Apple Reminders App

Overview

Apple Reminders is an excellent app for task management. It runs on Mac computers (macOS), iPads (iPadOS), iPhones (iOS), and Apple Watches (watchOS). The data is synced across all these devices.

Reminders can be added using Siri, which is typically faster than typing them. Just speak phrases in forms like the following:

Remind me to {task}
Add {task} to my {list-name} list
Remind me to {task} at {time} today
Remind me to {task} at {time} on {day-or-date}
Remind me to {task} on {date} at {time}
Remind me to {task} when I get home
Remind me to {task} when I get to work

By default, reminders are added to your default list. This is specified in Settings for the Reminders app and defaults to “Inbox”.

The instructions below are primarily focused on using Reminders in iPadOS. The same functionality is available on macOS and iOS, but may be organized slightly differently.

In iPadOS and macOS, the Reminders app displays a left nav area and a main area. The left nav area displays large buttons for navigating to “pinned lists”, followed by the names of non-pinned lists. Tapping a list button or name opens the list in the main area.

Lists

Reminders can manage any number of task lists.

To create a new list:

Tap “Add List” at the bottom of the left nav.
Enter a name for the list.
Select a list type (Standard, Groceries, or Smart List).
Select a color.
Select an icon. The smiling face emoji opens a picker for selecting any emoji. These have more detail and can contain multiple colors.
Tap “Done” in the upper-right.

Lists with the type “Groceries” automatically display their reminders in categories like Beverages, Dairy, and Produce to make it easier to find them in a grocery store.

To modify a list:

Tap the list in the left nav.
Tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right of the main area.
Tap “Show List Info”.
In the dialog that opens, edit the name, list type, color, and icon.
Optionally tap “Convert to Smart List” to change a non-smart list to smart one.

To delete a list:

Swipe the list left in the left nav and tap the “Delete” button that is exposed. This will delete all the reminders in the list.
Tap “Delete” to confirm.

Reminders

To add a reminder to a list:

Tap the list in the left nav.
Tap “New Reminder” at the bottom of the main area. New reminders are added to the currently selected list.
Enter a description.
Optionally enter a note below the description.
Optionally tap the circled “i” on the right side of the reminder to open a dialog where more detail can be specified. This includes:
- URL associated with the task
- Date at which the task is due
- Time at which the task is due (must also specify a date)
- Early Reminders (only for tasks with a date)
- Repeat (only for tasks with a date)
- Tags
- location at which you wish to be reminded
- Flag (on or off) for easily viewing all flagged reminders
- Priority (None, Low, Medium, or High)
- List - change to move the reminder to a different list
- Subtasks
- Images - Tap “Add Image” and select “Take Photo”, “Scan Document”, or “Photo Library”. Any number of images can be added and they can be reordered.

The time at which you will be notified about reminders that have a date, but no time, is specified in the Settings for the Reminders app and defaults to 9 AM. See “Time” under the “ALL-DAY REMINDERS” section.

Reminders with a date can be set to repeat at a specified interval.

Reminders with a date can also specify an “Early Reminder”. This allows the date/time to specify when the reminder is due and the early reminder to specify when you wish to be reminded to complete it. For reminders that have a date, this can be a number of days, weeks, or months before the due date. For reminders that also have a time, this can be a number of minutes or hours the due time. Tap “Custom” to select an early reminder not included in the default options.

Reminders with a date can also specify a “Repeat” interval. Preset options include “Hourly”, “Daily”, “Weekdays”, “Weekends”, “Biweekly”, “Monthly”, “Every 3 Months”, “Every 6 Months”, and “Yearly”. Tap “Custom” to specify a custom repeat interval. This does not currently support specifying intervals such as “3rd Tuesday of every month”. Use the Calendar app instead for those kinds of reminders.

Reminders with a location can specify a preset or custom location. Preset locations include “Current”, “Home”, “Work”, “Getting In” to car, or “Getting Out” of car. Custom locations can be entered by name or address. For example, entering a name like “Target” will prompt you to select one of the nearby Target stores. The selected location will be displayed on a map so you can verify that it is correct. To change the radius that determines when you are “close” to the location, drag the small blue circle on the edge of the big circle left or right. To specify when to be notified, tap “Arriving” or “Leaving”.

To mark a reminder as completed, tap the hollow circle on its left side. This does not delete the reminder. It is just moved to the “Completed” list.

To view completed reminders across all lists, tap the pinned list “Completed” at the top of the left nav.

To delete all completed reminders, tap “Clear” at the top of the Completed list.

