👉 Your phone is begging for mercy

Hello there, {{first_name | friend}}. It’s the final Sunday of the year, and while you’re probably clearing out your inbox or setting goals for 2026, let’s look back at a major milestone. Let’s go back to this day in 1895 when the world’s first commercial movie screening took place in Paris. It was only 50 seconds long and showed workers leaving a factory. Fast-forward to today, and we’re obsessed with video, especially YouTube.

📺 So here’s your brain-tickler. Every single minute of every single day, how many hours of video on average are uploaded to YouTube? A) 100 hours, B) 300 hours, C) 500 hours or D) 1,000 hours. We are officially producing content faster than the human race can consume it. I’ll reveal the staggering answer at the end of this newsletter.

🛡️ Be a hero for that person in your life who’s always a weird link away from a digital disaster. Forward this to one friend who needs to be tech-smarter. It helps this newsletter stay free, keeps them safe and saves you from a two-hour tech support call later this week. Thanks for the boost! — Kim

📬 Was this forwarded to you? Stop being the last person to get the digital cheat codes. Join almost 1,000,000 insiders who get the edge every morning. Sign up now. It’s free!

Hear that sound? It’s your phone gasping for air, “Help me, help me, Obi-Wan Komando!”

The 1,000 identical photos of the same sunset and the accidental videos of your pocket are stifling. Now that holiday hustle is over, let’s get to work. Note: I checked all these steps below but yours may be different depending on your device’s make, model and OS.

You don’t need to scroll to find the junk. Use the AI’s brain to hunt it down by category.

You only need one photo of every shot, not three.

Stop guessing which photo is the best one. Let the world’s most powerful AI be your private photo editor. Start by opening the album or folder with your holiday and Christmas photos.

If you want the most storage back in the least amount of time, go for the big fish.

Don’t keep this tech savviness to yourself! If this guide helped you develop a better frame of mind, share the know-how by forwarding this newsletter to a friend or using the icons below to post it on social media. After all, a picture is worth a thousand words, but a clean photo feed is priceless. And remember, I used to be a photographer, but I had to give it up. I felt like I was losing my focus.

If the holidays wore you down, these helpers come in handy.

🌬️ Breathe easier: This smart air purifier (23% off, $69) quietly pulls its weight. The HEPA filter tackles dust, smoke and allergens. Control it with an app or Alexa.

Simple skin care: These toner pads (25% off, $23) do a lot in one swipe. Retinol helps smooth fine lines, collagen boosts hydration, and centella calms angry skin.

🧼 Lather up: Kitsch’s kojic acid soap (21% off, $10) brightens dark spots without drying. Cleans your knees, elbows, underarms and more. Made in the USA, too!

From head to toe: A three-pack of African net sponges (23% off, $7) exfoliates way better than a loofah and lasts longer. They stretch to scrub hard-to-reach spots and dry fast.

❄️ Amazon’s Winter Sale is here: Save up to 40% and snag the thing you really wanted this year.

The moon? Mars? I talk to Roman Chiporukha, CEO of SpaceVIP, who is literally a travel agent for the cosmos. Plus, how one man and a chatbot pulled off a massive cybercrime spree, the Hertz AI cameras mess, and the true cost of Prime.

Listen on Komando.com →

🎧 Or listen now wherever you get your podcasts, search for “Komando.”

🛬 Hands off the yoke: A plane flying out of Aspen loses cabin pressure at 23,000 feet. Pilots? Totally awake, but they hand the controls to a robot. On purpose. Garmin’s Autoland picked the airport, called ATC, landed, braked and shut down the engines like it was no big deal. First time that’s ever happened IRL. I hardly even trust my printer to work correctly, let alone a plane. 

Snooping VPNs: About that free VPN you installed. Looks like Urban VPN (plus a few sister extensions like 1ClickVPN Proxy, Urban Browser Guard and Urban Ad Blocker) has been quietly harvesting and monetizing your AI convos, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Meta AI. Since July, over 8 million users had their chats sucked up via sneaky injected scripts. Urban VPN says it’s all opt-in. But “opt-in” apparently means “buried in a settings tab behind a riddle.” That’s why I always tell you not to use a free VPN. There’s always a catch. I use and recommend ExpressVPN. Get 4 extra months here.*

📉 Teen time = screen time: Instagram’s been quietly panicking about teens ditching them for TikTok. Leaked docs show execs saw it as a full-blown crisis. “Losing teen mindshare” was the phrase. Instead of slowing down, they cranked out more Reels, algorithm pushes and group DMs, using tactics that are psychologically manipulative (paywall link). So if your kids are on IG a lot more, this is why.

The death of 6 o’clock: Remember when we watched the same three channels and trusted the guy in the suit? Those days are toast. The average age for network news viewers is, get this, 70 years old. The ads are all joint pain and colon health. Everyone else? We’ve officially swapped Walter Cronkite for true crime podcasts and side-eye YouTube commentary.

🎥 Nun of this: I love, love, love this, even though Sister Claire used to slap my knuckles with a ruler in third grade. A group of elderly nuns in Raiano, Italy, is racking up millions of views with morning posts about joy, faith and how to spiritually declutter your life (like, with labeled cardboard boxes). It started because 98-year-old Sister Maria Chiara said she felt useless. Now they’re a full-on content team, filming daily, scripting together and praying over DMs like it’s their job. Because it kind of is.

