How To Use Mac Reminders In 5 Minutes

If you haven't been using the Reminders app on your Mac and other Apple devices you are missing out on a very useful tool. Learn the basics in just 5 minutes with this quick tutorial.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let me show you how to use the Reminders App.
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So the Reminders App is one of the default productivity apps on your Mac. It allows you to add items to it and get Notifications at certain times for those items or just refer to a list of items of things you need to accomplish or want to remember.
To add a new reminder you can click the Plus button at the top right, you can choose File, New Reminder, or Command N or just click in a blank area in the Reminders App, like this. Then you can type the title for the Reminder. You can just leave it as a title like this or you can add some notes. I may want to take this part out and add it here as a note instead of having it all be way in the title. You can also add a Date and Time to your reminder. When you do that you'll get a notification at the time that the task is due. So you can click here, choose one of the suggestions or you can just start typing, like this, and then press Return. After you add a Date you can add a Time if you like. Again, you can use one of the suggestions or you can type what you want. But you could also just have reminders that have no date and time. Like this one here. 
If you want to Edit a reminder just click on the title or click on the note or click on the time to edit it. So I can click here and you can see how I can edit everything. I can also click the i button here to the right to get details and it is a little easier sometimes to edit over here. Note you can also set things here like a Priority. For instance setting a Priority for this will give it some exclamation points to the left to make it stand out. 
When you want to mark a task as complete just click the little circle here. You'll see it filled in and after a few seconds it will go away. If you ever want to see the completed tasks you can go to View, Show Completed and then you'll see both Incomplete and Completed tasks there. This gives you the opportunity to uncheck that task. If you ever want to delete a task completely without marking it as completed you can simply select if by clicking near the circle but not on it like that and then press the Delete key on the keyboard.
You can keep all your Reminders here in this one list. But you could also create multiple lists. You can click the little Plus button here at the bottom left or choose File New List. Give it a name and then you can choose a color and either an emoji for an icon or one of these symbols. Click OK and now you see I've got multiple lists here. I can just select which one I want to see. 
If you want to quickly Add items to a list you can just type text and press Return. So you can do this, press return, type another one and keep going. You can rearrange items here by dragging them and you could see this blue line indicates where it will go. So I can move this one here to the top. You could also go to View and then Sort By. Sort the list like that. Notice you have some lists here at the top that will show you everything due today, anything that is scheduled listed by day. You could see all of the items from all of the lists together and also you can see any items that you Flagged. You can Flag an item by getting info on it and you could see a little flag right here. But also if you edit it there's a Flag Button you can click. Now you can see that is a flagged item. 
You could also group items together by using Tags. You see when you Edit something here you can click here and then type Tags starting with a hash symbol. You could see tags added here and if you click any of those you'll see all the items with that tag from any list. When dealing with lists you can also add Groups which are basically folders that you can use arrange your lists. You can drag another list inside of a group, for instance, if you would like. You could also use a Search Box here to search for any text in the title or notes across all of your lists. 
Note that a lot of these features rely on the fact that you're using iCloud for your Reminders. You can actually go to System Preferences and then Internet Accounts and check your iCloud Account here to make sure Reminders is checked. One of the most powerful things about using iCloud is you'll also see all of these reminders in the Reminders App in your iPhone and other Apple devices. So you can Edit them there as well as on your Mac and you'll always stay in sync. 
Here are some more advanced tips. 
- You can create a new Task and make it a subtask of an existing one. So, for instance I create a task like this and I can drag it onto this one and now it makes it a subtask of that one. It's easier to group them together that way. 
- You can use Siri to easily add a reminder like this. Gary says: Add butter to my grocery shopping list. Siri says: Done. 
- Maybe one of the best feature of Reminders is you can Share a list. So you can click on this little Share button next to the list name and then you can choose to Share it with somebody else over iCloud. So, for instance, you and your spouse could share this grocery shopping list. Both of you adding to it and marking items as completed. 
Hope you found this intro to using the Reminders App useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 13 Responses to “How To Use Mac Reminders In 5 Minutes”

Allan Murphy

2 years ago

Reminders is very useful. Is there a way to change the font size? On my desktop it seems too small. No problem with my iPhone, of course. TIA.

Michael Cliff

Very useful as always Gary. Although I have been using Reminders for some time I learned a lot. One question - is there a way of setting a default View/Sort By choice. I have one list that I need to sort by date and I have to change the View By to Due Date each time I use the particular list. I would like to set it so that Due Date is the default for that list. Any suggestions. Thanks.

Jonathan

Is there a way to create a recurring reminder every single time I leave a particular location even if it's multiple times in a particular day (e.g. "Take Wallet" every time leaving specific "address")? I can create it on a daily basis but not on a recurring basis.

Gary Rosenzweig

Allan: There's no way to change the size just in Reminders. But if you are having trouble with the font size in Reminders, then you are probably having trouble elsewhere as well. See https://macmost.com/15-ways-to-make-text-easier-to-read-on-your-mac.html for some suggestions.

Michael: Not sure why you need to change it every time. When I use View, Sort By, and set a sorting option for a list, it stays that way for the next time I view the list. Is this list in iCloud, or maybe some other service?

Jonathan: You can do that using Shortcuts on your iPhone. Create a Personal Automation there to do exactly that. See https://macmost.com/run-personal-automation-shortcuts-automatically-in-ios-14.html

Gary this maybe off topic but the link to your automation video above was very helpful. It worked beautifully except I do not have an “ask before running” option like you show in your video. So I have to permit my watch to run the shortcut to remind me to take my wallet every time I leave my home. Is there a setting that I’m missing?

Jonathan: That video is from 2 years ago, so 2 versions of iOS back. You have to expect it to look different somewhat. As long as you get notified, that's the goal right? If not, you can maybe learn about using Focus modes in iOS 15 (AKA "Do Not Disturb") and set a special focus mode that also triggers an automation.

Gary, just FYI, I was able to find an Apple website from Germany (I used Google translate) which showed a list of triggers for which the Ask Before Running option was not available the leaving and arriving triggers were both on that list. I’m not sure why but like you said I have accomplished my goal of being reminded not to forget my wallet when I leave home. I stumbled across your site a couple of weeks ago and it’s outstanding. Thank you!

BJ Flora

1 year ago

Hi Gary,

I'm a big user of Reminders and use it as my primary task manager (I'm retired). I have set a Reminder to notify me every morning at 7 am to check my Reminders and Calendar to ensure I get things done. My problem is that for some reason I get a Reminder, seemingly default(?) at 9 am every day. I have looked at the settings on all my devices and can find no way to eliminate or change that 9 am notification. What am I missing? Thanks.

BJ Flora: Maybe because you have Do Not Disturb turned on until 9?

No, I have no setting for DNS. I have a sleep focus mode from 2215 to 0545. I get reminders prior to 9 am, including my own daily reminder at 7 am.

BJ Flora: By "Do Not Disturb" I mean any Focus mode. Not sure why these reminders aren't working right for you. Maybe a time zone issue then? Call Apple Support and see what they say.

Comments Closed.

How To Use Mac Reminders In 5 Minutes

Comments: 13 Responses to “How To Use Mac Reminders In 5 Minutes”

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