Transcript
Micah Sargent (0:00)
Coming up on this episode of Hands On Tech, we have some follow up for questions that have been asked in the past. We also answer some Questions about using WPA3, dealing with email and also how to improve the speeds of your router. All of that plus more coming up on this episode of Hands On Tech. This is TWIT Time's almost up on holiday shopping and so are amazing deals at Amazon. You'll save so much on early holiday wireless gifts like wearables and wireless accessories. You'll have money left over for an electric guitar to take your caroling to the next level or that Bluetooth speaker to instantly add in a little extra holiday spirit. Oh what fun it is to save. Shop new deals added every day. It's better over here. After investing billions to light up our network, T Mobile is America's largest 5G network. Plus right now you can switch keep your phone and we'll pay it off up to $800. See how you can save on every plan versus Verizon and at&t@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch.
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Micah Sargent (1:33)
Hello and welcome to Hands On Tech. I am Micah Sargent, your host of this show and as is always the case, we are here today to answer some questions that people have sent in. I remind you Hotwit TV is the email you want to use to get your questions onto the show. I also once again thank those of you who have written in with wonderful questions. They keep pouring in and it's starting to load up so get your question in if you have one. The holiday break is just right around the corner so we will have some time soon to kind of pour through and see what people have asked. But let us get rolling here today starting with Jack. Jack has written in and has provided some follow up for a conversation that we had in the past. Jack says you gave directions to Vernon about deleting emails using the Gmail interface. So you may remember or if this is your first time tuning in, then I'll remind you that Vernon had written in. And last week I answered the question of how to get rid of old emails. Vernon had a bunch, a bunch of emails and I was helping figure out how to get rid of the ones that Vernon didn't need anymore. Jack says I used a similar technique earlier this year to delete all email messages prior to 1-1-2023 and so what Jack probably did was use some search operators to say, I want you to show me all of the emails that were from before this time. Jack says, I recorded the total space occupied in my Google account and waited for 30 plus days for the trash to be deleted permanently. So what Jack is talking about there is that Google specifically Gmail will hold on to email that you throw away for up to 30 days. Jack is saying I waited longer than 30 days and looked at the Gmail account. And Jack says as I check now Gmail occupies the same amount of space. There's been no meaningful change. How do I recover space that should have been freed by deleting all those old email messages? Alternatively, is there a way to examine the occupied space with more granularity than the Quote Drive Photos Gmail breakdown that Google provides? My account currently uses about 13 gigabytes of the 15 gigabytes of free allocation, with Gmail occupying about 8 gigabytes of that. It would be helpful to see a breakdown by label, but I don't know a way to do that. Thanks for your help. So Jack, interesting, because you've done everything upfront that one would probably presumably need to do. You have not just deleted the email, but you waited to see if the email reappeared or rather if it was completely trashed after you threw it away in the trash and it's still showing that you're taking up space now. Interestingly, Scooter X had a reaction that I also had Scooter X wrote in the chat. I rarely delete my Gmail and it is using 3.2 gigabytes. I'm the same way. I have lots and lots and lots of emails and I don't take up a whole lot of space. So it sounds like Jack, you may have a lot of attachments included with your email or something else that is causing this to be. Or maybe you just send a whole heck of a lot more email than I, I do. So I have a few things that to suggest. First and foremost, I would kind of even though you, you feel like you've done everything that you're supposed to do this far, kind of pretend, just, just let your brain float away from that and pretend like you maybe haven't done everything that you're supposed to do long enough to try this out, use the search operator size colon and type in, you know, 5 megabytes for example, so it'd be 5M and look at all of the email that appears with that actual search term. What's great is that you can also use something like larger colon and smaller colon. So you can say email that takes up, you know, more than five megabytes of space. That's what I'd like you to show me because I think that even though you in theory deleted the messages, there's a chance that something is causing them to stick around and they may be sticking around in a different place. So when you delete email, it can be the case that if you delete them in one spot, if they still have labels somewhere else, that label could be causing them to be held onto essentially. Another thing that you can do is you can sort of audit your email habits to make sure that you're not using an email program that is using POP instead of imap. So with imap you essentially are kind of getting a view into the server where the mail is being stored, whereas with pop, it's actually grabbing those email, storing them locally. And then there could be some sort of of sync thing where it is syncing them back to the server and keeping that email there. Now I did look into the Google suggestions about this as well and Google says that sometimes there is a chance that 30 days is not the way. It's not is not the extent at which Google will hold on to those emails. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer. So it is possible that Google is still holding on to the email. I doubt it, but it is possible that that's also the case. So I would wait a little bit longer and then maybe at that point you reach out to Gmail support if you can get in touch to see what in the world is going on here. But as far as kind of looking for more granularity, the only thing that you could do is try a third party mail program to actually download those emails and see just how much space is actually being taken up by Gmail specifically. And because most modern mail programs kind of integrate with Gmail precisely, it means that it will know the labels that you've used and the categories that you've used. And so you can break it down that way. Remember that there is also a search operator for using label. So you can type in label colon and then type something else out as well. So those are all possibilities for being able to check that out. And we'll include a link in the show Notes to the actual search operator page from Gmail or rather from Google. And it has all of the different options for how you can kind of filter your email by search and check it out that way. So yeah, going down the list, first and foremost, Try sorting your email by size, basically doing a search for the size to check that out. Then audit your mail habits to make sure that you aren't using a third party mail program or Google's Gmail itself somewhere else, which could be causing like a sync issue where on that device it still has all those emails and so then it looks at the fact that you deleted them there and says oh no, those are supposed to be there and then kind of puts them back. That could also be the issue. And then last but not least, using the search operator terms in a different way. I guess that's not last but not least, but the penultimate option is using those search operator terms in a different way to kind of figure out what email might be taking up a lot of space or what attachments are still being saved, and then using a third party email program to try and delete if for some reason Google still seems to be trying to hold on to those emails. Those are my suggestions for you, Jack, and do let us know how things turn out. All right, moving along, we have some feedback from Ronald. Ronald, who wrote in to ask about moving to a Mac from Windows, asked thanks. And by the way, chat open ears for this one because I want to double check. Ronald says thanks very much for your very detailed answer to my questions about moving to Mac. Still kicking the tires. And one issue occurred to me. If I format the external drive with APFS Apple protected file system, can Spinrite be used to maintain it? Now given that Spinrite can be used with the Mac, and given that Steve Gibson provides a few different ways to be able to use spinrite with drives that are used with the Mac, be it via Windows or doing other things, then you are able to use Spinrite. But just know that there are some special rules. So here's directly from GRC.com if you do not have even brief access to a Windows machine, which would allow you to use the Windows bootable application, the enclosed bootable IMG file may be written to any USB drive and booted. The Apple Mac version may be freely downloaded, installed, run, and used to safely copy the bootable image file to the USB drive of your choice. And then it also says that you can use DD to perform the copy operation as well. So you essentially are doing it from a bootable drive, like an external drive to access that hard disk drive. So that is. That is what I understand about using spinrite with that. But let me double check here as Scooter X has provided a little note. Here we go. So here's a great set of steps to follow to be able to use Spin right with your Mac. So we will include a link to this as well in the chat, I mean, in the show notes. But Ronald. Yeah, According to what I'm seeing from GRC.com there's a way to use it for Apple Mac users. And so in that case you should be able to still access the drive and kind of check it out. All righty. Let's move right along to Hasan, who writes in and says, I have an EERO router system at home and it's been working flawlessly for years. I have WPA3 enabled, as any Club Twit member would, but unfortunately recently have had to add a very old iPad to the network. The iPad cannot work on WPA3 and works fine if I turn it off. Is there any work around? I don't want to spend money on this old device, but I was thinking maybe something like using a travel router that can join my eero on WPA3 and the iPad can join it on WPA2. So Hasan, this is a great question. Occasionally you may come across a device that just doesn't work with your router. And here's the thing. The reason why enabling WPA3 means not being able