iOS 15: How to Create a ‘Hide My Email’ Private Address

With iOS 15 and Hide My Email, you can create unique, random email addresses that forward to your personal inbox whenever you want to keep your personal email address private.

This is especially useful if you think that a business or website is likely to share your email address with ad agencies or other third-parties for marketing purposes. Providing them with a dummy address means you can delete the address at any time, ensuring any unsolicited emails don’t reach your inbox.

How to Create an Email Address Using Hide My Email

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Recover an Email Purged From an Exchange Account’s Deleted Items Folder in Outlook for Windows

Emails are removed from the Deleted Items folder after a certain period set by the account administrator, when you empty the Deleted Items folder, or if you permanently delete a message in the Deleted Items folder. For most Exchange accounts, messages that are purged from the Deleted Items folder may be recovered for a period of time. This time period depends on how the Exchange administrator set up your account. This also applies to emails that were permanently deleted.

To restore messages that have been removed from the Deleted Items folder in Outlook for Windows:

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How to Get Rid of Teams on Windows 11

If Microsoft Teams is getting on your nerves in Windows 11—popping up when you log in, always running in the background, or launching when you click the “Chat” taskbar icon—here’s how to get rid of it.

Why Does Microsoft Want Me To Use Teams?

Teams is Microsoft’s collaboration and chat app. It supports audio and video calls, text-based chat, group chat, and synchronizing schedules, among other features. Teams is a competitor to services such as Zoom, Google Chat, and Slack, and can be considered a replacement for Skype, another Microsoft Product. Microsoft adds value to its Windows platform by getting people to use its services, which helps it make more money. That’s why it wants you to use Teams.

While Teams can be handy for some people, if you don’t use it, having it always running on your system can be an annoyance. Luckily, it’s possible to avoid or disable Teams, although you can’t remove it completely without potentially damaging your Windows 11 installation, because Microsoft considers it an essential part of Windows. We’ll go over several strategies in the sections ahead—ranging from least-to-most drastic removal measures.

By default, Windows 11 shows a Teams Chat icon in your taskbar (that looks like a purple word bubble with a camera icon inside). If you’d like to hide it, right-click the taskbar and select “Taskbar Settings.” When Settings opens to the Personalization > Taskbar page, expand the “Taskbar Items” section if necessary, then flip the switch beside “Chat” to “Off.”

In Personalization > Taskbar, switch "Chat" to "Off."

The Chat icon will disappear immediately from your taskbar. This doesn’t stop Teams from running in the background, but it does put it one step further out of sight.

If you’ve used Windows 11 for a while, you’ll notice that Teams likes to pop up whenever you log into your Windows user account. Luckily it’s easy to make it stop. First, open Settings by pressing Windows+i. Or you can right-click the Start button and select “Settings.”

In Windows 11, right-click the Start button and select "Settings."

When Settings appears, click “Apps” in the sidebar, then select “Startup.”

In Settings, select "Apps," then click "Startup."

In Startup settings, you’ll see a list of “Startup Apps” that launch whenever you log in. Locate “Microsoft Teams” in the list and flip the switch beside it to “Off.”

Click the switch beside "Microsoft Teams" to turn it "Off."

After that, close Settings. If Teams is still running in the background, quit it by clicking the caret arrow beside the speaker and Wi-Fi icons in the taskbar (also, near the clock). When a tiny bubble menu appears, right-click the Teams icon (purple with a “T” on it) and click “Quit.”

At this point, Teams won’t run again unless you launch it manually, although it’s still on your system. If that’s a problem, move on to the next section.

If you’d like to remove Microsoft Teams from your application list, it’s fairly easy to do. First, open Settings by pressing Windows+i (or right-clicking the Start button and selecting “Settings”). In Settings, click “Apps,” then select “Apps & Features.”

In Windows Settings, select "Apps," then choose "Apps & Features."

Scroll down in the Apps List and locate “Microsoft Teams.” Click the three vertical dots button beside its entry in and select “Uninstall.”

