Transcription
Over the last couple years, Apple Reminders has received some much-needed and quite significant updates that take it from a good reminders app to now a great reminders app. So, here are the most underrated features of Apple Reminders that you need to know.
So, to start off, one of the most important things that any useful reminders app needs is a quick and easy way to actually create a reminder. And thankfully on our Apple devices, it's never been easier. And there's actually multiple ways to start a reminder depending on what works best for you.
Now on the iPhone, I have an iPhone 17 Pro Max. And if you also have an iPhone that has the action button, first thing you can do is set it up so that when you hold the action button, it opens a reminder and you can quickly at the top jot down whatever you need to be reminded of and move on with your day. To customize your action button, it's super easy to do. You would just go into your settings down to action button and then you might have to swipe through the different options here until you get to controls. And then you'll see a little drop-down list that you can click and just search for Reminders. It'll be one at the top, "New Reminder."
The next way is to add a reminder from your Control Center. So you can do this on your iPad as well. If you pull down from the top right, I have here at the bottom "New Reminder." So it'll open that same exact reminder window. So to set this one up on your iPhone or even your iPad, you would just long press on your Control Center, hit "Add Control," and then same thing, just search for Reminder again, "New Reminder," and it'll add it at the bottom. You can also extend it if you rather it be a bigger button. You can customize that.
The third way is hands-free, and that's just to ask Siri to set a reminder for you. "Remind me to go grocery shopping tomorrow at 2 PM." But my favorite way is actually to type to. So, as long as your device has at least iOS 18.1, you should be able to type to on your iPad as well as your iPhone. So, all you have to do, regardless of whatever app you're currently in, you can just double-tap on the bottom of your phone to pull up the keyboard. So you can type out your reminder the exact same way you would speak the reminder and you can make it quite complex. So right now I'm doing a repeating reminder every Monday at a specific time. If I click into here, it opens in the Reminders app and you can see "Buy milk today at 3 p.m. weekly."
To make sure Type to Siri is turned on on your device, you can just head into your settings, go over to Apple Intelligence. And the second option, "Talk and Type To," and at the very bottom, just make sure "Type To" is toggled on.
Another thing you should definitely be using with Apple Reminders is a widget because it's the quickest and easiest way to see your reminders and interact with them as well. So, I have the big Reminders widget here on my phone so that it's really easy to see and I have it set up to any of the reminders due today so that they're front of mind. I know what I want to accomplish today and I can even check them off as I go without having to open up the Reminders app. And so on your widget, you can long press, hit "Edit Reminders," and then you can pick and choose which of your lists you want visible here. So, you can go through and pick any of them. And if you don't already have the widget, you would just long press on your home screen. You can hit "Edit," "Add Widget," search for Reminders, and then there's actually three different sizes of widgets you can pick and choose from.
Now, if I actually go into the Reminders app, some of my reminders have little numbers to the right. Those are subtasks that I've added to the main reminder. So, for example, my grocery shopping reminder, if I expand it, I've added milk, bread, eggs, and I can check off the individual items as I go, and it'll update the number as I check them off. So, for any reminder, if you want to add a subtask, you can just click on it and then press the little "i" or if you long press, hit "Details," you can go down to "Organization," and you'll see "Subtasks." So, if I click on that, then I can just click in "Add a Subtask" really easily.
Something we can finally do now that is so long overdue is when you do go into a reminder to set a date and time that it's due, you now have the option to make it an urgent reminder, which will actually turn it into an alarm. This option is fantastic because you don't have to worry about missing a really important reminder or going in to set your own alarm in the Clock app. It's all in one place now. If something's urgent, check it off and your phone will buzz until you acknowledge it. And you'll also see the little alarm icon as part of the reminder so that you know it's an alarm. It's marked as urgent.