Dan from Denver thought he rebooked a flight. Instead, he lost $17,000 to a scammer. Plus, the smart glasses that record everything you see, a plane that lands itself, and why old-school paper résumés are making a comeback.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Want to know if those alkaline AA or AAA batteries in your junk drawer are still good? Stop guessing and start dropping. Hold a battery 1 to 2 inches above a counter and drop it on its flat end. A fresh battery has a gel interior that absorbs the hit with a thud. As it dies, that gel turns into solid metal, making it bounce like a pogo stick. If it hops, it’s junk!t. 🔋

💾 Your hard drive will fail someday. Not if, when. One bad click, coffee spill or surge can erase every photo, document and memory on your computer. Data recovery can cost $300 to $3,000, and often nothing can be saved. I use Carbonite because it backs up everything automatically to the cloud and restores it with one click. It’s digital insurance for the stuff you can’t replace. Right now, with my exclusive link, you get 50% off. Btw, I get no kickbacks or residuals if you buy.*

Rotate photos on a Mac: Have a few holiday photos that are sideways? You don’t need special editing software, macOS Preview can do the job. Click the file once in Finder and press the space bar to open it. Now tap the rotate button in the top right corner, then close the file to save. FYI, works for videos, too.

🔒 Check your website permissions: Some websites might be tapping into your location, webcam or mic without you noticing. In Chrome, click View site information on the left of the address bar and open Site settings to see what they’re allowed to use. On Safari, go to the Menu > Settings for this website > Permissions.

Want your Windows PC to start quicker? Turn on Fast Startup. It puts your computer into a hibernation state when you shut down, so key processes are already loaded at boot. Open Control Panel > Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do (left panel), enable fast startup, and click Save changes at the bottom.

🔐 Clean up your passwords before 2026: If you’re juggling dozens of logins, odds are more than five are embarrassingly weak. A password manager fixes that in one shot. I use NordPass because it creates strong passwords, stores them securely and fills them in automatically. Their holiday deal is big, 58% off plus 4 extra months.*

✉️ Self-destructing emails: Gmail has a Confidential Mode that’s great for sending private info you don’t want lingering. Recipients can’t forward, copy, print or download the attachments. Write your email, tap the lock icon at the bottom, and Set an expiration date (like one week). After that, the message won’t be accessible anymore.

🤑 Is it on sale? I just checked my personal Buy Again list and found a ton of my daily go-tos at a massive discount, some up to 41% off. Before you pay full price in 2026, hit this secret link to see which of your favorites are marked down right now.

🛰️ Ride the space elevator: Scroll up from Earth and see how high humans and sci-fi ideas actually go. 

⌨️ Test your typing speed: Put your clacking to the test.  

Arrange your library by ideas: Sort and match books by concept or question. 

🚶🏼‍♀️ Take me on a walk: Click to listen to my latest show on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart, Pandora or wherever you get your podcasts. I also make chores go by faster!

Coming soon to a backyard near you. Beer from the heavens.

Forget waiting for the delivery guy to find your front door. A new startup called Stratos Beer has unveiled the MK1 Stratos, a spider-like drone designed specifically to deliver cold ones.

The drone carries up to eight cans in a temperature-controlled central keg body and uses GPS to hover over your location. Once it locks in your coordinates, it releases the cans one by one, each floating down safely on its own tiny parachute. If you’re hosting a bigger crowd, it can even land and serve as a 5-liter mini-keg stand on its own foldable legs.

Such a great idea! Why? Beer makes your smarter. Well, it made Budweiser.

🕵️‍♂️ If you think AI is just for chatting, you’re already behind. Tomorrow, I’m pulling back the curtain on 2026: The Year of the AI Agent. I’ll show you why your AI chatbot is about to stop answering questions and start executing tasks like booking flights and handling your errands while you sleep. Don’t miss Monday’s drop, it’s the blueprint for the next two years of your digital life.

⏳ The answer is C) 500 hours. That is 30,000 hours of new video every single hour, and 720,000 hours every day. 

To put that in perspective: If you sat down right now to watch everything uploaded to YouTube in the last 60 seconds, it would take you nearly 21 days of nonstop viewing to finish. No wonder we can never find the end of the Suggested Videos rabbit hole!

How did we get to this point? Netflix: “Hey, want to watch a 10-hour movie?” Me: “Absolutely not. I have a life. I have responsibilities. Who has that kind of time?” Netflix: “What if I break it into ten 1-hour episodes and you watch them all tonight until 3 a.m.?” Me: “Now we’re talking. Let me get my pajamas.”

💰 Did you win Christmas cash from me? We have unclaimed Amazon gift cards waiting to be sent to winners. Head to WinFromKim.com and use the lookup tool now. It takes seconds and could be worth a lot. And don’t forget, the $1,000 grand prize winner will be announced after the drawing next week. Fingers crossed it’s you.

If your computer acts up today, remember, it’s more afraid of you than you are of it. Probably. — Kim

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Photo credit(s): Gemini, KNQZE, Stratos Beer

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