⏳ 14 days, then gone

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Good Wednesday to you, {{first_name | friend}}. Somewhere, a 1998 sedan is watching a modern car shut itself off at a red light and thinking, “Back in my day, we idled like adults.”

Auto start-stop is the feature nobody invited but everyone has to babysit. The rumor mill says it’s wearing out your starter, burning extra gas and slowly destroying your engine one red light at a time. It feels true. Your old car never did this. So here’s the question.

🚗 Why doesn’t all that stopping and restarting wreck your starter motor?
A) It totally does.
B) The starter is built tougher for it.
C) The engine fake-naps.
D) A tiny mechanic lives in the hood and pull-starts it like a lawn mower.

Stay tuned, the answer is parked at the end.

🚶 I made this for my own joints: Whether I’m doing Pilates, hiking or playing pickleball, I want my joints to feel supported. ImproveLife Joint Support is made in the USA to support mobility, flexibility and everyday comfort. My readers save up to 40% today.**

💧 I write this for you: Get my Splash of AI free newsletter every Thursday. I’ll show you how to spot resale cash in old clutter, audit your calendar like a crime scene, avoid risky AI tools, understand robot ump challenges and use Gemini for smarter morning briefings. Yours free. Sign up now at SplashOfAI.com, so it hits your inbox tomorrow morning. — Kim

🤯 WOW: Your voicemails don’t live on your phone. They live on your carrier’s server, and some get erased in as little as 14 days, even the ones you “saved.”

The Short Version: Exporting a loved one’s voicemail as a forever audio file takes about a minute. Steps below, then store it in two places.

📖 Read time: 3 minutes

Two years ago, I wrote about how to save the voicemails of someone who has died. About a week later, a handwritten note showed up in my mailbox. A woman had followed the steps and rescued her late husband’s messages. She listens to them still. She wanted me to know they brought her comfort. 

So I wrote her back. On paper. With a pen, like a person. She wrote to me again. Today, we see each other a few times a month. (Hi, Jan!) A column about carrier retention policies turned into a wonderful friendship, all because a voice got saved instead of deleted.

Here’s what you need to know: That voicemail from your mom isn’t stored on your phone. It lives on your carrier’s server, and your carrier treats it like leftovers in the office fridge.

I tested the steps below. Yours might be different, depending on your phone’s make, model and operating system. 

Pro tip: If you’re ever closing a loved one’s account, save the voicemails before you call the carrier. 

A minute or two tonight. That’s the whole ask. Someday you’ll tap Play and hear a voice you thought you’d lost, saying something ordinary like “Call me back.”

🎯 Send this to someone who still has their dad’s number saved and can’t bring themselves to delete it.

📱 Text-worthy: PSA: Carriers auto-delete voicemails, some in 14 days, even “saved” ones. Go save the ones from people you love as audio files TONIGHT. Takes a minute.

Share this now:

Don’t let a “boring” email turn into an exciting afternoon at the identity theft office. Hackers are using a Google Drive loophole to send Gmail alerts that look like a standard “verify your access” request. One click gives a stranger total control over your photos, docs and recovery info.

Hit the link below, so you’re in the know 👇

▶️ The shocking Gmail work trap →

Or for audio only, search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m there.

🩺 Health data toll: Get this. Samsung tucked a Consent to the Use of Health Data for AI training and modeling toggle deep in Settings, and guess what happens if you say no? You lose account sync, and your backed-up health data can be deleted. Is that a feature or a hostage negotiation? The data bucket includes sleep, medications, medical records and cycle tracking. The iffy part? Humans may review some of it. Nothing says wellness like trading REM cycles for a cloud backup. Sleep is for the weak.

Face computers banned: Looks like eyewear is becoming a race-day compliance issue. Cyclist Willie Smit got disqualified from a race for wearing Oakley Meta smart glasses. He said nobody warned him about the ban passed in April. He was likely filming POV content, which Tour de France riders already do with handheld cameras. Well, move that camera onto your face, and suddenly everyone wonders if your sunglasses are coaching, recording or whispering betting odds. The sunglasses I ordered were much darker than advertised. I blame a lack of transparency.

