, with SideQuest and a PC, and through Meta Quest’s developer’s mode.

Link your Quest to your PC

You can take the Quest 3 beyond standalone by linking it to your PC, either tethered or with a virtual link. This offloads the computing to a more powerful processor, turns your headset into a high-def display, and lets you use programs like Half-Life: Alyx or Microsoft Flight Simulator that would be impossible to run natively. You’ll seriously be shocked at how good they look and how smoothly they run. You can do this in two ways:

Wired

This is the best choice for the highest possible fidelity visuals and the easiest set-up, plus you don’t have to worry about how fast your wifi works.

• Open the Meta Horizon Link app on your PC.
• Get a high-quality USB-C 3.1 cable or the Meta Link Cable, and plug it in.
• Follow the instructions on your headset.

Wireless

This is the choice if you want the freedom of wireless connection and you have really reliably wifi.

• For best results, connect your PC to your router via Ethernet, make sure your Quest 3 is on a 5GHz or 6GHz (Wi-Fi 6E) band, and use the Quest and PC in the same room.
• Run Meta Horizon Link on your PC.
• In the Quest, go to “quick settings” and select the “Link” tile.
• Switch “Use Air Link” to “On,” select your PC, and hit “Pair.”
• Click “Launch” and you’ll be streaming directly from your PC to your face computer.

Unlock experimental features on the Meta Quest 3

Meta lets users test out “coming soon” features in its experimental menu and get an early look at “quality-of-life” improvements, most of which will be heading to the Quest soon. Among other improvements, the current experimental menu contains a couple of bangers: “lying down mode,” and “Meta AI” integration. Here’s how to check it out:

• Open the “Settings” menu.
• Scroll down to the Experimental tab on the left-hand sidebar.
• Toggle the features you want to try.

Try the Meta Quest 3’s new spatial locking feature

This brand new (as of February 2026) feature is evidence of how hard Meta is leaning into mixed reality. Spatial locking lets you anchor windows wherever you want in physical space, so you can look at your real television and see a virtual one, have three virtual monitors extending your workspace, or create a window to YouTube over your sink for when you’re washing dishes. Bonus: The Quest will remember where these windows are when you restart it.

Here’s how it works:

• Make sure you’re in pass-through mode.
• Open a window in your headset.
• Grab the window with the control bar at the bottom and move it where you’d like.
• Select the “anchor” icon on the control bar.
• This won’t work with travel mode. But speaking of travel mode…

Enable travel mode on the Meta Quest 3

Yes, you’ll look sort of dorky on a plane, but the Quest 3’s travel mode makes it possible to use your Quest on the road by creating a stationary boundary, and setting the Quest to ignore external velocity and rely only on head movements. Here’s how to turn it on:

• Go to the “Settings” menu.
• Click on “Environmental Set Up.”
• Click on “Travel Mode.”

Install Bigscreen Beta streaming app on the Meta Quest 3

Bigscreen Beta is the go-to video streaming app on Quest headsets. It allows you to sit in a highly detailed virtual environment—a cozy modern living room, a massive outdoor drive-in, another planet, etc.—and stream video. You can use the Bigscreen Remote Desktop tool on your PC to stream content from Netflix, Disney+ or just about anywhere else directly into your virtual environment. Not only that, you can stream content directly from Bigscreen into your private space, invite friends over to watch with you, or watch movies and TV with strangers in shared virtual theaters.

Play Xbox games on the Meta Quest 3 in mixed reality

If you have an Xbox Live account, you can play (2D) Xbox games right from your VR headset, giving you a portable game console with a 100″ screen. Here’s how it works:

• Download the XBox app on your Quest headset.
• Pair a controller with your Quest. Quest controllers aren’t made to work with XBox games, so you’ll have to use Bluetooth to pair a game controller to your Quest. You can use an XBox controller, a PS5 controller, a Switch 2 controller, and a ton of generic controllers.
• Run the Xbox app and choose a game.
• Enable passthrough. This lets you play your game on as big a screen as you’d like while still being in the “real” world.
• There can be some latency, as the game is being run from the cloud, but it’s surprisingly smooth in my experience.

Explore WebXR on the Meta Quest 3

WebXR might be the Quest’s biggest secret. It lets you use a seemingly infinite number of games and apps that are not available in the Meta store, and are almost all free. Since WebXR apps are browser based, all you have to do is point your Meta browser to a site that hosts a WebXR program and hit go. If you like experimental little tests and whatnot, you’ll never run out. Here are some to check out:

• Moon Rider: A totally free, open-source alternative to Beat Sabre.
• Silkbrush: A web-based version of the famous Tilt Brush that lets you paint in 3D space.
• Above Par-adowski: A surprisingly deep browser-based miniature golf game.

