Advisorator: My duplicate photo cleaner

I vibe coded a photo cleaner

Plus: Disabling YouTube Shorts, a beautiful Android weather app, and Earth Day refurb deals

Jared Newman   |   April 21, 2026

Hey there! I’m Jared Newman, a longtime tech journalist, and you’re reading the free edition of Advisorator, my weekly tech advice newsletter. Did someone share this newsletter with you? Sign up to get it every Tuesday.

After failing to find the duplicate photo cleaner of my dreams, I decided to just make one myself.

Newmy’s Photo Cleaner looks through any folder on your Windows PC or Apple silicon Mac to find similar-looking photos, then lets you sort through them all with keyboard shortcuts. It’s a super efficient way to unclutter your photo collection, and it works entirely offline.

Much like my YouTube Downloader and Wireless Plan Picker, I’m making this tool available to Advisorator’s paying members at no extra charge. Learn more about subscribing here, or hit the link below for more details on the app.

Check out Newmy’s Photo Cleaner →

News in brief

More RAM price fallout: Electronics makers are continuing to raise prices as AI data centers eat up nearly all the demand for memory. In the last week alone:

The advice I offered a couple months ago remains sound: Prepare to keep your devices for longer if you don’t have any imminent upgrade needs, and consider the used and refurbished markets to defray costs.

More notable news and reads:

Tip of the week

Turn off YouTube Shorts (sort of): YouTube now lets you limit your daily time spent mindlessly scrolling through vertical short-form videos:

  • In the YouTube app, tap your profile icon, then tap the gear icon.
  • Head to Time Management and turn on “Shorts feed limit.”
  • Set a daily time limit, which can be as low as zero minutes.

Once you reach the limit, you won’t see any Shorts in YouTube’s main feed, and you won’t be able to scroll through more than one video in the Shorts tab. It’s not a hard block, though, as the Shorts tab has a button to override the limit as you scroll through it.

Disable Shorts for kids: For my fellow parents, the same controls are available in a way that kids can’t override:

  • In the YouTube app, tap your profile icon, then tap the gear icon.
  • Head to Family Center > Your child’s name > Time management > Shorts feed limit
  • Set a daily time limit, which can be as low as zero minutes.

Note that you must set up a Google Family Group with one or more children in it for these controls to work. I’ve just set up limits for my kids and eagerly await their reactions.

Try these apps

A beautiful Android weather app: If you’re an Android user who’s miffed that all the cool indie weather apps seem to be iPhone-exclusive (Carrot, Hello Weather, Acme Weather), a new Android app called Gradient Weather might be your answer. A single screen provides basic hourly and daily forecasts, and you can scroll down for things like wind speed, air quality, and humidity. It comes with a couple of nice home screen widgets, and I like how the background changes to match what’s happening outside.

Most of Gradient Weather’s features are free with no ads or tracking, with an optional subscription that unlocks more customization features. Check it out.

Stream decades of old concerts: Read this story from 2019 about how Aadam Jacobs recorded more than 10,000 indie rock concerts from the 80s through the 2000s, then this story about how he’s finally working with the Internet Archive to digitize it. Then, check out this free web app to hear the ones that have been uploaded so far. (You can also download the concerts directly from the Internet Archive, which remains an invaluable source of live concert tapings.)

Spend wisely

This section of the newsletter may include affiliate links, which earn me a commission if you wind up purchasing something.

eBay’s doing a big Earth Day sale on refurbished tech gear, with 20% discounts using the code TECHREFURB20. I’m a proponent of refurbished tech as it reduces e-waste and can save a lot of money, especially with new tech prices going up. Some highlights:

  • Anker’s 737 power bank, one of my favorite gadgets, is selling for $60 refurbished. Two-year warranty.
  • AirPods Pro 3 in “Excellent” refurb condition for $168. One-year warranty.
  • Apple Watch SE 3 (40mm, cellular) in “Excellent” refurb condition for $164. One-year warranty.
  • Apple Watch Ultra 2 in “Excellent” refurb condition for $336. One-year warranty.
  • Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 in “Excellent” refurb condition: 40mm for $64, 44mm for $64, 47mm Classic for $80. One-year warranty.
  • AOC 34-inch curved, ultrawide, high-refresh rate monitor for $160 refurbished. Two-year warranty.
  • Samsung’s 65-inch S90F QD-OLED TV for $955 refurbished. I have an earlier model and it’s mesmerizing. Two-year warranty.

Note: You must enter TECHREFURB20 at checkout to see the prices above. You can peruse the full deal list here.

Other notable deals not from eBay:

Thanks for reading!

If you enjoy this newsletter, please think about becoming a paying member. You’ll get my full weekly newsletter, in-depth online guides, and access to my friendly Tech Buds forum plus the Newmy’s Photo Cleaner app I mentioned at the top of the newsletter. Once you subscribe, the software will be yours to keep forever (even if you cancel).

Until next week,
Jared

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