Whether you’re the type of person who loves the satisfaction of checking off items on your to-do list or you need a kind of backup brain to remind you of the tasks that have come your way, the Reminders app can quickly become an important part of your daily routine.
This is especially the case if you take advantage of Reminders’ iCloud features. Walking the dog when you remember you’re out of coffee beans? Reminders has got your back: add a reminder using your iPhone or Apple Watch, and it is available automatically on all the devices you’ve connected to the same iCloud account—pretty good assurance that you won’t forget.
Reminders is built for simplicity. On a Mac, a sidebar appears on the left, stocked with your individual lists divided into categories. (Choose View > Show Sidebar, or press ⌘-Option-S, if you don’t see it.) Select a list in the sidebar and its reminders appear on the right, ready to be checked off (Figure 48).
Figure 48: The grand tour of the Reminders app on a Mac doesn’t take long.
On an iPhone, your lists appear on one screen. Tap a list’s name to see its reminders (Figure 49).
Figure 49: On an iPhone, your lists appear on one screen (left). Tap a list’s name to see its reminders (right).
Out of the box, Reminders includes one list, Reminders. If you set up a Family Sharing group (see Use iCloud Family Sharing) using an earlier version of macOS, you also see a Family list.
The macOS 10.15 Catalina, iOS 13, and iPadOS 13 versions of Reminders also include new Smart Lists for quick access to reminders that fit certain categories—for example, all reminders that are due today or all flagged reminders (see What Are Smart Lists?).
