#google tricks

Happy 23rd Birthday, Google!

Even if you think you're already a Google pro, these tips – including how to add search shortcuts to your browser’s address bar – will help you find what you're looking for even faster. https://t.co/vMAq5qJdl7

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 1, 2019

Use quotation marks to find a specific phrase

It’s one thing to search for a couple of words, like Sony HT-Z9F soundbar, and find the product(s) you’re seeking. But let’s say you need more specific information — like the dimensions of the speaker drivers inside that soundbar. Searching for HT-Z9F soundbar driver diameter does not return any pages that list that particular spec, nor does including the word inches. Instead, we need to think about how this would exactly be phrased on the page, and use quotation marks to narrow our search.

When you put quotation marks around a collection of words, it tells Google to look for the words only in that order. So, sony HT-Z9F inch drivers (don’t worry, capitalization doesn’t matter) will search for any page that has the words “inch” and “drivers” on it — but not necessarily together. Searching HT-Z9F soundbar “inch drivers” on the other hand, narrows our search considerably, producing a result right at the top that lists the exact spec we’re looking for: 2.5-inch drivers. (If you can’t find the terms you searched for on the resulting page, press Ctrl+F on your keyboard — Command+F on a Mac — to locate your words on that page.)

Bonus tip: If you’re looking for a specific page but aren’t sure the exact words it uses, you can put an asterisk in those quotes to symbolize any word. For example, if you forgot the title of Taylor Swift’s dance-pop single from “1989,” you could search taylor swift “* it off” and find the “Shake It Off” lyrics you’re hunting down.

Exclude words with the minus sign

It’s frustrating when a search returns oodles of results that have nothing to do with what you’re looking for. This is especially common with homonyms — words that are spelled and pronounced the same but have different meanings. For example, let’s say you’re searching for a music group to play at your wedding. Searching for wedding bands brings up a ton of results, but most are for wedding rings — often called bands — not musicians that play at wedding receptions.

The minus sign is your friend here. Think of a word that would appear on all the irrelevant pages — in this case, “jewelry” or “jeweler” is probably a good bet — and include it with a minus sign in your search: wedding bands -jewelry. Just like that, you’ve got yourself a bunch of sites that review wedding bands across the country.

I also use this often for products with similarly-named siblings — say, Apple’s MacBook line, which includes the MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro. Getting too many results for the Air and Pro? Just eliminate them from your search with macbook -air -pro and you’ll get more relevant results.

Narrow your search to a specific time period

If your head is spinning after that last one, here’s an easy tip for you. Occasionally, search results will consist of older articles that have ranked on a given topic, but haven’t been updated to include recent changes. If you encounter this problem, you can put a date restriction on the results by clicking the Tools button under Google’s search bar, and then clicking the “Any Time” drop-down. You can narrow your results to the previous week, month, year, or a custom time frame.

Search your favorite sites with the “site:” operator

If you’re looking for an article you read a while back, but can’t find now — or if you specifically want to see what one of your most trusted sites has to say about a topic — you can use the site: operator to limit your search to that specific publication. (This is especially useful for sites that don’t have a search function — though it’s often better than a site’s built-in search bar, too.)

Let’s say I want to read about the Iran nuclear deal, but I prefer coverage from The New York Times. Instead of just Googling US iran deal for the latest news, I can search site:nytimes.com iran deal to see coverage only from The Times. This also allows me to see everything The Times has done on the topic going back weeks or months, rather than my results getting cluttered with versions of today’s news from other publications.

Add search shortcuts to your browser’s address bar

Ready for a more advanced lesson? Tricks like the site: operator are great, but they take a while to type out — especially if you search for Times content regularly. You can save yourself precious seconds on every search by creating a short keyword for bits of text you search regularly, if your browser supports it, and most do. That way, instead of typing site:nytimes.com every time, you can just type nyt in your browser’s address bar, add your search terms, and get right to the good stuff.

To do this, perform an example search on Google, then copy the URL from the address bar. Using the above example, my URL is:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+iran+deal

This is what we’ll use to create our shortcut. In Chrome, right-click the address bar, choose “Edit Search Engines,” and click “Add” to create a new one with nyt as the keyword. In Firefox, right-click the Bookmarks Bar and create a new bookmark instead with nyt as the keyword.

