As another year comes to a close (it’s almost December already!), it’s a good time to start looking back at your 2023. One way to do that is by taking a peek at your music listening history. While Spotify Wrapped isn’t here yet, your Apple Music Replay 2023 is now live. Check it out and share it with whomever you like.

How to check Apple Music Replay 2023

Unfortunately, Apple still won’t make Replay available as an in-app feature, so you’ll need to head to the official website to get started. To see a roundup of your year in Apple Music, go to the Apple Music Replay webpage and sign in with your Apple ID. (You can also find this link in the Apple Music app.) Once you do, you’ll see a message stating that your replay is ready. Click Jump In. You’ll then be able to see all of your highlights of the year.

The first thing you’ll see is your Highlight Reel. It compiles the biggest moments of your Apple Music year into a handful of highlights. You’ll see how many minutes you’ve listened, which artist was your top played of the year, how many songs you played (and which was your favorite), how many albums you listened to and the top one of your year, your top genre, and a concluding slide compiling it all together. It plays like an Instagram story with accompanying music per slide, so you can click through the slides if the autoplay is too slow for you.

After the Highlight Reel, you can scroll through Replay to see more details about all these statistics. When you scroll down, you’ll first see your top artists of the year and how many artists you listened to. My HomePod mini automatically plays jazz every morning, so it has some of my favorite artists—John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, and Thelonius Monk—listed here.

Up next on the Apple Music Replay is a list of your top songs and how many times you’ve played them. My top song, however, is one I don’t recognize at all, and apparently my HomePod has played it 56 times. It’s a good things all of these songs will appear on my Replay playlist, which we’ll get to in a bit.

Scroll down farther and you’ll see your favorite albums of the year. This is where I finally feel like this is my Apple Music Replay. I’ve played all of my top albums many times and the list is a pretty accurate representation of my tastes. Note that if you play a song via a playlist, it won’t count it as an album play, but if you look up an album and play any song from there, then it’s counted.

Apple Music will then show you your top genres, playlists, and radio stations—all of these were spot on in my Replay. You then get to see some of your Apple Music achievements, such as having listened for over 50,000 minutes, etc., followed by a link to your 2023 Replay playlist. This is your chance to retain a lasting memory of what your year looked like, through the lens of your Apple Music tastes. 

How to share Apple Music Replay with others

Apple doesn’t necessarily let you share you entire Replay at once, which is a bummer. However, any element in the Replay can be shared as its own rich screenshot. All you need to do is hit the share icon next to any element to share it. For example, if you wanted to share the Highlights Reel slide about your listening minutes, you can hit the share icon, tap the contact you want to share it to, and you’ll see a preview of the slide in your message. This works for any section of Replay, whether in the reel or not, so you can go through and share each piece individually to give your friends the whole picture of your Apple Music year.

Source: LifeHacker – Here’s Where to Find Your 2023 Apple Music Replay

iOS 17 changed the way you access Photos from the Messages app—a change that has, unfortunately, slowed down the process of sending images and videos. As it turns out, however, you don’t need to use the cumbersome default method. Instead, try this hack discovered by Reddit user Smiley-v2. 

Send images quickly in iMessage

To quickly send photos and videos, don’t press the (+), then hit the Photos. That’s too slow. Instead, open the Messages app, tap and hold the + button, and keep it held until you see the photo gallery replace your keyboard. Select the images or videos you want to send, and fire them away in your iMessage chats. 

Reorganize your iMessage app shortcuts

The Messages app in iOS 17 shows a few app shortcuts when you tap the + button in any of your chats. Only the top five shortcuts are shown here, however: You need to tap More to see the rest. The good news is that you can reorganize these shortcuts to prioritize the ones you actually use. Just tap and hold any of these shortcuts, and drag them up or down. If you drag them to the bottom, they go into the More section and are removed from the list of shortcuts that show up when you hit the + button. You can also open the More section and drag any of the apps there to the top.

Quickly delete unwanted iMessage apps

iOS 17 also has a neat settings page for you to remove iMessage apps you no longer use. This reduces the number of items that show up in Messages and allows you to retain only the ones you use. To trim this list, go to Settings > Messages > iMessage Apps. In the Only in Messages section, tap the red – button next to any app, and press Delete twice to remove it. Scroll down to the Included with an app section and flip the switches on the right to disable the iMessage apps you don’t use.