To show completed reminders in a specific list, select the list, tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right, and tap “Show Completed”. They will be displayed at the bottom of the list after all the uncompleted reminders. To delete all the completed reminders in the current list, tap “Clear” at the top. To change a completed reminder to uncompleted, tap its filled circle. This is great for updating a grocery list that will be reused.

To hide completed reminders in a specific list, select the list, tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right, and tap “Hide Completed”.

To modify a reminder:

Tap it.
Modify the description.
Modify the note.
Tap the calendar icon at the top of the main area to change the associated date and/or time.
Tap the map arrow icon at the top of the main area to change the location setting.
Tap the flag icon at the top of the main area to toggle whether the reminder is flagged.
Tap the hash icon at the top of the main area to add or remove a tag. Anothe way to add or remove tags is to tap the circled “i” to the right of a reminder, tap “Tags”, and tap specific tags to toggle whether they are applied to that reminder.
Optionally tap the circled “i” to modify other aspects

Another way to modify a reminder is press down on it and wait for a popup to appear. The popup provides the ability to Cut, Copy, Mark as Completed, and Delete. It also supports modifying the Due Date, Flag state, Priority, containing list (Move to List), and Tags.

To select multiple reminders so they can be acted on as a group:

Select the list.
Tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right.
Tap “Select Reminders”.
Tap each reminder to be selected.

To select multiple reminders with a keyboard, cmd-click each reminder.

To modify multiple reminders within a list in the same way:

Select each reminder (see above).
Tap a button at the bottom to modify each selected reminder. The buttons include:
- calendar icon for specifying Date, Time, Early Reminder, and Repeat
- list icon for moving the selected reminders to a different list (Multiple selected icons cannot be dragged to a different list.)
- section icon for moving the selected reminders to a different or new section
- trash icon for deleting all the selected reminders
- circled ellipsis icon to “Mark as Completed”, “Add Tag”, or “Flag”

To move a reminder to another list, drag it or:

Tap it to select it.
Tap the circled “i” on its right.
In the dialog that opens, scroll down to “List”.
Tap “List”.
Tap the name of the list to which it should be moved.

To drag a reminder, press on it for a half second before moving it. Otherwise the app may think you want to select the reminder rather than drag it.

To modify, copy, or cut multiple reminders in a selected list:

Select each reminder (see above).
Press and hold on any of the selected reminders.
Optionally drag the set of selected reminders to a different list.
Release to open a popup containing many options including “Cut” (cmd-x), “Copy” (cmd-c), “Paste” (cmd-v), “Mark as Completed”, “Due Date”, “Indent n Reminders”, “Flag”, “Priority”, “Move To List”, “New Sedction with Selection (n item)”, “Tags”, and “Delete”.

To paste the copied or cut reminders:

Press and hold on any reminders including an empty spot for a new one.
Release to open a popup containing many options.
Tap “Paste” or press cmd-v.

To delete a reminder, swipe it left and tap the “Delete” button that is exposed. Deleted reminders are held in a list named “Recently Deleted” that is always at the bottom of the left nav. The reminders are not actually deleted until that list is cleared. To clear it, tap the list, tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right, and tap “Delete All”.

To search for a reminder containing specific text in its description or note, tap the “Search” input at the top of the left nav and enter the text there.

There are undo and redo buttons in the upper-left corner of main area that displays reminders. They only undo and redo the most recent text edit. They do not affect other kinds of changes and they do not go back farther in the history of text edits.

Calendar Integration

Reminders with dates appear in the iOS/iPad Calendar app (not in macOS) with a checkbox in front of their description.

If a reminder has a date, but not a time, it will appear at the top of the list for that day.

If a reminder has both a date and time, it will appear at the assigned time in the Calendar app.

Reminders in the Calendar app that are not recurring can be dragged to different days and/or times. This will update the reminder inside the Reminders app.

To mark a reminder as completed from the Calendar app, tap it open a dialog, tap the checkbox to the left of the reminder description, and tap “Done”.

To add a reminder from the Calendar app:

Tap the day on which it will be added.
Tap the ”+” in the upper-left.
In the dialog that appears, the “Event” button is selected by default. Tap “Reminder”.
Enter data for the reminder including Title (required), Notes, Date (required), Time, Repeat, and List. Tap “Details” to enter other reminder details.

Adding Reminders from Other Apps

Reminders can be added using the share button in other apps including Safari, Mail, Messages, and Notes. For example, when viewing a web page in Safari:

Tap the share button.
Tap the icon for the Reminders app.
Optionally modify the description.
Optionally add a note.
Optionally tap “Details” to specify the Date, Time, Tags, Flag state, Priority, and List.