Paste the search URL you copied earlier into the “Search Engine” or “Location” box, and replace your search terms with %s (making sure to leave in any terms you want to keep as part of the keyword). So, since I want my nyt shortcut to search site:nytimes.com and whatever search terms I add, my URL would look like this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+%s

See how I replaced iran+deal with %s in the URL? Now, whenever I type nyt into the address bar, I can search The New York Times for any terms I want.

I use this for all kinds of common searches: sites I like (nyt searches site:nytimes %s), authors I trust (jk searches Jolie Kerr %s), or — if you want to get really advanced — other URL tricks, like getting driving directions from Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=from+123+main+street+to+%s).

Find the source of a photo with reverse image search

Finally, not all searches are made up of words. Sometimes, it can be handy to know where a certain photo came from, or to find a larger version of it. You probably know you can type a few words to find a photo with Google’s Image Search, but you might not have realized it works in the other direction too: Drag an image into Image Search and Google will find other versions of that photo for you.

A few years ago, I was searching for an apartment, and found one that looked great — it had the number of bedrooms I needed, in the part of town I wanted to be in, and the photos looked nice. But I found it on one of those “members only” apartment listing sites, so I had to pay a monthly subscription in order to get the name, address and contact info of the complex. Not to be outdone, I dragged the building’s photo to my desktop, then dragged it into Google Images. Google immediately found another site that had used that photo: the building’s official website, where I could call or email and ask directly about open units for rent.

77 incredibly useful tips for Google apps: Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and beyond

I’ll let you in on a little secret: Google’s apps and services are absolutely overflowing with buried treasures.

More than any other tech company, Google loves tucking interesting options and features into out-of-the-way places. Some of the best elements of Gmail, Google Calendar, and other popular productivity tools are almost completely out of sight, in fact, and all too easy to overlook if you don’t know where to find ’em.

Once you have a road map, though, these virtual jewels couldn’t be easier to embrace. And once you get yourself in the habit of using them, you’ll never look at Google’s apps the same way again.

1. Give yourself more room to write First things first: Gmail’s default compose window for new emails is a small box in the lower-right corner of the screen. That can be nice if you want to keep an eye on your inbox—but it can also be quite distracting when you actually want to focus on what you’re writing.

Gmail’s compose window, in its little-known full-screen form

Ta-da! Now your Gmail compose window will always open up as large as your current browser window allows. Should you ever want to shrink it back down into that smaller setup, just click the icon with two arrows pointing inward in the window’s upper-right corner.

5. Set yourself up for smarter snoozing Snoozing is one of my favorite Gmail features, but it’s also one of the most confusing when it comes to settings. The reason: You can actually customize the default times for email snoozing in Gmail—the specific morning, afternoon, and evening times that pop up by default in the various one-click snoozing options—but the setting to make that adjustment isn’t located within Gmail.

You’d never know it, but those innocuous-looking “Keep snooze settings” also tie into Gmail.

You can control exactly when and where every Gmail label appears, if you know where to look.

Hide anything you don’t often access in either of those places, and you’ll stop wasting time looking through superfluous stuff.

8. Boost your second-guessing buffer Gmail has a tremendously useful feature called “Undo Send,” which lets you pull back a message, in case you suddenly reconsider something you said (or included a wildly inappropriate attachment by mistake). By default, though, Undo Send gives you a measly 5 seconds to make that call—which isn’t much time at all, especially when potentially mortifying errors are involved.

Take two seconds now to find the “Undo Send” option in the General section of Gmail’s desktop settings, and you can boost your buffer from 5 seconds to a full 30. There’s little real downside, outside of your messages sitting for an additional 20 or so seconds before they’re actually delivered. And there’s a world of face-saving gained.

You can create a custom view to show anything from two days to four weeks within Google Calendar.

11. Stop focusing on the past Why distract yourself with events that already happened? Instead, let Calendar dim past appointments so you can focus on what’s next.

Look for “Reduce the brightness of past events” checkbox within “View options” of Calendar’s settings. You’ll notice the difference immediately in Calendar’s week and month views.

12. Get a more global view You can manage appointments across multiple time zones by activating Calendar’s secondary time zone option, which lets you have events start or end in different locales without the need for mental conversions.

Look for “Time zone” header in the website’s settings, then check the “Display secondary time zone” box, and select the time zone you want. You also can give each time zone a label (“Boston” and “California,” for example) to make things even simpler.

13. Convert time zones like a pro In addition to its time-zone-converting capability, Calendar can show you a world time clock to give you an at-a-glance view of the current time in any number of places. 