Master the Meta Horizon mobile app

You can do a lot with your Quest without even turning it on. The Meta Horizon mobile app lets you manage your library, download games, change your settings, and more, all without strapping anything to your face. Browsing the Meta store feels way more natural on the app, and it’s easier to navigate and change setting there too. Plus, the app can tell you how much charge is left in your battery, whether your friends are online, download screenshots and videos, and cast what’s going on in your headset to another screen.

Invest in a third-party battery strap for the Meta Quest 3

The Meta Quest 3 is ergonomically fine for shorter sessions, but if you wear it long enough, you realize how much the design is a battle between comfort and performance, and it compromises on both ends—it’s kind of heavy and the battery life is kind of short. The front-weighted design puts pressure on your face and the battery life rarely survives a two-hour session, but there’s a solution to both problems: Trade the stock fabric strap for a third-party “Elite” style strap with a built in extra battery, like the KIWI design H4 Boost or the BOBOVR S3 Pro. These move the extra weight to the back of your head, balancing the ergonomics, and they have swappable extra batteries so you can use your headset as long as you’d like.

Compared to the previous generation, the Series 11 improved its battery life, going up to 43 hours with the always-on display enabled, up from 36 hours for the Series 10. The Series 11 also supports 5G cellular, up from LTE on the Series 10. Another big update is that the Series 11 features FDA-approved hypertension notifications, alerting you if it detects signs that you might have high blood pressure.

Lenovo has been one of the better companies in this space of late, releasing two of my favorite gaming handhelds running, but the company apparently isn’t done with handhelds yet. At Mobile World Congress, Lenovo showed off its newest concept, the modular Legion Go Fold handheld, a device that tries to solve pretty much every problem in gaming handhelds through one neat trick: It’s also a foldable tablet.

The device is essentially a tablet with an 11.6-inch OLED screen that can fold in half, but it comes with two controller halves that can attach to it in a number of ways. While you can use the full screen horizontally if you like, with one controller half on either side, you can also orient the tablet vertically for a “dual-screen” experience. Or, fold that vertical orientation over itself for a more compact 7.7-inch screen. There’s also a stand and Bluetooth keyboard you can use to turn the tablet into a pseudo laptop, and you can even connect the controller halves to a connector piece to turn it into a standalone controller that doesn’t need to be attached to the tablet. I tried all of these configurations, and they mostly felt comfortable, although I’ll admit the “dual-screen” mode did feel a little top heavy on the early prototype I tested.

Lenovo’s “FPS Mode” even makes a return, so you can take the right-hand controller piece and slot it into a special dock to use it like a mouse. Essentially, this thing can play in pretty much any orientation or form factor you can think of, meaning you won’t need to buy multiple handhelds for different use cases anymore. The tablet is Windows-based, too, promising more app compatibility than Android. And one of the controller halves even has its own tiny OLED screen, for keeping an eye on important performance stats.

The catch? Like a lot of Lenovo’s more interesting devices, the Legion Go Fold is just a concept for now. If you want to see it come to fruition, you’ll have to make your voice heard with an email or social post—Lenovo has a history of making good on its concepts, so you never know if the company is just testing the waters to gauge interest.

Unfortunately, because it’s a concept, there’s no word on what the Legion Go Fold might cost, although I do know the prototype I saw was decked out with an Intel Core Ultra 7 CPU, 32GB of RAM, and 1TB of storage. Based on Lenovo’s other gaming handhelds, I’d have to guess this would start for at least $600, and could go as high as $1,100, which is obviously pricier than the Switch 2 or Steam Deck, but might be worth it for all this device can do.

Lenovo also showed off a Framework competitor

The Legion Go Fold is the clear standout among Lenovo’s MWC lineup, but there are a few other noteworthy devices worth calling out.

Alongside iterations on existing laptops and consumer tablets that will be making their way to market later this year, Lenovo also showed off the ThinkBook Modular AI PC concept, which reads like the company’s approach to the Framework Laptop. This device seems like a normal laptop at first, but you can swap out the keyboard for a second display if you’d like. You can then use that display for touch input, or continue to use the keyboard you just removed wirelessly. There’s also an integrated kickstand, so you can prop up the second display to become an external monitor instead, and slot the second display into the laptop lid to use the device like a tablet while it’s closed.