Adding reminders from Mail, Messages, and Notes does not seem well-supported. In other apps, this sometimes can be done through the share button similarly to how it works in Safari.

There is some support for dragging files and items from other apps into the Reminders app, but isn’t particularly intuitive.

Subtasks

Reminders can have subtasks.

To add a subtask to a reminder:

Tap the circled ellipsis on the right side of a reminder to open a dialog.
Tap “Subtask”.
Tap “Add Reminder”.
Enter descriptions for any number of subtasks.
Tap ”< Details” in the upper-left of the dialog.
Tap “Done” in the upper-right of the dialog.

Alternatively, drag a reminder onto its intended parent reminder.

Subtasks appear indented below their parent task. Parent tasks appear in bold.

One more approach is to drag a reminder to below its intended parent reminder, swipe it right, and tap “Indent”. To undo the indent, swipe it right again and tap “Outdent”.

Subtasks can be collapsed. When they are collapsed, the parent task will display the number of hidden subtasks.

Marking all subtasks as completed does not mark the parent task as completed. That must be done manually.

Sorting

The reminders in a list can be sorted in ascending or descending order based on their “Due Date”, “Creation Date”, “Priority”, or “Title”.

To change the sort order, select a list, tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right, select “Sort By”, and choose an option. Select “Manual” to enable the reminders to be dragged up and down to manually reorder them.

Sections

The reminders in a list can be organized into sections.

To add a section to the currently selected list:

Tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right.
If other sections have already been added, tap “Manage Sections”.
Tap “New Section”.
Enter a name for the section.

Existing reminders will appear in a default section titled “Others”.

To associate a reminder with a given section, drag it to the section. It’s easiest to drag reminders by pressing to the area to the right of its description. This avoids being interpreted as an attempt to modify the description or note.

To rename a section, tap the name, change it, and top off of it or press return.

To reorder sections:

Tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right.
Tap “Manage section”.
Drag section names up or down.

Alternative, in the list view, drag section names up or down.

To delete a section:

Move any reminders in the section that you wish to keep to another section. Otherwise they will be deleted when the section is deleted.
Swipe the section name left.
Tap the “Delete” button that is exposed.

To view sections of the currently selected list in columns like a Kanban board:

Tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right.
Tap “View as Columns”.
Drag section names left or right to reorder the columns.

The Reminders app does not infer any kind of relative priority of reminders based the position of the columns in which they appear. However, the left to right order may be meaningful to you, especially when modeling a Kanban board with section names like “Backlog”, “In Progress”, “Ready for Review”, and “Complete”.

When viewing sections as colunns, the ellipsis menu contains “Manage Columns” instead of “Manage Sections”, but the functionality is the same.

To stop viewing sections in columns:

Tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right.
Tap “View as List”.

Groups

Related lists can be grouped into what appears as a folder in the left nav.

To create a new group, drag one list onto a related list, enter a group title, and tap “Create”.

Alternatively:

Tap the ellipsis button that the top of the left nav.
Tap “Edit Lists”.
Tap “Add Group” at the bottom of the left nav.
Enter a group title.
Tap “Include”.
Select the lists to be included in the group.
Tap the ”< New Group” button in the upper-left of the dialog.
Tap “Create” in the upper-right of the dialog.

To delete a group, swipe it left and tap the “Delete” button that is exposed.

Selecting a group in the left nav displays the reminders in each list within the group as separate sections whose names are the list names.

Smart Lists

Smart lists display reminders that are also in non-smart lists based specified critera. The criteria can include date, time, flag state, list, location, priority, and tags. Smart lists can include reminders that match “any” or “all” of the criteria.

The icon for smart lists have a small gear in the lower right corner.

To create a smart list:

Tap “Add List” at the bottom of the left nav.
Enter a name for the list.
Change the list type to “Smart List”.
Tap “Edit Filters”.
Specify the criteria as any combination of tags, due date, due time, location, flag state, priority, and specific source lists. For example, tap “Priority” and select “High” to create a smart list that displays all the high priority reminders found in any non-smart list.

To convert a standard list to a smart list:

Tap the list in the left nav to select it.
Tap the circled ellipsis in the upper-right.
Tap “Show List Info”.
Scroll to the bottom of the dialog that opens.
Tap “Convert to Smart List”.

This will create a tag whose name is the list name and will tag all the reminders in the list with that tag. The filter for the Smart List will be the new tag.

Every reminder resides in some non-smart list.

Pinned Lists

Lists can be pinned which makes them appear as buttons at the top of the left nav. Unfortunately, groups cannot be pinned.