Simply seek out “World clock” in the website’s settings. Once it’s activated, you can add however many time zones you want, and they’ll all be displayed in the site’s lefthand sidebar.

14. Jump into the past—or future One of Calendar’s most helpful shortcuts is also one of the easiest to miss: You can press “g” from any calendar view to jump directly to any specific date, in any year.

Calendar’s date-jumping shortcut will zap you to any date in the blink of an eye.

15. Return to the present in a snap Speaking of smart shortcuts, here’s another one worth remembering: From anywhere on the Calendar site, you can hit the Esckey to jump right back to the main calendar screen. And while looking at any calendar view, you can hit “t” to return to today’s date.

16. Save an event the speedy way  The next time you create a new event, try hitting Ctrl-S once you’ve put in all the information. That’ll let you save the event without having to lift your fingers and mess with your mouse.

17. Uncover Calendar’s undo option Calendar also has a little-known command that’ll let you undo errant actions—like moving an event by mistake or deleting the wrong appointment. Hit Ctrl-Z or even just “z” by itself on your keyboard. You have only about a 10-second window, but if you catch your slipup soon enough, it’s a great way to fix your flub.

18. Don’t forget the trash For times when you delete an event entirely and then need to get it back later, make yourself a mental note about Calendar’s tucked-away Trash section. It gives you the opportunity to recover any deleted event for a month after axing. You can find the Trash section by clicking the gear in the site’s upper-right corner and selecting “Trash” in the menu that appears.

Google Maps tips

19. Go completely hands-free We’ve all been guilty of glancing down at our devices while driving—to look ahead at the next turn, perhaps, or see how long is left in a commute. If you have an Android phone, there’s a better way: Google Maps has a whole series of helpful voice commands that’ll work whenever you’re actively navigating.

Just say “Hey, Google”and then try variations on these examples:

“What road is this?”

“What’s my next turn?”

“What’s my ETA?”

“How’s traffic ahead?”

“How’s traffic to work?”

“Avoid tolls”

“Avoid highways”

“Find gas stations”

“Find restaurants”

“Navigate home”

“Take me to McDonald’s”

“What’s the closest hotel?”

“Exit navigation”

You can also instruct your phone to make calls, send texts, play music, or look for your next appointment—all without ever taking your eyes off the road.

If your device doesn’t respond to your commands, search your system settings for “Assistant” (but, um, not while you’re driving) to find the Google Assistant settings, then make sure you have “Hey Google” voice detection enabled.

Everything you need to remember where you parked is right within the Maps mobile app.

When you’re ready to get back to your spot, look for the saved parking notification on your phone, or just open Maps, and tap the “Parking location” card at the bottom of the screen.

21. Share your location, even while moving Need someone to find you—or maybe just know where you are? Take a look at Maps’ simple system for real-time location sharing.

To try it, open Maps on your phone, tap the blue dot, and select “Share location.” You’ll be able to set an end time for location-sharing or opt to keep it active until you manually turn it off. Then select any of your contacts to share with or get a private web link to paste wherever you want.

You can also access the sharing function while in the midst of a Maps navigation by swiping up from the white bar at the bottom of the screen and then selecting “Share trip progress.” That’ll share your location with whomever you choose until you reach your set destination.

In either scenario, people who open the link will see an icon showing your current position on a map as you move—within the Maps app, if they have it, or in a regular browser window if they don’t. You’ll see an indicator at the bottom of Maps letting you know location-sharing is active, and you can always stop the sharing by tapping that box.

22. Search along your route while navigating That swipe-up-while-navigating menu has one other useful pearl: an option to search along your current route.

Activating it will give you one-tap buttons for finding gas stations, restaurants, grocery stores, coffee shops, etc. along your way. You can also type in your own custom search term—if, say, you want to see every Starbucks or Taco Bell that’s on your present route.

23. Find out what’s near anything Speaking of search, Maps makes it easy to find anything you need even when you aren’t actively navigating. Anytime you want to find specific types of places near your current location or any other spot, tap the search bar at the top of the mobile app and try variations on these queries:

“Restaurants near here”

“Pharmacies near Figueroa and 1st Street”

“Vegetarian restaurants near me”

“Book stores near UCLA”

“Gas stations near the airport”

“Things to do near the Florida Theatre”

Maps can act as your guide to practically anything, anywhere.

