New Features In the Reminders App in macOS Catalina

The new Reminders app adds a lot of new useful features. You can now set an icon and color for each list, place lists inside of folder, and view all of your lists in one long screen. You can also see which reminders items from all lists are due today or in the upcoming days. When creating a new reminder, you can easily add a due date, location, photo or URL.

Comments: 18 Responses to “New Features In the Reminders App in macOS Catalina”

    Jean-Marc
    5 years ago

    Hi Gary, I updated to Catalina and IOs 13 on my phone, I have an old iPad 2 with the latest available system fo it iOS 9,3,5 I lost all my reminders and lists on it and it won't sync anymore. Anything I can do ?
    Thanks Gary.

    5 years ago

    Jean-Marc: You just can't access Reminders on that older device. The old version of iOS on it couldn't know about how Reminders data structures work in the future.

    John Bianca
    5 years ago

    I hate the extra drop-down "help" like Notes, Add Date, Add Location. Isn't a Reminder already a Note? Why add a separate Note? Duh? It gets in the way. Can those features be removed? Something else gets in the way: type the word "tomorrow" in your entry and a gray box comes up with "Suggested Dates? Yuck! Sometimes software tries to do too much and this is a perfect example of ruining a perfectly simple app. For example, GarageBand got way too overwhelming. (Patreon supporter)

    5 years ago

    John: A lot of reasons to have notes attached to a Reminder. I use reminders to keep track of ideas, and I put the title of the idea as the reminder and more info in the note. I do the same with complex to-do items. But I'm sure others don't use the notes at all. They have been around for a while, though, that isn't new. Also, even if you type the word "tomorrow" you can just keep typing and ignore the suggestion.
    For context: Lots of people have been complaining for a long time that the Reminders app isn't good enough, that it doesn't compare to other similar apps. So this is Apple's answer.

    John Bianca
    5 years ago

    Cool. Your uses are good. I'm used to putting all info in the Reminder itself. For longer notes and details I use the Notes app. I'm sure I'll adjust and figure out ways to make it work to my advantage. (PS: I didn't even realize a notes option for Reminders previously existed.) It's there too for the phone I just discovered, but to enter a note, you click on the letter "i" in the circle. TY

    Mike bernstein
    5 years ago

    I wish reminders would have ability to recognize and dial a phone number. Many times I set a reminder to call someone that is not in my contacts and does not need to be there, when I enter phone number in reminders it is very inconvenient where I have to remember the number go to phone app and dial from there. Any tips ?

    5 years ago

    Mike: It can. Just make a reminder like "Call 303-555-1212" on the Mac at least that becomes a link you can click to call. On the iPhone it doesn't, but you can copy and paste the phone number.

    Roger Mann
    5 years ago

    When I set a reminder for a date like on October 15 I want to "Make Friday dinner reservations". Reminders moves the reminder to October 18, which is Friday so the reservations never get made on October 15. This is stupid and annoying.

    Roger
    5 years ago

    Apple says that Reminders will not work on my iPhone or iPad. Can I use the Reminders on my iMac with out upgrading and continue to have my reminders sync on all three devices?

    5 years ago

    Roger: Right. That's the way to do it. Don't agree to update Reminders so they work on all devices, but without the new features.

    John Bianca
    5 years ago

    How do I print my Reminders in Catalina? Prior to this update, you were able to copy the Reminder List and paste into another document. Now, you are unable to copy/paste into anything. You also cannot print from the Reminder App on Mac and you cannot print from Reminders in iCloud.

    5 years ago

    John: You should send that to Apple Feedback. I did find that printing from the iCloud.com web app does work sometimes. I tried it like 10 times and it worked twice. Seemed to work more often if I Control+clicked on the page and chose Print Window.

    Bruce McIntosh
    5 years ago

    Is it possible to change the default due date?

    5 years ago

    Bruce: There is no setting for that.

    Dan Gillett
    5 years ago

    Can you create new and/or customize the list feature?

    5 years ago

    Dan: Not sure what you are asking. What "list feature" do you mean? You can certainly create new lists.

    Jim Mooney
    5 years ago

    That is a super video and like opening a new door to scripting. I did not know that you could directly use Javascript in the scripting app.

    This is driving me crazy. The methods you use I can't find in any dictionary. app.lists.byName() ?? I see app.list, not the plural, can you just add an s to obj? Where is the definition of byName(). ? other options than byName? I can't find it in the dictionary for this. Where to be found?

    5 years ago

    Jim: Launch Script Editor (comes with macOS), Choose Window, Library. Select a topic from the window by double-clicking it. Then you'll see a reference window. Make sure you switch it to JavaScript as AppleScript is the default. Then you'll be able to browse around in all the JXA syntax. The reference is pretty bare-bones, with no examples, but it is all there.

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