Click the three-dots button beside "Microsoft Teams" in the list and select "Uninstall."

Settings will ask you to confirm with a pop-up. Click “Uninstall” again. After a moment, Microsoft Teams will completely vanish from the list of installed Apps. But surprise! Teams is not completely gone from your system, because it’s an essential part of how the “Chat” taskbar icon works. To keep Teams from coming back, disable the “Chat” icon in the taskbar (see the section above). If you click that icon, Teams will automatically reinstall itself again and undo every step in the sections above.

If you previously uninstalled Microsoft Teams but you need to get it back, it’s actually just a click away. It seems that even if you uninstall Teams, Windows 11 always keeps a backup copy to load again when you click the “Chat” icon in the toolbar.

To re-install teams, all you need to do is enable the taskbar Chat icon (if it isn’t already) and click it. To see the Chat icon, open Settings > Personalization > Taskbar and expand “Taskbar Items.” Click the switch beside “Chat” to turn it “On.”

In Personalization > Taskbar, switch "Chat" to "On."

After that, click the Chat icon (the purple word balloon) in your taskbar.

Teams will automatically reinstall itself—and will also make itself launch at startup again.

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How to Add Multi-Color Text in PowerPoint

While picking fonts the right font for your presentation is important, you can add a fun touch by using multiple colors for the text. Here’s how to add multi-color text to a slide of your PowerPoint presentation on a desktop.

Similar to how you can highlight text on a slide, it’s also possible to apply a multi-color effect to the text and make it appear more attractive. Unfortunately, these customization options are available only in the desktop version of PowerPoint.

Add Multi-Color Text in PowerPoint

First, open PowerPoint and either open a new presentation or the one where you want to add multi-color text. Then, select the slide where you want to add the colorful text.

Select the slide where you want to add the colorful text.

On the slide, select the text you want to customize and click the “Format” tab.

Select the text you want to customize and click the "Format" tab.

From the ribbon, select “Text Fill” from the “WordArt Styles” section.

Select "Text Fill" from the "WordArt Styles" section.

When the drop-down menu opens, select “Gradient” and choose “More Gradient” from the sub-menu.

When the drop-down menu opens, select "Gradient" and choose "More Gradient" from the sub-menu.

That opens a new column titled “Format Shape” on the right-hand side, with the “Text Options” tab open since you want to change the text color. Note that the “Text Fill” section shows “Solid Fill” as the default option.

A column titled "Format Shape" on the right-hand side

Select “Gradient Fill” to reveal the options to customize the gradient style and colors.

Select "Gradient Fill" to reveal the options to customize the gradient style and colors.

Either choose a preset gradient or create a custom size as per your liking.

RELATED: How to Convert Google Slides to PowerPoint

Alternatively, you can customize your gradient. First, select the drop-down next to “Type” and choose between “Linear,” “Radial,” “Rectangular,” or “Path.”

First, select the drop-down next to "Type" and choose between "Linear," "Radial," "Rectangular," or "Path."

Under the “Gradient Stops” option, select the first pencil-like stop button on the slider. Gradient stops are the points at which one color begins to transition to the next.

Under the "Gradient stops" option, select the first pencil-like stop button on the slider.

Note: You can also click on the slider and add more stop buttons on it.

Then, select the icon next to “Color” to open the color picker and choose the color of your liking. If you’ve selected the text on the slide, it will show you the preview of the changes.

Similarly, select the rest of the stoppers and pick appropriate colors for each Gradient stop button.

You can try out the “Transparency” and “Brightness” slider to see how it impacts the color levels of the selected Gradient stop button and the text. You can see a live preview of that only if the prompt has a letter before and after it. Otherwise, you won’t see any change in the text.

Move the "Transparency" and "Brightness" sliders to adjust the appearance

That’s it. Spend some time picking appropriate colors to jazz up the text, and you can check out some tips to make better PowerPoint presentations.

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