One of the best parts about using Apple's native apps like Apple Reminders, Apple Notes, is that they can often talk to each other and work together. And I have already made a whole video on how to use Reminders, Notes, Calendar, and Mail together. So, I'll link that up above and down below. But a little sneak peek is with Apple Notes, we unfortunately cannot set a deadline or a reminder on a note itself or in a note itself. You have to share it with the Reminders app. And so there's a few ways to do this. So from any note, first you can hit the share button at the top. You have to make sure it is on "Send Copy." And then you should see Reminders as an option. But if you don't, you can just scroll all the way to the right, hit "More," hit "Edit," and then you would just have to toggle on or move up Reminders. And then so you can just hit Reminders at the top. You can select which of your Reminders lists you want to add the note to. You can click in to change the title, remove any of the body of the text, whatever you want to do. You can also set a date, time. So, when you go into Reminders now, you're going to see the reminder we just created with the Apple Notes logo at the bottom so that you know this is attached to an Apple Note. And when you click on the Notes button, it will actually bring you right into that note.
An even faster way though instead of going to the share button is just to use the Siri tips from before. So I can say "Remind me of this at 6 p.m." or I can even type it. And now so both the notes have been shared in my Reminders app at the appropriate time and with the Notes icon. So I can click in and quickly get back to the note.
Another great tip is that it is super easy to use the Reminders app as a daily planner or an agenda because when you go into the "Today" view, any of the reminders that have a due date or a time scheduled for today will show up here and it'll be divided into morning, afternoon, and night. If you don't see that, just hit the three dots at the top and make sure "Group by Time" is selected.
Another feature I frequently use now is an Apple Intelligence feature. However, even if your device does not support Apple Intelligence, there is a way to manually do it. So, I have an unorganized list right here. And if I hit, I will see an option to "Auto-categorize." So, if your device does support Apple Intelligence, you'll see this option. You can click on that. It'll take some time to think, but then it'll put your items into sections for you. And you can click in to edit the heading if you rather name it something else. But if you think you got it wrong and you hate it, you can always hit the three dots again and just uncheck "Auto-categorize." Hit "Remove" and it'll put the list back to normal.
And if you don't have Apple Intelligence on your device, you can hit the three dots again and you should see an option "New Section" or if there's already a section in your list, it'll say "Manage Sections." So you can click on that and then you can actually just add your own section. So I can say "Electronics" and I can just drag anything related to that up into that section and I can go hit "Manage Sections," "New Sections" and just keep going that way. And then it's really easy if you do have a really long list to go in and you can even collapse some of your sections just to clean it up a little bit.
But one of the reasons I really love using sections is because it helps with project management where there's actually you want to see progress within your tasks. You can hit the three dots at the top and switch it from the list view it's currently in over to "Columns." And it's definitely a little bit better looking at this on an iPad, but on your iPhone, you can still see you can scroll through and you have everything in different sections, different columns. So for something like this where I definitely can check off a reminder when I'm finished, but I actually want to advance it into a different section. And so you can just hold and drag it over to the appropriate section. You can still add subtasks to your reminders. So depending on what you're working on, if it's a work project, home renovation project, something you just actually want to visualize, see the steps or the progress you're making, can be very, very useful.
And related to this is if you do find yourself frequently using the same list or the same sort of reminders like I have here, you can actually create it as a template so that it's super easy anytime you need to use it again. You don't have to set it all up manually. So on any of your lists, you can hit the three dots and you'll see an option "Save as Template" and you can click in and change the title. But just know this is essentially the title of the template, not necessarily of your note. So I personally use something quite generic. I'll just put, let's say, "Monthly Videos" and hit "Save."
And then so when I want to create my, let's say, February videos list, I can just go up to the list button at the top to create a new list. I'll see an option here "Templates" on the right and then "Monthly Videos." So I can click on that. Then it does prompt me to name the actual list. So I'll say "Feb Videos," hit "Create." And when I open it up, it has all of the same sections that I'd already created. Now it defaults to the list view, but I can just quickly go to the three dots, hit "Columns," and we're good to go. So I do highly recommend you take some time to go in and set up a few templates for yourself. Doesn't have to be work or project related. Even a default packing list so that you have a starting point for every trip that you can customize and edit or even a weekly grocery shopping list if you're always buying the same few items and then just adding a few more. Might as well create it as a template that you can just edit every week.
Let me know which of these tips were your favorite and if there's any that you're using that I missed, let me know in the comments down below. That's it. Have a great day. Bye.