You can also browse to see what’s near your current location by opening Maps and scrolling and swiping through the Explore tab at the bottom of the screen.

24. Get a ticket to ride The next time you’re looking up a location on your phone and decide to hail an Uber or a Lyft to get there, save yourself some steps and order your ride from right within the Maps app. After searching for a specific place, tap the Directions button and look for the cab-hailing icon (between walker and cyclist) that pops up, showing the amount of time to get there. Tap on the icon, and at the screen’s bottom it will show cost and wait times for whichever ride-sharing apps are installed on your phone—and allow you to hop directly into the ride-ordering process within that app.

25. See how busy businesses are Before you head out to the grocery, your favorite deli, or even the DMV, let Maps show you how long of a wait you’ll face upon arriving. Search for the spot in the Maps app—or find and tap it within your current map view—then tap the business’s name in the white bar at the bottom of the screen and scroll down until you see the section labeled “Popular times.”

See precisely how busy businesses are or are likely to be in the future with Maps’ Popular times tool.

26. Beam a map directly to your phone When you’re looking up directions on your computer, save yourself a step and beam them directly to your phone for easy on-the-go access.

Click on an inconspicuous option that appears when you search for a place or pull up directions on the Google Maps website. It’ll be in the box on the left side of the screen—either as an icon beneath the place’s name or address, if you’re looking at a regular map, or as a plain-text link immediately above the route options, if you’ve already pulled up directions. (If you’ve clicked through to a specific route, it’ll be an unlabeled icon immediately to the right of the travel time estimate. And yes, there’s some irony in the fact that you practically need a map to find this feature.)

Click whichever version appears, and you’ll see a list of devices that are connected to your Google account. Android devices should show up automatically, while iPhones will require you to first install and sign into the Maps app and then enable notifications within the app’s settings.

Whichever way you go, the Maps info will show up as a notification on your device seconds after you send it over.

27. See time-specific traffic estimates You can find out how long a drive is likely to take at any given time with Maps’ intelligent traffic estimation tool. Just search for a location in Maps’ desktop version, then click Directions and type in whatever starting point you want.

Maps’ traffic estimation tool will help you figure out how much time you need to leave for a drive, even if you aren’t hitting the road right away.

28. Get parking info before you go Nothing’s more annoying than arriving somewhere at the last second and having to scramble for where to park. Maps can help—at least, if you have an Android device. Before you hit the road, search for your destination in the Google Maps app on your phone. Tap the Steps button toward the bottom of the screen, then look for “Find parking.” However, the parking feature is only available in some U.S. cities, and Google doesn’t specify which ones. So, if you don’t see the “Find parking” option, it’s most likely not live in your area.

29. Measure the distance between multiple points Want to map out your morning jog—or maybe just know exactly how far you have to travel on a particular trip? Maps can precisely measure the distance between two or more points, all the way down to the second decimal.

On your phone, tap and hold your finger on your starting point. That’ll cause a red pin to appear along with a white box showing more info about the location. Swipe up on the box and select the “Measure distance” option. After that, use your finger and the blue + to find and select the second point. Repeat as many times as needed to measure your full path.

Maps’ distance-measuring feature makes it easy to figure out the precise distance between any number of points.

30. Save time with advanced gestures Beyond the classic pinch-to-zoom, Maps has a bunch of other useful gestures to help you get around the app on your mobile device. Try out these advanced maneuvers:

To zoom in or out of a Map with a single hand, double-tap and then slide up or down on the screen without lifting your finger.

Spin a map around to change your orientation by placing your index finger and thumb on the screen and then twisting them together to the left or right.

Shift your perspective by placing two fingers on a map and sliding them both upward on the screen. That’ll take you into a “flyover” view of the area you’re looking at, complete with three-dimensional buildings in a lot of places.

Google Drive tips

31. Scan on demand Most average mammals never realized it, but you can actually scan documents and receipts directly into Drive with the Google Drive app for Android. 

The Google Drive Android app offers several options for on-demand scanning.

However you do it, Drive will save your image as a PDF and make its text searchable for future discovery. (And sorry, iPhone-toting pals: The option isn’t available in Drive’s iOS app as of now.)

32. Save stuff with a single click Whenever you’re wading your way around the web on a computer, you can quickly save any web page, image, file, or screenshot directly from your browser to Drive by using the official Save to Google Drive Chrome extension. 