Source: LifeHacker – There’s a Faster New Way to Send Photos in iMessage

I found myself googling “how to get hair out of a necklace” this week after becoming frustrated with the little clumps and knots of hair that dot the chain of my everyday necklace. The chain gets stuck in the little hairs at the nape of my neck, pulling on them until I absentmindedly reach back there and yank it off—which doesn’t pull the hairs off the chain, but rather pulls them off my head. Sometimes, longer strands also get wound around the chain, which is simply the reality of, well, hair. I’ve tried pulling the hairs off, but it never works; they’re too small and tightly wound around the also-tiny chain.

Use Nair to remove hair from a necklace

I set about googling a solution and found suggestion after suggestion to use a pumice stone to remove the hair. I don’t have a pumice stone lying around and I also resent having to do that much manual labor, so I kept searching until I found a hack that would be accessible and easy, using something I could easily grab from the drug store and not have to put any elbow grease into. Finally, I found a suggestion so obvious that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner: Nair. But does it work?

Like most women, I’ve had my run-ins with Nair, but some moderate successes, too. In my youth, I burned myself with it once, but those days are over and I’m smarter, wiser, and safer these days. I grabbed some Nair Body Cream ($5.99) from my bathroom and ran to the store to get another kind, just to see if there might be a difference. I picked up the Flamingo Facial Hair Removal Cream ($7.99). I’ve never used a facial hair remover—of all my lots in life, facial hair just isn’t one of them—but it’s supposed to be gentler than the one you slap on your legs, so I figured it might be better for the chain (although possibly less effective on the hairs themselves).

Nair to take hair off jewelry: Does it work?

The bottle of facial-hair remover told me it shouldn’t be left on more than 10 minutes; the Nair bottle said the same thing. I put the pendant of my necklace in the center of the chain and spread it across a paper towel, then applied Nair to the right of the charm and Flamingo to the left.

I left it alone for 10 minutes, but scratched at the hair periodically. When 10 minutes were up, I really scratched, using my fingernails and the paper towel to pull off the hair. It came off easily, in gooey clumps, but the Nair side did much, much better. On the side where I used facial hair remover, about half the hair came off, so I think with a second application, I’d be able to get it all.

Be advised that hair remover cream often contains thioglycolate, which can tarnish silver. That ingredient was listed third for the Nair and fourth for the Flamingo, so you may want to choose a facial hair remover if you’re worried about tarnishing. My necklace is sterling silver, so it could easily tarnish, but after inspecting it, it doesn’t look like it got that bad.

A final note: Make sure you rinse the chain well after doing this so you’re not accidentally rubbing Nair along the base of your neck all the time.

Source: LifeHacker – Use Nair to Remove Hair From a Necklace

Instagram finally allows you to download reels from public accounts now. But of course, there’s a catch: You won’t always be able to download reels with audio (due to licensing issues), and all of your downloaded reels will have an annoying moving watermark. But assuming the reel doesn’t have copyrighted audio attached, you’ll be able to enjoy your favorite Instagram videos without using the app first.

This feature is enabled by default, but you can stop people from downloading your reels if you want.

How to download Instagram reels

The download process itself is pretty simple. Go to any public Instagram account on your Instagram app and open a reel. Tap Share, then Download near the bottom of the screen. You may see a pop-up telling you the reel will be downloaded without audio, but otherwise, the download should begin immediately. When the process is complete, you’ll find the Instagram reel saved in your phone’s photo library.

It’s worth noting that older reels cannot be downloaded using this feature. You’ll only be able to download reels that were posted after Instagram enabled downloads.

Stop people from downloading your reels

Instagram allows you to stop people from downloading your reels, too. Once you’ve completed recording and editing your reel on the Instagram app, navigate to More options > Advanced settings, then disable Allow people to download your reels.

You can also turn your Instagram account private to stop others from saving your reels, but if you like keeping a public account, that’s likely a step too far.

Download Instagram reels without watermarks

If Instagram’s official download feature’s restrictions are dealbreakers for you, there are alternative ways to get the job done. We’ve got you covered with all the easiest ways to download Instagram reels without watermarks and with the music. On your iPhone, you can use the Shortcuts app paired with the Instagram Download shortcut, while on Android, you can use a third-party app.

Source: LifeHacker – How to Download Instagram Reels (and Stop Others From Downloading Yours)