🔐 One hundred passwords: That’s how many online accounts the average person has. No one is remembering 100 strong, unique passwords. It’s not a personal failure, that’s math. Let NordPass remember for you. It generates a long, unique password for every account, locks them in an encrypted vault and fills them in automatically on any device. One master password. That’s all you need to know. Get 52% off today.*

The Great Founder Rush: Everybody’s talking about AI layoffs. Nobody’s talking about what the laid-off are doing next. Americans filed 1.56 million new business applications in a three-month stretch, the biggest run since the government started counting in 2004. January alone hit 532,319, up nearly 40% from a year earlier. Founder listings on LinkedIn jumped 69%. The pink slip economy is quietly turning into the startup economy, one kitchen table at a time. I started a roller-coaster business. It has its ups and downs.

🪞 Sunlight on demand: The sun used to clock out at night. Reflect Orbital saw that and wondered, what if we ruined bedtime from space? The FCC approved its first 60-foot mirror satellite, designed to beam sunlight onto a 3-mile patch after dark, brighter than a full moon. It could help disaster crews, construction sites and solar farms. Also, the company wants 50,000 of them. Astronomers complained loudly to the tune of almost 2,000 angry comments. The FCC shrugged. Sun: Ah, darn it, I forgot my wallet. Moon: No worries, I’ll cover ya.

Tired of spoilers wrecking your favorite show? TikTok and X’s hidden setting blocks them. Plus, Chuck wrote a song to honor his parents. Just one problem. He hates his singing voice. We weigh in on whether AI belongs in something this personal.

Listen on Komando.com →

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Google Maps AI lets you get really specific with what you want. Instead of searching “steak,” open the app and search for the exact thing, like “steak restaurants open till 10 p.m.” You’ll get options with reviews and photos. Play with the filters at the top for price, wheelchair access and more.

Important email missing? It might’ve been accidentally blocked. On Apple Mail, open Trash, select the message, tap the reply arrow icon at the bottom, then Move Message > Inbox. In Gmail, open the Spam folder, tap the message and hit Report as not spam. You’re basically retraining your filters.

👆 Start work in one click: On Mac, you can make multiple apps open with a single button. Open the Shortcuts app, hit the + icon at the top, then drag in Open App from the right. Click the blue App text and choose your apps, like Safari and Mail. From your shortcuts list, add that new shortcut to your Dock.

🤫 Google speaker nighttime: Google speakers and displays can automatically lower their volume and dim their lights when you want. In the Google Home app, long-press your device, then tap Settings > Notifications & digital wellbeing > Night mode. You’ll still be able to use the voice assistant. It’ll just be softer.

💻 Windows 10 countdown: ICYMI, Microsoft is emailing folks about one more year of security updates, but only if you signed up for the ESU program. That extends support until Oct. 12, 2027. After that, you’re on your own, and your PC will be more vulnerable to attacks. FYI, Windows 11 needs better specs, so if you need to upgrade, here are my picks.

Be on the show! Have a problem only a Digital Goddess can solve? Spill the tea here. You could chat with me on air. 

You can order an entire gazebo houseboat on Amazon because assembling patio furniture needs more drowning risk.

This $16,000 19-foot floating Cheesecake Factory waiting area seats six, includes sofas and tables and moves at up to 5 mph with a 1.3 to 1.7 horsepower electric motor. There are anti-capsize fins, which is reassuring wording from a product with zero reviews. 

Best case, it arrives fully built. Worst case, Alexa tells you your hull is being delivered in a different package. Fins crossed it stays upright.

There’s only one, check it out.

🎓 What you learned today: Your saved voicemails may be living on borrowed carrier time, Samsung’s health data settings come with some very pointy fine print, smart glasses are causing trouble on the racecourse, Google Maps can handle oddly specific dinner searches like a picky friend with GPS, and Amazon will sell you a 19-foot floating gazebo. Not bad for one email.

The answer is B) The starter is built tougher for it. Your grandpa’s old sedan would throw a mechanical tantrum if you asked it to shut off and restart at every red light. But modern auto start-stop systems don’t use the same bargain-bin starter setup from 1998. They’re built with reinforced heavy-duty starters, plus smarter batteries and control systems designed to handle hundreds of thousands of restart cycles.

And restarting a warm engine? It sips a tiny fraction of a second’s worth of fuel, way less than sitting there idling. The whole system exists to save you gas in stop-and-go traffic. 

I built a car entirely out of wood. Wooden seats, wooden doors, even a wooden engine. Only problem was, it wooden start. (Sometimes I crack myself up writing these!)

☀️ Keep moving comfortably: ImproveLife Joint Support is made in the USA with five clinically studied ingredients to support cartilage health, mobility, flexibility and everyday joint comfort. Give your joints targeted support today and save up to 40%.**

Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily

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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Anker, Amazon

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