Once the extension’s in place, just right-click any hyperlink to save its target into your Drive storage—or click the icon within the puzzle-shaped extension menu in the upper-right corner of the browser to capture and save a screenshot of your current view.

33. Maintain multiple versions of files You’d be forgiven for failing to notice, but Drive has a potentially life-saving option to maintain multiple versions of any file for easy reference and later retrieval. You can use it with a PDF, an image, an archive, an audio file—you name it.

To get started, right-click a file in Drive and select Manage versions within the “File information” menu. Click the Upload New Version button to upload the file’s new version, then repeat that process as needed. Drive will show just a single file in its main interface, but when you right-click the file and select “Manage versions,” you’ll be able to see and download all the versions you’ve created.

Just keep in mind that, by default, only 100 older versions will be saved—and all older versions will be deleted after 30 days. You can tell Drive to hang onto a version eternally by clicking the three-dot menu icon next to the file’s name and selecting “Keep forever” from the menu that appears.

34. Search for stuff within your files In addition to being able to search for text within regular documents and even PDFs, Drive can find images in your storage via a simple keyword search.

Just like its cousin Google Photos, Google Drive can find images when you search for keywords.

35. Sort your storage Running out of space? Let Drive identify your biggest files so you can see what’s eating up your storage and clear out some room.

Start by clicking “Storage” on the left side of the Drive website. Then all your Drive files will appear in order of size, starting with the largest. You can even click the “Clean up space” option if you want some suggestions on stuff to delete.

36. Set a timer on your sharing If you have a paid Google Workspace account, you can opt to make a file in your Drive storage available to someone else for only a limited period of time. 

Right-click the file on the Drive website and select Share, then type in the name or email address of the person with whom you want to share and click Send. Once that’s done, make your way back to that same sharing menu—and this time, click the downward-facing arrow to the right of the person’s name (alongside Viewer, Commenter, or Editor).

Look for Add expiration in the menu that pops up, and you’ll be able to set a date on which the access will expire, then click Save.

Google Docs tips

37. Tap into a swift shifting trick The next time you need to move text within a document, skip cutting-and-pasting for this faster way: When viewing a document within Docs on the web, just highlight the paragraph you want to reposition, then click and drag it with your mouse—or, in an even more efficient twist, place your cursor anywhere inside the paragraph, hold down Alt and Shift together, and use your arrow keys to move it wherever you want. (Who knew, right?!)

38. Format the faster way With just a few quick clicks, Docs can copy the formatting from one area of text and apply it to another. The trick lies within that paint roller icon in the upper-left corner of the Docs website toolbar (to the right of the print icon). Place your cursor on the text that has the formatting you want, click the paint roller, and then click the paragraph where you want the formatting to be applied. The font, size, style, and color should all show up instantly.

If you want to apply the formatting to more than one area of text, double-click the paint roller at the start of the process. That’ll force it to remain active as you apply it repeatedly.

39. Find any command in no time Save yourself the trouble of digging through Docs’ menus to find what you need and instead use the Alt-/ shortcut to search all available functions in no time.

You can get to any Google Docs function in no time by using the program’s menu search command.

40. Dictate your document Give your fingers a break and let Docs turn your spoken words into text: As long as your computer has a microphone, all you have to do is open the Tools menu and select Voice typing—or hit Ctrl-Shift-S (or Cmd-Shift-S)—and speak away. Docs will use Google’s standard voice-to-text system to figure out what you’re saying (mostly, anyway) and put it on the page.

41. Use your voice to format Docs’ voice-to-text function also lets you speak commands for common forms of punctuation and paragraph formatting. You can say things like “period,” “comma,” and “question mark” or give instructions like “new line” or “new paragraph.” If you want to take a break, say “stop listening” and then say “resume” when you’re ready to continue.

42. Edit aurally In addition to taking down text, Docs’ voice-typing mode allows you to perform advanced edits via spoken command. The system supports a huge range of functions—selecting specific words, phrases, or paragraphs; applying different types of formatting to text; cutting, copying, and pasting; and even scrolling through a document or jumping to specific parts of the page. 

43. Dig up info without ever leaving your document Docs makes it possible to do all your research without ever leaving your word processor—both on a computer and from your mobile device. 

Open up Docs’ Explore tool by looking in the Explore menu (or pressing Ctrl-Alt-Shift-I or Cmd-Alt-Shift-I) on the desktop site or by finding the Explore in the mobile apps’ main menu (while you’re actually editing a document). Docs will bring up a series of web results, images, and related documents from your past work. 

