“Saved Information” – Gemini’s Hidden Superpower
In Gemini’s settings, you’ll find an option called “Saved Info.” Google describes this as a place where you can store information “about your life and preferences” to get better results from your chatbot. I’m here to tell you that this may be the least useful way to use this feature. It’s a much more powerful way to create your own shortcuts right in Gemini.
This feature can be found by selecting “Settings” in the Gemini app or on the web. Click “Saved Information” and you’ll see a blank page and an “Add” button. Click that and you’ll be given a blank field where you can write some sort of pre-instruction. Each block seems to have a limit of about 1,500 characters, although there doesn’t seem to be a limit on how many you can save.
Google shows examples that include simple instructions, like “I prefer short, concise answers” or only recommending vegetarian recipes. But this space is much more powerful.
How Gemini Uses Saved Information Hints
I first noticed this when I was trying to use Gemini’s Canvas to compose documents. Typing (or saying) “Convert all subheadings in this document to H2” is often more difficult than just doing it myself. But with Saved Info, I can write a variation of this instruction that tells Gemini to do this if I just type “H2s.”
This works because every chat you start with Gemini will reference anything stored here as a set of universal context blocks. Before processing any of your requests, Gemini will first read your stored information and treat it as instructions that precede everything in the conversation itself.
Using Saved Information to Customize Document Templates
This trick also works for more complex instructions. For example, let’s say you have a lot of cover letters to write and you want to tailor them to each job you apply for. You can add this block to Saved Info:
“If the prompt begins with the words ‘cover letter,’ create a draft cover letter in Canvas. Cover letters should be no more than 3 paragraphs long. If the prompt includes a person’s name, address the letter to that person. If the prompt includes ‘skills:,’ include the skills mentioned after that in the context of the letter. Sign all cover letters as [YOUR NAME].”
With these instructions, you can call Gemini to create a cover letter draft for you with just a few words. You can even take this further by providing an entire cover letter template (as long as it doesn’t exceed the character limit) and instruct Gemini to make only simple edits based on the criteria you provide.
One of the biggest problems with using generative AI to write for you is that it can be a bit risky for anything beyond early drafts . And if you have to babysit it every step of the way, you might as well write it all yourself. However, this approach gives you more freedom to write for yourself while automating the more tedious aspects of customizing a document for each person you send it to.
Set up instructions for your smart home
Another handy example, if you have smart home gadgets connected via Google Home, is that you can turn simple commands into more complex ones. For example, when I sit down to watch a movie, I usually want to turn off the overhead light but turn on the LED light behind the TV. It’s not a huge picture to say “Turn off the overhead light in the living room and turn on the TV light,” but it is a little hard to pronounce.
But since Gemini is the default smart assistant on my phone, I can add the following hint to Saved Info:
If the invitation only says “movie time,” turn off the overhead lights in the living room and turn on the TV backlight.
Now I fire up Gemini on my phone, say “movie time,” and it translates the instructions and relays them to Google Home. Note: This requires that you have the Google Home Gemini app enabled and connected (which, oddly enough, is not a Google Home mobile app, but an extension within Gemini itself ).
Automate commands in plain English, no code required
We’re big fans of automating tasks, especially with services like IFTTT , but the downside is that they can sometimes get a little technical or complicated. What’s so appealing about this particular Gemini trick is that you can write the instructions in simple, human-readable language.
One of the most interesting use cases I tried was the following query:
If the request includes a “grammar check,” read the document at the attached link. Check it for grammatical errors. Then, in Gemini Canvas, draft an email summarizing the issues you found. Keep it brief.
While this doesn’t work 100% of the time for all links (mostly because of how Gemini filters external text for security reasons), I didn’t have to do any extra coding or mess with settings to get this command to work. I typed two words, “grammar check,” and pasted a link to one of my recent articles. The result was a report that said there were no grammar issues. (Thanks, Lifehacker editors.)
Be careful how much you leave in Gemini’s hands.
This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: Gemini successfully parses instructions and successfully executes instructions. In the grammar-checking example above, I was impressed that Gemini figured out how to reference longer instructions from the shorthand, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will successfully catch every grammatical error.
The saved information trick is incredibly handy for automating repetitive suggestions, but if there’s a task you previously didn’t trust Gemini to do, that won’t make it any more reliable now. Maybe you don’t trust Gemini to catch grammar errors by your standards, but you think it’s okay to summarize the contents of a link. With a few simple tweaks, you can customize the above command to do just that, without any coding.