There is a default set of pinned lists that include:

Today - a smart list that displays all reminders scheduled for today
Scheduled - a smart list that displays all reminders with a data; includes sections for Overdue, Today, and Tomorrow reminders
All - displays all reminders in all lists with a section for each list (in a seemingly random order)
Flagged - a smart list that displays all flagged reminders
Completed - a smart list that displays all reminders that have been marked as completed

The following pinned lists are hidden by default:

Assigned to Me - a smart list that displays all reminders in shared lists that are assiged to you
High Priority - a smart list that displays all reminders whose priority is set to High

To unpin a pinned list, press on it until a popup appears and tap “Hide”.

To pin an unpinned list, press on it until a popup appears and tap “Pin”.

To restore a list that was pinned by default and is now unpinned, tap the the circled ellipsis at the top of the left nav, tap “Edit List”, and tap the hollow circle to the left of the name of an unpined list.

To change the order of pinned lists, tap the the circled ellipsis at the top of the left nav, tap “Edit List”, and drag the pinned lists up and down.

Today List

One of the provided pinned lists is “Today”. This is a non-editable smart list that contains all reminders whose date is today. Reminders with no time appear at the top of the list. Reminders that also have a time appear below those in the sections “Morning” (before noon), “Afternoon” (before 5 PM), and “Tonight” (5 PM or later).

By default, the Reminders app icon will include a number badge that indicates the number of reminders that are due today or past due. This can be changed in Settings for the app. Turn off “Include Due Today” to only see the number of past due reminders on the app icon.

Today Focus

I find it useful to create a group of lists I can select to see a prioritized list of tasks that are my goals for today. To create this:

Create a smart list named “Must Do” where the enabled filters are Date: Today and Priority: High.
Create a smart list named “Should Do” where the enabled filters are Date: Today and Priority: Medium.
Create a smart list named “Could Do” where the enabled filters are Date: Today and Priority: Low.
Create a smart list named “Unprioritized” where the enabled filters are Date: Today and Priority: No Priority.
Create a group named “Today Focus”.
Drag each of the lists created above into the group.
Drag the “Today Focus” group to the top of the “My Lists” section in the left nav.

Every day, consider the reminders to be addressed that day. For each one, set its Date to Today and its Priority to the appropriate value. In the left nav, tap “Today Focus” to see all of the tasks in the lists within that group, ordered from highest to lowest priority.

A specific list can be shared with other Apple users so multiple people can view and update the reminders in it. This is ideal for lists such a grocery lists.

To share a list the currently selected list:

Tap the share button in the upper-right.
Optionally tap “People you invite …” to specify whether the selected person can add others to the sharing group.
Tap “Messages” and enter a phone number, tap a button for a specific person, or tap “Mail”.
Send the message.

Tasks in a shared list can be be assign to specific people that are sharing the list. To do this, select a task, tap its circled “i”, tap “Assign Item”, and tap the name of a person. The person will receive a notification that tasks have been assigned to them.

Templates

A “template” can be created from an existing list. This enables creating multiple lists with the same initial set of reminders. For example, you can create a travel packing list, convert it to a template, and create new lists from that template for each trip you take. After each trip you can delete its list, but retain the template for use in future trips.

To create a template from an existing list:

Select a list.
Tap the circled ellipsis in the upper right.
Tap “Save as Template”.
Enter a name for the template.
Tap “Save”.
Optionally delete this list from which the template was created.

To create a new list from a template:

Tap “Add List” at the bottom of the left nav.
Tap the “Templates” tab.
Tap the name of a template.
Enter a name for the new list.
Tap “Create”.

To modify an existing template:

Tap the circled ellipsis at the top of the left nav.
Select “Templates”.
Tap the circled “i” to the right of a template name.
Tap “Edit Template”.
Make changes.
Tap “Done”.

Modifying a template will not modify existing lists that were created from the template.

To delete a template:

Tap the circled ellipsis at the top of the left nav.
Select “Templates”.
Swipe the template to be deleted left.
Tap the “Delete Template” button that is exposed.
Tap “Done”.

Widgets

Three differently sized widgets can be added to the home screen. These enable viewing reminders in a specific list and marking them as completed without going to the app. Multiple widgets of the same or different sizes can be added and each widget can display reminders from a different list.

To add a widget:

Press down on the home screen.
Tap the “Edit” button in the upper-left.
Tap “Add Widget”.
Scroll down in the list of apps until “Reminders” appears and tap it.
Swipe right and left to select one of the three available sizes.
Tap the “Add Widget” button.

I don’t personally find the use of these widgets compelling. I’d rather just use the full app.