Docs’ Explore function brings a world of research right into your word processor.

44. Connect to your own image collections Attention, Google Photos users: Docs makes it so easy to add images from your Photos collection directly into your documents. When editing a document on the Docs website, click the Insert menu, and select Image to find the option. You can also add an image from your Google Drive storage, by URL, or by searching the web from that same area.

45. Edit images within Docs Docs has its own tool to let you crop or edit images, too: Click on an image within your document, then click the Format menu and select Image. There, you’ll find the command for cropping as well as a broader Image Options selection that contains functions for recoloring and adjusting the image’s transparency, brightness, and contrast.

46. Get an on-the-fly dictionary check Not confident about a word’s meaning? Hit Ctrl-Shift-Y (or Cmd-Shift-Y) with your cursor on the word. Docs will dig up a definition and show it on the right side of the screen.

47. Take note of your notes If you use Google Keep as a note-taker, you can access your notes while working on a document and even insert an entire note into your current page. 

Look for the Keep icon within the right-of-screen side panel to pull up the Keep widget. If you don’t see that side panel, look for a small left-facing arrow in the lower-right corner of the screen to reveal it. 

Once the widget is visible, you can view and edit your notes. If you want to dump a note’s contents into your document, hover over the note and then click the three-dot menu icon that appears.

48. Translate anything, anytime Don’t let a language barrier keep you from communicating. Docs has a native system that can translate entire documents into other languages: Click the Tools menu, then select Translate document. You’ll then be able to select the language you want and provide a new name for your translated file. Fácil, ¿no?

49. Email anyone without ever leaving Docs How’s this for a hidden feature? You can email people directly from Docs to save yourself a step and make collaboration more efficient.

If you’re already sharing a document with someone, look for the Email collaborators option within Email in the File menu to get started. (Your message will come from the primary email address associated with your Google account.)

Or maybe you want to send a copy of your current document to someone via email without adding them as a collaborator—to provide the file to a client, for instance, or share it with someone outside your organization for review. Docs can do that, too: Just open that same Email option within the Docs File menu and select Email this file. You’ll be able to select from a variety of formats or even opt to include the text within the email body.

50. Create convenient in-document links If you want to point people to a specific section of your document, use Docs’ bookmarking feature to create a direct link to any area of the text.

Place your cursor where you want the link to reside, then open the Insert menu and select Bookmark. A pop-up will appear with the link, though you’ll still need to be sure to share the document appropriately (either with the people you want to be able to view it or publicly, if you want everyone to be able to access it) before it’ll work for anyone other than you.

51. Make a PDF on demand Need to send someone a link to a PDF version of your document? 

Copy the full URL in your browser’s address bar while you’re editing the document, then change the “/edit” at the very end to “/export?format=pdf” (without the quotation marks). As long as people to whom you’re sending have access to the document, they’ll get a PDF of your work as soon as they open the link.

52. Build your own Docs template You can use a similar trick to turn your document into a template for other people’s ongoing use: Once again, copy the full URL in your browser’s address bar while you’re editing the document—but this time, change the “/edit” at the end to “/copy” (again, without the quotation marks). 

Let anyone copy your document as a template with Docs’ handy “/edit” URL trick.

Google Sheets tips

53. Summon the date in no time Sheets has plenty of keyboard shortcuts, but one series that’s especially worth noting is the collection of commands that quickly insert the current date and/or time wherever you want: 

Hit Ctrl or Cmd and the semicolon key within any spreadsheet to add the date; Ctrl or Cmd along with Shift and the semicolon key to add the time; and Ctrl or Cmd along with Alt and Shift and the semicolon key to add the date and time together.

54. Format text fast Google Sheets’ fast-formatting shortcuts are also worth remembering. With the right combination of keys, you can format any cell or selection of cells however you want, without having to dig around in menus. 

Commit these to memory:

Ctrl-Shift-1: Format as decimal

Ctrl-Shift-2: Format as time

Ctrl-Shift-3: Format as date

Ctrl-Shift-4: Format as currency

Ctrl-Shift-5: Format as percentage

Ctrl-Shift-6: Format as exponent

55. Make your own custom Sheets shortcut You can actually create your own personalized shortcut within Sheets to perform a complex series of custom actions with a single command. 