So far, none of that is especially Framework-y, but the kicker is that this concept’s ports are modular, so you can mix and match how many USB or ethernet connections you have. That’s something we haven’t really seen from any company other than Framework, so it looked like Lenovo decided to see that laptop’s bet and then raise it.

The Lenovo Workmate is an odd AI device

In the enterprise space, there’s the Lenovo AI Workmate, a concept that basically attaches an AI chatbot to an animated touchscreen and puts it on an articulating robot arm. It’s supposed to be able to do regular computer things, like scan documents or even create PowerPoints, but looking at the thing, I think the idea is to make you greet your new robot overlords with a smile.

Also, while I didn’t get to see them, Lenovo also showed off concepts for the AI Work Companion, which focuses more on scheduling and look like a retro alarm clock, and the Yoga Wireless Webcam, which can stream 4K video to your computer from a distance.

Finally, the company showed off a glasses-free 3D laptop concept, called the Yoga Book Pro 3D. Devices like these have become common among creatives in the past few years, but what sets this one apart is that it comes with magnetic pucks you can place on it to summon certain tools in your editing programs.

Again, these concepts aren’t guaranteed to come to market, but they certainly bring some much-needed oddball energy to the table at a time when other big companies are sticking with tried-and-true designs. Here’s hoping the RAM crisis doesn’t keep them in the lab longer than necessary.

In practice, aloSIM works best for travelers who want predictable costs and don’t want to think about phone carriers once they land. Data plans start at about $4.50 for seven days, so that $150 credit can stretch across multiple trips or a long one, depending on how you travel. Coverage spans more than 200 countries and regions, including places like the U.S., France, Japan, the U.K., Mexico, and Canada. Connections run on local LTE and 5G networks, so speeds feel similar to what locals use. And setup is straightforward: You buy the voucher, check that your phone supports eSIMs, install the eSIM a day or two before your trip, and activate the plan when you arrive. Each plan also includes a temporary phone number via Hushed for the same duration, which can be useful for signups or short-term calls without sharing your real number.

That said, there are a few caveats to consider. Data packages expire based on the plan length you choose, not on how much data you use. For example, a seven-day plan ends after seven days, even if you barely touched it, and unused data doesn’t roll over unless your next trip happens within that same validity window. This is also limited to one device and new customers only. For someone taking one short trip and rarely traveling abroad, a single local SIM might still be cheaper, but for frequent travelers or anyone tired of $10–$20 per day roaming fees, the math makes sense. This deal offers control, flexibility, and fewer phone bill surprises.

While I haven’t had a chance to put the power station to the test during a full blackout, I am impressed by the functionality of the EcoFlow app. You get the ability to prioritize which devices receive power the longest, so when battery power is scarce, the essentials will keep running while the other devices shut off. How that might work in the real world: You leave your refrigerator plugged in overnight, along with your phones and a heater. You can prioritize your refrigerator so if the battery runs low during the night, it will shut off power to your phone and heater to keep you fridge running longer. You can also monitor your energy use, and the app will automatically start charging your power station if it detects a storm is coming.

The power station is extremely quiet when in use. Although it’s heavy, it’s still easily portable with its handle and rear wheels. The unit has seven AC outlets total, including standard, RV, 240 V, and twist‑lock, four USB ports (A and C), two 12 V DC outputs, and solar charging inputs if you ever want to get extra accessories down the road.

The 4096 Wh battery can keep essentials running for a while—it can power the average fridge for up to 28 hours while keeping other essentials like Wi-Fi, lights, phone charging, and AC running simultaneously.

The AirPods Pro 3 improve on already great premium earbuds with new features (like a heart rate sensor) without increasing the list price. You’ll get Personalized Spatial Audio (so you can hear sounds seemingly coming from different directions as you move your head) and the ability to use head gestures to tell Siri “yes” or “no” (this also works for answering or denying calls). Apple added a live translation feature to both the second- and third-generation AirPods Pro when iOS 26 rolled out last year. You’ll also get features like Conversation Awareness, which lowers your music volume when your AirPods detect that you’re talking to someone; Transparency Mode, which lets you better hear your surroundings while your earbuds are in; and Adaptive Audio, which combines ANC and Transparency mode to adjust ANC levels based on the noise around you.

Since the AirPods Pro 3 have silicone tips that fit inside the ear canal—unlike the AirPods 4, which sit more loosely in the outer ear without creating a seal—the ANC is much better since it naturally blocks out noise with a tight seal. But the ANC technology itself has also improved, as has the sound quality, thanks to the new H3 chip, as PCMag detailed in its “exemplary” review. You can expect about eight hours of juice, depending on your usage, and another 24 hours from the charging case.

