Try these April Fools’ tech tricks on friends and family!

March 29, 2024

By Kim Komando

Monday is April 1, and I can’t let it go by without recommending some techy April Fools’ pranks! If you know me, you know I love a good gag. If you know Barry, you know he’s my most frequent victim.

These sneaky tricks are harmless (and hilarious), but be forewarned — they require a little bit of device snooping. Hey, what else do you have going on this weekend?

Keyboard switcharoo

When your kids or partner aren’t watching, reprogram their computer keyboard so the wrong characters come up some (or all) of the time. You just need the right bit of software and a few minutes. 

Use Microsoft PowerToys for Windows or Karabiner-Elements for a Mac. Sit back and watch your victim lose it as they press the “E” key but keep seeing an “R” appear on the screen.

Pro mode: Program half the letters with an “h” and half with an “e” … then, when your mark starts typing, they’ll see “hehehehehehe” 🤭

“Alexa, go turtle mode”

Have an Amazon Echo at home? Just say “Alexa, speaker slower,” while no one’s around — then give it the same command again. Enjoy watching the rest of your household wonder what’s wrong with Alexa.

Say, “Alexa, speak at your default rate” when you’re done prankin’.

Here’s my fave Alexa prank that requires a little work. You can train Alexa to answer a specific question however you want. When Barry asks Alexa for the weather in our home in Santa Barbara, she says, “Look out the window. You live in a glass house.”

Pick a contact, any contact

OK, limit this one to people you know very well … and who can take a joke. If you can get into their phone, swap a couple of contacts that you know they’ll be communicating with on April 1.  

Say it’s two of their friends, Chuck and Pete. Go in and change Chuck’s contact name to Pete and vice versa. Now sit back and watch the show as their calls and messages go to the wrong person. Just don’t do anything that’ll get ‘em fired or divorced.

Set the desktop as the wallpaper

My computer desktop is full of folders and shortcuts — it sure would be a shame if someone were to swap it with a static screenshot of said desktop …

• On Windows: With the desktop visible, press Win + PrtScn to save it to Screenshots in your Pictures folder. Then, go to Settings to set it as the desktop via Personalization > Background. Then (and this is the bit you can’t do on Macs), you need to hide everything from the desktop. Right-click, choose View, then disable Show desktop icons.
• Mac owners: You can always stick to the old standby of changing the desktop background to something wacky, like this infamous painting of George Costanza. Or, you could make them think their screen is broken with one of these …

More Cage

For one glorious day, turn someone’s internet into a Nicholas Cage-copia. The nCage+ extension for Chrome can replace some (or all) of the pictures on your browser with images of the famous actor. Who knows, maybe your target will prefer their internet this way.

🤣 You do know why everyone is so tired on April 1, right? It’s because it’s at the end of a 31-day march.