Sheets’ macro-recording system lets you create your own custom shortcuts for practically any actions imaginable.

You could do something like set a specific sort of formatting for a cell’s contents (bolded white text with the Open Sans font and a dark-gray background, for instance) or you could manipulate data in a more involved manner, like copying a cell’s contents and then erasing that cell and pasting the contents one cell over to the left. When you’re finished, click Save in the macro-recording panel, and you’ll be able to give your new shortcut a name and assign it to any available key combination for future activation.

56. Copy cells swiftly Speaking of copying a cell’s contents, if you ever need to duplicate a cell’s data and have it appear in multiple cells above it, below it, or on either side of it, click the original cell to outline it in blue, then look for the little blue square in its lower-right corner. Click that square and drag it in whatever direction you want, for as far as you need. When you let go, the original cell’s contents will instantly appear in all of the other cells you selected.

57. Link two sheets together Need to show some live data from one spreadsheet inside another? Copy the full URL of the sheet with the data and paste it into Sheets’ ImportRange function, using the following format (with your own URL, sheet number, and cell range in place):

=IMPORTRANGE (“https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aBcDEfgHiJKLMnOPQRSTuVWXZ”, “Sheet1!D1:D15”)

Then paste that function into the sheet where you want the data to appear. You’ll have to hover over the cell and click a button to allow the two sheets to be connected, but then—hocus-pocus! All of the data from your other sheet will magically appear and remain current whenever any changes are made.

58. Grab data from the web Sheets can pull in data from any publicly available web page, too, as long as the page has a properly formatted table. The secret lies within the ImportHTML command. Use it with whatever URL you need and the number indicating which table on the page you want to import (“1” for the first table, “2” for the second, and so on):

=IMPORTHTML(“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sandwiches”,”table”,1)

Sheets’ ImportHTML command imports live data from any public web page in a nicely formatted table.

59. Bring any feed into your sheet A similar kind of command can let you import recent entries from a website’s RSS feed into any spreadsheet. All you do is enter the ImportFeed command along with the URL of the feed you want. For instance, if you wanted to see all my Fast Company stories in Google Sheets, you could enter:

=IMPORTFEED(“https://fastcompany.com/user/jrraphael/rss”)

If you wanted only the titles of the stories—and wanted only, say, the most recent five entries—you could add in the following parameters:

=IMPORTFEED(“https://fastcompany.com/user/jrraphael/rss”,”items title”,false,5)

And then if you wanted to place the links to each story in a separate column alongside that, you could use this:

=IMPORTFEED(“https://fastcompany.com/user/jrraphael/rss”,”items URL”,false,5)

60. Eliminate extra spaces If you spot some extra spaces before or after data in your spreadsheet, whether you’re looking at numbers or text, don’t forget the Google Sheets function TRIM. You can type it in for whatever cell you want (=TRIM(A1), for instance), and it’ll take away any leading or trailing spaces, and give you a cleaner version of the cell’s value.

If you want to perform the function for multiple cells at once, use this format for whatever range you need:

=ArrayFormula(TRIM(A2:A50))

61. Fix your formatting Looking at lots of data with RanDoM or ImPropeR CaPitaLiZaTion? Sheets can standardize case formatting for you with a few simple functions:

=Upper(A1) will make all the text uppercase for whatever cell you mention; =Lower(A1) will do the same with lowercase; and =Proper(A1) will capitalize the first letter of each word for a title-case effect.

62. Enforce your email addresses Maybe you have a database of user-submitted email addresses. Tell Sheets to look through the addresses and determine if they’re all properly formatted: Use the function IsEmail(A1) with whatever cell you need—or if you want to perform the function for a range of cells, use this format:

=ArrayFormula(ISEMAIL(A2:A50))

Sheets will give you a True or False answer for every email address you feed it.

63. Check out a chart You can easily create a tiny chart within a single cell using Sheets’ nifty Sparkline feature. Just type the command =Sparkline followed by the cells you want to include, the word “charttype,” and then the type of chart you want to create—such as line, bar, or column—formatted like this:

The Sparkline feature puts tiny charts of data into single cells within your spreadsheets.

If you really want to get wild, you can even include a variety of customization commands that’ll control the colors used in different parts of your chart along with other visual factors.

64. Add some color to your rows Want a quick and easy way to make your spreadsheet shine? Look for the Alternating Colors option in Sheets’ Format menu. It’ll give you a simple set of options that’ll apply a sharp-looking color pattern to your rows—no thought or effort required.