These are truly the best earbuds anyone can buy at this price, especially if you’re an Apple user.

The app is also packed with more features than you might be aware of—in fact, it could reasonably claim to be the most capable and versatile social media app out there. From location alerts and data saving, to custom notifications and clever camera tricks, here’s how to get the most out of Snapchat.

Use Snapchat’s buried Data Saver mode to use less storage and prolong your battery life

Snapchat comes with a Data Saver mode that does exactly what it sounds like—it saves on data usage. Snaps and stories won’t load automatically in the background like normal, so you’ll need to manually tap them to trigger the download and see the media. This helps when you’re traveling and away from reliable wifi, and because there’s less background downloading going on, you should save a little battery life too. To enable it, from your profile, tap the cog icon (top right) to open the app settings, then tap Data Saver.

Get notifications only for specific Snapchat stories

There’s a lot going on in Snapchat, so if you’ve got a significant number of friends, you can quickly get overwhelmed with notifications—especially when it comes to stories. With a little bit of tweaking, you can just get alerts for the stories you care about most.

From your profile page, tap the cog icon (top right), then Notifications—from here you can turn off notifications for stories generally. You can then add story notifications specifically for your favorite contacts, one by one. Tap through to the friend’s profile page, then tap on the three dots (top right): Choose Story Settings > Story Notifications to make sure you get alerts for this particular person.

You can create snaps with multiple cameras at once

You don’t have to limit yourself to just one camera for your snaps: You can capture photos and videos from both the selfie and rear cameras on your phone simultaneously, so you can comment on or react to what you’re seeing. When you’re in the main capture screen, tap the drop-down arrow on the right, then pick Dual Camera. Tap on the Dual Camera icon again to choose from four layout options—including one where a cut out of you gets superimposed over the main view.

Use Snapchat’s Snap Map to let someone know when you’ve arrived safely

This isn’t something that you’ll want to use widely, but it’s handy for family members and partners: As an extension of the Snap Map location sharing feature, you can also ping a specific contact when you get home (or arrive at any other place on the map).

Head to the contact’s main profile page, tap the three dots (top right), then choose Arrival notifications. You can pick My home, or tap Add to set up another location—it could be school, football practice, or whatever you like.

Let your friends decide if they want to view your custom Snapchat stories

One of Snapchat’s most appealing features is the way you can create custom stories for custom audiences, and these can be set up from your profile page: Just tap New Story. However, you don’t have to pick the contacts who can view your story yourself—you can let your friends decide if they want to get involved instead.

Once you’ve created a story, create a new snap in the usual way, then tap the sticker icon (top right), and Story. This lets you post an invite link to any of your stories, so your contacts can decide for themselves whether they want to see your vacation adventures or thousands of your pet pictures.

The snap can be posted to individuals, or to one of your other stories, so you still get full control over who can see what (and you can kick out story viewers at any time).

You can search through your Snapchat memories

Snapchat is focused on content creation, which means you may not realize how much you can do with the photo and video memories that the app builds up for you. From your profile page, tap the three dots (top right), then Memories to make sure they’re being saved (you can also save individual snaps as you capture them).

You can get to your memories later by tapping the image icon to the left of the shutter button on the main capture screen—and there’s a powerful search capability built right in. Try searching for pets, sunsets, locations, or dates (like “August 2023”) and you’ll get results back more or less instantly.

You’ll also see certain images and videos picked out by Snapchat and grouped as flashbacks, and any of your memories can be reposted again as snaps or stories (with new edits, if needed).

Yopu can permanently save your Snapchat chats

Snapchat is known for its ephemerality, but your pictures, videos, and text messages don’t have to disappear right after they’ve been viewed. You can keep them around for longer in certain conversations, turning the app into more of a conventional messaging tool.

From inside any of your one-to-one or group chats, tap the header bar at the top, then the three dots (top right). Choose Delete Chats and you can set them to never expire. You can also save images, videos, and text permanently by tapping and holding on them in the chat, then choosing Save in Chat.

You can make your own Snapchat stickers

Anything in your image and video snaps can be cut out as a sticker, ready to be used again in future posts. When you’ve captured the content, tap the scissors icon on the right, and you get three selection tools for picking out the sticker you want. Once you’ve done the cutting, you can reposition the new sticker anywhere you want in the current snap, and find it in the future by tapping on the sticker icon in the top right corner of the capture screen.

