5 Things You Can Do With Cortana on Windows 10

 

Set Reminders for Times, Places, and People

Cortana has a powerful built-in reminder feature, but there’s more you can do with these reminders than simply getting a reminder at a specific time.

Use the Reminders icon or say “Remind me” to get started. You can create a reminder and have Cortana remind you about something at a specific time, when you get to a specific location, or when you talk to a specific person. You can also just say something like “Remind me to take my pill at 8pm” or “Remind me to buy milk when I get to [name of a store]” to instantly create a reminder.

Use Natural Language Search

Cortana supports natural language search for files on your computer. For example, you can ask Cortana to “find pictures from August” or “find documents about Windows” to find pictures from the months of August or document files related to Windows.

It’s the built-in Windows search feature, but with more natural language capabilities. It’s easier to use than the old search operators.

Identify a Song

Like Siri, Google Now, and dedicated apps like Shazam, Cortana can listen to a song playing near you and identify it. Say “What is this song?” and Cortana will use your microphone to listen to the music and match it to a specific song. Obviously, this works well with recorded music but won’t necessarily work with live music.

Search the Web With Google (or Another Search Engine) Instead of Bing

Cortana is “powered by Bing.” When you ask Cortana for something it doesn’t know how to answer, Cortana will open your default web browser and perform a Bing search for it. Cortana respects your default web browser — even if it’s Chrome or Firefox — but won’t respect your default search engine and will always use Bing.

You can make Cortana use Google instead — or another search engine, like DuckDuckGo or Yahoo! — with the Chrometana extension for Google Chrome. When Cortana directs Google Chrome to a Bing search results page, Chrometana will automatically redirect that search to Google or your search engine of choice, forcing Cortana to perform Google searches.

This only works if you use Chrome as your default web browser, of course.

Perform Calculations and Conversions

Cortana can perform quick calculations, too. Remember that you can type into the Cortana search box, too — you don’t have to speak long numbers.

You can either ask cortana for the answer to a math calculation like “324234 * 34234” or enter a unit conversion like “55 uk pounds to usd”. This works for currencies as well as other types of units.