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Sky TV fans are realising they’re using recordings wrong – four hacks you must learn

ONE of the best bits of having Sky Q is being able to record telly – but are you making the most of it?

We've got some handy Sky Recordings hacks that every self-respecting TV fan should know about.

Upgrade your Sky Recordings game today
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Upgrade your Sky Recordings game todayCredit: Sky

has been letting viewers record TV shows and movies for years.

But there are some hidden tricks that you may have missed.

There are four that are particularly useful.

And by learning them, you can instantly upgrade your Recordings game.

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The logo button

Many Sky fans don't realise that the logo at the top of the remote is a button.

Yes, take a look at your Sky Q remote and give the Sky logo a press.

This will instantly take you straight to your Recordings page.

That means you don't have to faff around in the menus trying to locate your stored telly.

Easy record!

Did you know that you can set up recordings on your Sky TV box without opening your TV guide?

Most people using Sky TV will set recordings by pressing the TV guide button to open up a list of channels and what's on that day.

You can then flick across to something you'd like to watch later and hit the record button to save it to your box.

That's all well and good, but it means you have to exit what you're currently watching to browse programmes.

The show is minimised and shunted into a small, rectangular box that appears at the top left of the guide.

That's not ideal, so there's an alternative solution you should try out.

Press select on your Sky remote to bring up Sky's information banner.

The small block at the bottom of your screen shows the title and description of what's currently playing.

Press up or down to browse channel listings and see what other broadcasters are showing right now.

You can then press left or right to see what those channels will be showing later in the day.

Once you've found something you want to watch, you can press the record button to set up a recording.

That programme will now be recorded – without you ever needing to dive into the TV guide.

You can tell if a programme has been set to record by the appearance of a red icon next to its title.

Deleted!

Ever deleted a Sky TV recording and felt immediate regret? You're not alone.

In fact, you can actually save recordings from the great virtual bin on any Sky TV.

Recovering recordings lets you watch them again, as if they'd never been deleted.

Finding your deleted recordings is simple enough.

Simply go to Recordings, then into Manage.

Then look for Deleted and select Undelete.

On Sky Q, you should simply be able to go straight from Recordings to Deleted.

This section also lets you permanently delete your recordings.

The Deleted Programs menu was added way back in 2012, so you might have been missing it for years.

Skip the ads

That’s right, there’s even a hack that lets you skip past the ads on recorded content.

When actioned, it means you can get back to watching your favourite show without having to sit through annoying commercials. 

Although it only works on recorded shows and catch-up TV.

To use it, simply press the microphone button on your sky remote when a commercial break begins and say ‘fast forward three minutes’.

This will take you past the ads without having to hold down the fast-forward button and wait for them to skip by.

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Although beware that not all ad breaks are exactly three minutes long so you might need to do a tiny bit of forwarding or rewinding after the voice command has done its thing to get to the right point in your show. 

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