You can also use Snapchat in a web browser

Snapchat isn’t just for mobile, and there’s an official web app that offers most of the features you get on Android and iOS. It also makes typing much easier, so if you use Snapchat as a general messaging app, this is something worth looking into. You can view stories on the web, and even send snaps—though you’ll be limited to using your computer’s webcam, so these will mostly just be snaps of your face and whatever room you happen to be in.

Snapchat has a hidden dark mode—and other themes

There are a variety of different themes for Snapchat on mobile that you can choose between, though these options are pretty well hidden in the app. From your profile page, tap the cog icon (top right), then choose App appearance to get to the themes. Swipe left and right to cycle through them, including light and dark modes and numerous others. If you’re a Snapchat+ subscriber ($3.99 a month), the benefits include being able to customize individual theme elements yourself.

During its 20+ years of existence, Facebook has added a whole host of features and options on top of its platform, and branched out in multiple different areas. There’s plenty on offer in the modern-day Facebook that you may not know about.

Whether you’re using Facebook daily or you haven’t touched your account for months, these hacks and tips will help you get more from the app: Find out how to stop people from tagging you, how to clear your tracks on Facebook, how to look back on a friendship, and more.

Adjust the algorithm to limit AI slop in your Facebook feed

The Facebook algorithm isn’t always well tuned to your tastes and interests, and that might extend to AI slop as well as friends and family members you don’t particularly want to hear from. The solution is to give the algorithm a few nudges in the right direction.

Tap or click on the three dots in the top right corner of any post in your news feed, and you’ve got a few options: You can tell Facebook you’re not interested in something, mute posts from this source for 30 days, or permanently hide this person or page.

There are also options to tweak the algorithm in the other direction—select Interested if you want to see more of this type of content in your feeds.

Change your privacy settings to stop other people from finding you on Facebook

Facebook can cause you problems when it comes to people from your past reaching out, wanting to know how you’re getting on these days. While it can make for some serendipitous reconnections, there may well be old colleagues, friends, and relatives you’d rather not hear from every again.

You can control how available you are on Facebook by heading to the website and clicking your profile picture (top right). Choose Settings & privacy > Privacy Center > Common privacy settings > Profile information and then select your Facebook account. On the next screen, select How people can find and contact you.

There are a few settings you can tweak here: You can stop people finding you through your email address or phone number, and you can stop your Facebook profile from showing up in web search results. You can also decide whether message requests from people who you’re not connected to make it into your main inbox.

Choose who you want to see your Facebook posts

Just like on Instagram or Snapchat, you can limit the audience for certain posts—though it’s not immediately obvious where the option is. When you’re composing a post, you need to tap on the Friends drop-down list just below your name (it might say something else, like Public, if you’ve already changed the audience for posts).

The menu you see next lets you limit the post to any group of Facebook friends you like: Whether it’s two people or 200 people. You can either specify the friends who can see the post, or the friends who can’t, and you can make new custom lists of contacts by going to your friends directory and choosing Create List.

See your entire Facebook friendship history with someone

There’s quite a cool way of looking back on the moments you’ve shared with a Facebook friend—at least on this particular social media platform, anyway. Head to the Facebook profile page of a contact, then click the three dots on the right and See friendship.

You then get shown photos, posts, and events you’ve both been involved in. Assuming you both use Facebook fairly often, it’s a nice trip down memory lane (you might also see some of this shared content in your feed when your friend has a birthday).

Undo your activity on Facebook

If you’ve logged a comment or a like on Facebook that you later regret, you can take it back: On the web, click your profile picture (top right), then pick Settings & privacy > Activity log. This is a record of everything you’ve done on Facebook.

Choose Comments to get to your comments and likes, and to remove them if necessary. You can also delete posts you’ve made, and searches you’ve run on Facebook—it’s a central hub for viewing and managing your digital tracks on the social media app.

Download and save your Facebook photos

Facebook used to be the best place to post photos, and it may well be that you’ve got a ton of pictures on the platform that you haven’t saved anywhere else. Maybe you took them before photo backup from phones was so seamless—or perhaps they were snapped with an actual camera and scanned in (remember that?).

You don’t have to go through images and videos individually to get all this content exported from Facebook and put somewhere else (like Google Photos). On the web, click your profile picture (top right), then Settings & privacy > Settings > See more in Accounts Center > Your information and permissions.

Finally, you will see the Export your information option: This lets you get all of your data out of Facebook, including pictures, posts, and messages. Be sure to choose the Higher quality option for Media quality to get the best versions of your images and videos.

