These days, we’re so used to having the Internet help us with everything, that whenever your favorite site goes down for maintenance, or otherwise, you simply lose your sh$t! That’s when you start googling “is Facebook down?”, and if you’re lucky Google will show you exactly what you were looking for. But there are times you need to search for something very specific, something extremely obscure… like “what time is sunset today in Miami?”, which will actually show you what you’re looking for (go ahead, try it), but it’s not as efficient as just saying “sunset in Miami”, right? Saves you time, and makes you look more professional (if someone’s watching).
And that’s just one of many neat Google tricks you should know to make your life a lot easier. Let’s see what else this omniscient Internet deity can do!
Set a timer or use it as a stopwatch with “set timer to X seconds/minutes”, or simply use “timer”.
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Here’s the sunrise/sunset trick we talked about earlier.
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What’s the weather going to be like today? Just put the name of the city and “forecast”. Easy.
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Having trouble calculating how much to tip? There’s a Google trick for that too.
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Find out your flight status by entering in the flight number and airline, to see if it’s going to arrive/depart on time.
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This one might be tricky, as it doesn’t work for every city on Earth (obviously), but still a nifty and easy way to check which movies are playing near you.
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Google Translate is your biggest friend if you need a quick (but crude) translation. A ton of languages and ever-expanding vocabulary makes it extremely useful. And you can access if straight from the search bar.
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Want to read something or see if your favorite author released anything new recently? Type in “Books by [author]” to get a visual chronology of all the works they’ve written.
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Use Double Quotes to find exact match results:
I use the “double quotes” at least 10 to 20 times a day, it’s probably my favorite feature of them all. It gives me the exact match and better results. Give it a try next time you want Google to show you the exact phrase you were looking for.
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Can you believe this classic trick still works? “Do a barrel roll”, Google!
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If you want to see the search results from a specific website, just type “whatever Site:WebsiteURL.com”. It’s great for narrowing down the results even further.
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You can quickly convert any measurements or areas in Google search by just entering the direct queries. Meters, acres, gallons, degrees – whatever it is, Google can convert it!
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And speaking of conversions, you can quickly convert the currencies in Google search! Just specify what type of currency you want to convert to USD and boom! It’s 3.50.
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Some of you may find this one really meh, but if you’re a writer, it’s gonna save you some time for sure. You can easily convert large numbers, up to 13 digits, into words using Google.
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Fun Fact: did you know you can use Google to spew out random trivia facts on demand? Just search for “Fun fact” or “I’m feeling curious”.
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One of the most useful features that will help you locate your phone. Just search for “Find my phone” to instantly find the Android device currently logged in with your Gmail account.
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Alright, time for some fun! Google is not just about search queries, it also has a few classic games hidden among them. Like Pacman, for example. To access it just Google Pacman (duh).
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If you type in “Atari Breakout”… well, I’ll let you see for yourself.
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It’s Zerg Rush! And try to guess what search query lets you play it?
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And finally, roll the dice and see if you’re lucky! (Can also be used in countless board games involving dice).
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Of course, there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and there are way more cool tricks you can do in Google, so go and visit Google tricks to see what else you can do!
