Learn how to improve your task management and streamline productivity by creating and managing reminders straight from the Calendar app on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia have added a link between Apple’s Reminders and Calendar apps. As a result, both these task-management software can talk to each other and let you do the following:
- Scheduled tasks from the Reminders app show up inside the Calendar app
- Create a to-do reminder right from the Calendar app
- Mark a task as completed in Calendar, which reflects in the Reminders app, and vice versa
See your reminders in the Apple Calendar app
1) Open the Reminders app on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac running iOS 18, iPadOS 18, or macOS 15 and create a new reminder like you normally do.
2) Remember to add a date and, optionally, a time to your reminder. If you don’t add a date, it makes no sense for that task to appear in your calendar, so it won’t.
3) Now, open the Calendar app, and you will see your reminder there.
- If the date and time were added, the task will appear at its appropriate spot in your calendar.
- If only a date was added and no time, that reminder will show up as an all-day event.
Create a new reminder from Apple Calendar
The fundamentals are similar on iOS and Mac but with some minor differences.
On iPhone and iPad
1) Open the Apple Calendar app on your iPhone or iPad and start adding a new event by tapping the plus button and going to the Reminder tab. You can also touch and hold a time slot in the iOS Calendar app and then go to the Reminder tab.
2) Give your reminder a title, adjust its date and time, fill out the other fields as needed, and tap Add.
3) This new task will show up in both your Calendar and Reminders apps.
On Mac
1) Go to the Apple Calendar app, double-click a desired slot in the Day, Week, or Month view, and switch to the Reminder tab.
Alternatively, you can press Command + N, or click File > New Event, or click the plus button from the upper left corner and choose New Reminder. Note that if a thin strip appears on your calendar, take the pointer over the New Reminder option and click the info button ⓘ.
2) Give a title to your reminder, set a date and time, along with the other details, and press the return/enter key to save it. You can now see this task entry in both Reminders and Calendar apps.
Mark a reminder as completed from the Calendar app
Reminders inside the Calendar app show a circular checkbox. Just hit that to mark it as completed (or pending). You can also tap the reminder to see everything on a big screen and then tap the circular checkbox.
Edit a reminder in the Calendar app
On iPhone and iPad, just tap the reminder showing inside the Calendar app and hit Edit. On Mac, Control-click or right-click over the reminder entry and choose Get Info.
Delete a reminder inside the Calendar app
On iPhone and iPad, you can touch and hold the reminder and choose Delete from the menu strip. You can also tap the reminder and hit Delete Reminder from the next screen.
On Mac, just select the reminder and press the delete key or right-click over the reminder and choose Delete.
Learn about the default Reminders list
When you create a new reminder from inside the Calendar app on iPhone or iPad, you get the choice to pick a desired Reminder list. However, this option is missing when creating a reminder in Mac’s Calendar app.
So when you create a reminder in the Calendar app on macOS Sequoia, it automatically gets added to your default Reminders list. You can easily change the default Reminders list if needed.
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