Stop people from tagging you on Facebook

You don’t necessarily want other people tagging you in pictures and other content (which means these posts will then be visible to your network too). You can enable manual tagging approval to stop this from happening: On the web, click your profile picture (top right), and select Settings & privacy > Settings > Profile and tagging.

When you’ve enabled tag reviews, you’ll get notifications on Facebook when someone else tags you. You then have the option to approve or block the tag (the tagger won’t be notified directly, but may notice if the tag hasn’t been accepted).

Control the type of ads you see on Facebook

Adverts are an inescapable part of the Facebook experience, but you can at least take some control over the types of ads you see, and from which companies. On the web, click your profile picture (top right), then choose Settings & privacy > Privacy Center > Common privacy settings, and Manage in Accounts Center under Ads preferences.

There’s lots you can do here: You can change the categories of adverts you see, hide ads from specific advertisers, and even access ads you might have saved—so if there’s a purchase you do want to make and didn’t get around to, you can do that here.

Keep your conversations on Facebook secret

Some of us will be using Facebook Messenger far more than the main site, and the messaging component of the platform can be tweaked and customized in multiple ways. For example, you can set messages to disappear after a set amount of time if you’d rather keep conversations off the record.

From inside a Facebook Messenger chat on mobile, tap the contact or group chat name at the top, then pick Disappearing messages. Note that the setting you choose will be applied to all messages from every sender, and a notification will be posted to the chat if you make a change.

You can give nicknames to your friends and family on Facebook

If you want to add some spice to a group chat, you can assign a nickname to the contacts in it: Tap on the group name at the top of the chat, then choose Nicknames. Bear in mind that everyone else will see the nicknames you set (and can change them to something else), and that you can use nicknames or real names when tagging people in the chat.

Wear your watch loosely when you’re not working out

Most makers of smartwatches and fitness trackers say that you should wear them loosely for daily wear. Fitbit, for example, writes that you should wear the band “loosely enough that it can move back and forth on your wrist” and instructs you to “Lower the band on your wrist and loosen it after exercise.” This loose fit allows air to contact your skin as the watch moves around during the day. This way, no part of your skin gets moisture or sweat trapped against it. 

Garmin and Apple (to name a few) all say basically the same thing. During exercise, you’ll want to wear the watch snugly, on the arm side of your wrist bone (so it’s at least an inch or two away from your actual wrist joint). This lets you get a nice, snug contact between the heart rate sensor and your skin. But once the workout is over, loosen the watch back to a more comfortable position. 

A good rule of thumb is that when you’re not working out, the watch should be able to move back and forth on your wrist. But during a workout, if you try to slide the watch, your skin should move with it. 

Keep the watch band clean and dry

Irritation can happen when sweat, moisture, or other substances (like, say, soap) get trapped against your skin. An easy way to avoid this is to take the watch off and rinse it when you’re in the shower. If not in the shower, then try to find some other time during the day—maybe while you’re washing your hands—to take the watch off and make sure the band and the sensor area are both clean. Check the care instructions that came with your device; you may be advised to not use soap. 

But keeping the band clean is only half the job. We also want to avoid trapping moisture under the band, even clean water. Before putting your watch back on, make sure it’s thoroughly dry. If the band is made of a fabric material, consider getting a spare band so you can swap in a clean, dry band while you wait for the one you just washed to dry.

Consider a different material for the watch band

Waterproof materials like silicone tend to be the worst culprits for irritation, probably because of the way they can trap sweat and moisture against the skin. If this is an ongoing issue for you, consider a fabric watch band that breathes a little better. For example, here’s a five-pack of elastic bands that fit 18-millimeter Garmins. Whatever your device, there are probably a ton of third-party bands out there in a variety of materials. 

Give your skin a break if it’s already irritated

If you’ve already gotten a rash on your skin, the most important thing is to stop wearing the watch while you wait for it to heal. If you take a break from your watch at the first sign of irritation, it will probably clear up quickly. The simplest way to do this without disturbing your routine is just to swap it to your other wrist temporarily. It’s also OK to simply not wear the watch for a while!

The one time I had some redness and itching from a Garmin strap, I immediately washed the watch and then, once it was dry, put it back on my other wrist. Yes, it feels weird to have your watch on the “wrong” wrist, but you need to give your skin a chance to heal. I have sensitive skin but as long as I’m good about washing and drying the band, and wearing it loosely when I’m not exercising, my skin stays happy.