The app you need to clean up your computer

Plus, in this week’s Installer: Dungeon Crawler Carl is back, an underwater adventure game, smart glasses, and much more. Plus, in this week’s Installer: Dungeon Crawler Carl is back, an underwater adventure game, smart glasses, and much more. If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission.See our ethics statement. Hi, friends! Welcome toInstallerNo. 128, your guide to the best andVerge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, sorry this one’s so Mac-heavy, and also you can read all the old editions at theInstallerhomepage.) This week, I’ve been reading aboutDavid Attenboroughandscreenwriters-turned-AI-trainersandtheSubway Takesguy, listening to a lot ofProductivity FM’s mixeswhile I work, finally writingmy vibe-coding opus, testing the Poppy AI assistant (and giving it more of my data than I frankly should have), tracking my pathetic step counts with the new Fitbit Air, buying more ofThe Atlantic’s summer reading listthan I will ever plausibly read, watching a lot ofMaxinomicsvideos afterthe one on quartzwent viral, drowning in the nostalgia of my all-timeSpotify Wrapped playlist,and switching browsers for the first time in forever. More on that next week. I also have for you a couple of really useful Mac utilities, a new book in the Installerverse’s favorite series, a new tool for managing the fediverse, and much more. Let’s get into it. (As always, the best part ofInstalleris your ideas and tips. What are you reading / watching / playing / listening to / cutting into nifty shapes this week? Tell me everything:installer@theverge.com. And if you know someone else who might enjoyInstaller, forward it to them and tell them tosubscribe here.) Today,Joanna Sterngets the most important professional accomplishment of her life. No, not the Emmy she won, or her fabulous book,I Am Not a Robot,that just came out this week and you 100 percent need to buy and read several times. Not evenNew Things, her new media company / newsletter / YouTube channel. None of that. Today, Joanna Stern becomes the first-everrepeat guestinInstallerhistory. Huge day for her, honestly. Joanna spent the last year of her life trying to use AI for absolutely everything, in an effort to figure out where AI might actually be useful. (If you want to hear some of her stories, in addition to reading the book, you can find her on, like, every podcast on planet Earth over the last two weeks.) After all the experimenting, I asked Joanna to share some of the things she’s found that truly work. Here’s what she shared: What’s your day-to-day AI setup like?I’m a Claude personanda ChatGPT person. I use Claude Code and Claude Cowork for a lot of multi-step work and for integrating with my Google tools. I use ChatGPT more for editing and talking things through, mostly because the voice and live video mode are superior. What are some surprising things you’ve found that really worked for you?I love Projects in ChatGPT and Claude. They saved me a ton of time while book making. And yes, “book making” sounds like “baby making.” To be clear, I wrote the whole book myself. I used AI for organization, reporting, and research help, which I talk about a lot in the book, so you’ll have to buy it to find out more. Back to Projects: I used the tools to create my “BookBots.” I uploaded research notes, academic papers, transcripts, deadlines, editor notes and more. Those BookBots kept me on track and made it easy to find things when I was writing. If I had questions about deadlines, what I should be working on, or which companies / experts my research suggested were worth talking to, I asked the BookBots. Have you vibe-coded anything cool recently?Only the greatest website ever:joannastern.com. But seriously, I was running a pin promotion for a while, where people who pre-ordered the book could get a free pin. I vibe-coded the whole thing: an order form on the site, and a backend workflow where every submission with an uploaded receipt and address automatically added the person to a spreadsheet and emailed both me and the publisher a confirmation. After a year of AI experiments, what’s stuck with you?I talk to ChatGPT in the car a lot via voice mode. Also Meta AI in my Meta Ray-Bans. So yeah, I talk to AI a lot. Mostly because you don’t pick up my calls. I also asked Joanna to share a few things she’s into right now. She… did not do so. Joanna never does what I tell her to. She shared this instead: Well, David, when you write and release a book, you will discover there is absolutely no time for anything else. I look forward to that day for you and to supporting you through it. There’s no time for other books, movies, podcasts or even recipes for how to make food. So instead, here are six podcasts I recommend because I’m on all of them and that is, in fact, what I’ve been doing with my time lately. Also, apologies to all tech podcast listeners whose feeds I have completely taken over this week. If you buy the book, I hear they will a