to access it is, yes, because some older devices can't work with WPA3. But if you think about it, it's a little bit of a security issue. If most devices on your network are authenticating with WPA3, but you're still giving some devices the ability to use WPA2, then it means that you're not sort of wholly across the network saying, no, you've got to use this. This is the better, more robust option, right? You're saying, okay, here's just for you. You get an exception, you get to use the less secure option of WPA2, but you can do this, just as you've noted, not with the EERO itself. So if you enable WPA3 on your eero router, there's not a mixed mode of WPA3 WPA2 that is going to let you connect some devices the old way. You can of course toggle off WPA3 and then the iPad works fine, as you noted. But my suggestion for you is to get either a, as you mentioned, a travel router. Yes. Or you can just also get a non Eero wifi access point. You know, it doesn't have to be an expensive one. TP link sells a lot of them. If you get a travel router, then that means that you have A travel router that you can always take with you. The option that has been suggested a bunch of times in the chat and that also has been suggested by some of our fellow guests on the network is the GL INET portable Gigabit travel router. This little router is a great option that again you can take with you, you connect it to the hotel network and then you connect your devices to it. So this is a great option if you want to spend a little more money, but you want to be able to justify spending a little more money because you're not just getting it so that you can connect this old iPad, you're also getting it so that you've got a travel router that you can take with you when you go places. Which is nice, but very clever. Has on to think of this because yes, if you connect to the network with WPA3 and then on the router you offer the ability to connect to it with WPA2, you're good to go. I say specifically to get a non eero wifi access point because of course if you bought one of those little beacons or something else and you connected it, it's a one toggle option of turning on WPA3. So once it's on, it's on and then you're not going to be able to use it with that iPad. Another suggestion which Cole has provided. Thank you, Cole. I had not considered this. Cole says, hey, does the iPad need wireless all the time? Because if it doesn't, you could use WI fi sharing from a Mac. So yes, the Mac provides the option to sort of share your Internet connection with a connected device, in which case you would be able to provide an Internet connection to it. Now again, you wouldn't be able to do this. As Keith's512 points out. Maybe you could just remove all of your issues and future issues by just simply upgrading the old iPad. Yes, indeed. It sounds hasan like there's some reason that you need to use this iPad. Because you said, quote, unfortunately recently I have had to add a very old iPad to the network. So for some reason this old iPad needed to be added to the network. Maybe there's an app on it that comes from your company or, you know, company you work for that needs. There's some reason why you're doing that. Maybe you have a small business and the, you know, point of sale system that you're using is old school. I don't know what it is. I would love to hear that. I don't necessarily have to share it with all the listeners. But I am curious to, you know, what caused you to need to add this older iPad to the network. And you know, whatever the case, there are some options for you again, Cole, shout out Cole in the Discord Chat for that suggestion of being able to use the Mac's own Internet connection basically as an access point there. So if the iPad most of the time doesn't need to be able to connect to the network and it's just occasionally that's an option for you. If you do need that steady, steadfast connection, then yes, a travel router or just an access point that you add to your network from like TP Link can be good. All right, let me take a moment here to tell you all about the very exciting offer we have available to you right now, which is Club Twit for free. For a limited time, we are offering two weeks of Club Twit. You just head to Twit TV clubtwit. When you get there, you will be able to subscribe for two weeks as a free trial. Dip your toe in, see if you like it and then after that you can become a member of Clubtwit for just $7 a month. When you join the club, which we'd love to have you join the club, you gain access to some pretty awesome things. Every single show ad free, just content. You gain access to the Twit plus bonus feed that has extra stuff you won't find anywhere else behind the scenes before the show. After the show, special Club Twit events get published there, access to the members only Discord Server, which is a fun place to go to chat with your fellow Club Twit members and also those of us here at TWiT. And access to the video versions of our Club Twit exclusive shows. Those are hands on or rather iOS today, hands on Windows, hands on Mac and so many more. So if that sounds exciting to you, as exciting as it does to me, then consider joining the club. For those of you who are already members of the club, who are tuning in live. So you're hearing this. 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