65. Try a Sheets text trick While you’re jazzing up your spreadsheet’s appearance, think about letting Sheets rotate the text in your header row. Highlight the row, then click on the icon that shows an “A” with a right-facing arrow beneath it (toward the right of the top-of-screen toolbar—or possibly within the three-dot menu icon, if your window width is narrow). 

Rotating header-row text and adding alternating colors are easy ways to give your spreadsheet some extra pizzazz.

66. Stay on top of edits When you’re sharing a spreadsheet or using a form to accept survey-like responses, you can ask Sheets to notify you whenever an edit or addition occurs—either immediately or as a once-daily email digest. Look for the Notification settings option in the Tools menu to set your preferences for any particular spreadsheet.

67. Finesse financial data Sheets has the power of Google Finance (which—who knew?—is still a thing) baked right in for your stock-knowledge needs. The system is able to give you real-time or historical stock prices along with all sorts of other market-related data for any publicly traded company.

Simply use the function GoogleFinance followed by the info you desire, using the variables and formats described on this page.

68. Translate right within Sheets Ever find yourself scrolling through a list of responses in different languages? Sheets can identify any language used in a spreadsheet and even translate it into your own native tongue on the spot. To detect a language, use the following function (with the appropriate cell number in place of “A1”):

=DETECTLANGUAGE(A1)

You can also enter in a word in place of a cell number, if you want:

=DETECTLANGUAGE(“pepinillo”)

Google will give you a two-letter code telling you the language that was used. To translate, meanwhile, use the following command—with your own word or cell number in place of “A1” and the code for whatever language you want to translate into (if it’s anything other than English, as referenced below):

=GOOGLETRANSLATE(A1,”auto”,”en”)

It just goes to show you: Much like the language of love, the language of spreadsheets truly is universal.

Google Search tips

69. Go back in time when a site’s offline Trying to reach a site that’s temporarily down or permanently offline? Type “cache:” followed by the site’s address directly into Google. That’ll take you to a recently saved version of the site hosted on Google’s own servers.

70. Let Search decide your fate The next time you need an impartial judge to help make a decision, try typing “random number generator” into Google. That’ll bring up a tool that lets you specify a minimum and maximum number—for however many choices you have, or even representing a specific set of values within a spreadsheet—and then have the Google genie randomly pick a number within that range.

The Google Search number spinner will land on a random digit, with anywhere from 2 to 20 options in place.

And for even simpler decisions, let Google flip a coin or roll a die for you by typing either command into the search box. (Bonus tip: You can also ask Google to spin a dreidel.)

71. Keep track of time Make Google serve as your personal time-keeper by typing “timer” or “stopwatch” into a search box. You can also launch right into a specific timer by typing “20 minute timer” (or whatever amount of time you desire).

Google’s geometry calculator can work with a variety of advanced formulas.

Google has separate stand-alone calculators that can figure out tips and monthly mortgage payments, too. Search for “tip calculator” or “mortgage calculator” to give either a whirl.

73. Convert anything, anytime The next time you need to convert between units, ask Google to do the heavy lifting for you. In addition to handling currency and practically any measurement system, Google can convert megabytes to gigabytes, Fahrenheit to Celsius, and days into minutes or even seconds.

You can explore all the possibilities by typing “unit converter” into the search box and then looking through the dropdown menus that appear—or you can perform most conversions directly by searching for the exact changeover you want (e.g. “14.7 lbs to oz”).

74. Turn digits into words Who among us hasn’t come across a sprawling number and stared at it blankly while trying to figure out how to say it aloud? Search for any number followed by “=english”—”53493439531=english,” for example—and Google will spell out your number for you in plain-English words.

The color picker tool is an easy way to find color codes and convert among different code types.

You can also see an identifying swatch for a specific color code by typing it into Google in almost any form: “#fcef00,” “rgb(252, 239, 0),” “pantone 444 u,” and so on.

76. Start your streaming adventures Figure out which streaming service has the show or movie you want by searching for “watch” followed by the program’s title. Google will give you a list of places where you can find it—both as part of an active subscription and on an à la carte purchasing basis.

77. Have some fun When you’re ready for a break, let Google entertain you with a hidden Search game. Try searching for some of the following terms:

Google Pacman

Solitaire

Minesweeper

Tic Tac Toe

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