Home techie – my IT person at home

1. What was the problem?

There's a lot of technology at home: a Mac with a few external drives, phones and tablets, cloud storage in several places and a wifi network. Nobody kept proper track of what was filling up, where the backups were or what was connected to the network.

2. What is the solution?

A bot of its own for system and data management. It takes stock of the Mac, drives, cloud storage and the home network, and records everything in Drive.

It flags full drives, double storage and missing backups. It never deletes files, changes settings or forces updates without my yes.

What a conversation looks like

A conversation on 29 August about my home network. My messages are almost word for word, the bot's answers in short.

18:01, me: "Can you also do an internet speed test and a network check at home, of everything running on my home network?" Bot: first checks whether my Mac at home is online and then runs a speed test from the Mac.

18:02, bot: just over 400 Mbps download and almost 190 Mbps upload over wifi; under load the delay goes up. The Mac is on wifi, the network cable isn't used. Then it makes a list of what's connected to the network: TV, printer, tablets and a row of smart devices.

18:07, me: "Can you find the internet console with the settings of the wifi networks and the security and so on? I have two, and I think my things are split over the two, which may not be handy." Bot: looks for the modem's settings page.

18:10, bot: they aren't two separate networks. My mesh wifi has a main network and a separate 2.4 GHz network for smart devices, and everything is on the same home network. That split is actually often handy.

18:22, bot: finds the login page of the wifi system, but without logging in it can't see the settings. I can log in myself via the app. It changed nothing.

The result: I know how fast my internet is, what's connected to my network and that my two wifi names belong together.

3. What did it take?

One sentence to the Chief of Staff to create the bot. The bot got access to my Mac to take measurements, and to my mail and Drive. Where there's no connection, I log in myself in its browser.

4. What went well?

It mapped my Mac and external drives: the internal drive was almost full, mostly because of photo archives. With my yes it removed old photo software (over 150 GB freed) and put thousands of loose photos aside in one folder to sort out.

It measured the storage of my business mail and Drive. Because of that, a more expensive storage plan could go down to a smaller one, and then, with my yes, it cleaned out old advertising, spam and heavy attachments.

It also made an overview of all my logins from my password manager, without passwords, as a handover for emergencies. And it helped with sharing files between Mac and iPad.

5. What didn't go well?

Some things the bot can't do itself. macOS blocked emptying the bin, and I had to switch on file sharing on the Mac myself. It only sees the wifi system's settings when I log in myself.

A first backup of the iPad over wifi would have taken about 15 to 20 hours; we stopped it. With a cable it's much faster. And once I pasted a password into the chat. The bot refused to use it and advised me to change it.

Who is it useful for?

Anyone with a few computers, a wifi network and storage in different places, who doesn't feel like keeping track of everything themselves, or doesn't want to do technical research alone all the time.

Connections

Google Drive (private and work), Gmail and access to my Mac.

What access does the bot have?

Access to the Mac to measure, and to clean up after my yes. Besides that, my mail and Drive. I log in myself; passwords stay in my password manager and never go in the chat.

Which files are shared?

Its own folder in Drive with the inventories and a subfolder for the emergency handover.

Cost and time per month

Included in my subscription; a separate bot costs nothing extra (see Cost & time).

Difficulty

★★ – you don't need any technical skills; you do give the bot access to your computer once, and you log in yourself where needed.

Getting started yourself

1. Create a separate bot for your computers and storage, and describe what it should do and what it must never do.
2. Give it access to your computer, your wifi and your cloud storage, so it can measure.
3. Let it only look at first: disk space, backups, cloud subscriptions and what's connected to your wifi.
4. Decide yourself, point by point, what can go or should change, and agree that it deletes or changes nothing without your yes.
5. Log in yourself where needed, and never put passwords in the chat.

Status

In use since 28 August 2026.

In a next story: Homey and smart automation (★★★, for advanced users).