iOS Reminders icon

I use iOS Reminders to stay on top of my to-dos with my 7 favorite features

21 December 2025

Reminders may not be the most glamorous app on your iPhone, but it could prove to be one of the more useful of Apple’s built-in offerings depending on how you use it. With Reminders, you can keep track of tasks, even tying them to times and locations so that you’re always on top of what you need to do.

There’s hardly a day that goes by where I’m not asking Siri to remind me of something I need to do, tapping into the Reminders app to create time-sensitive tasks. I’m guessing you’ve used that feature at some point, too.

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I’ve talked it up so much, it’s definitely no longer an iOS hidden feature. But you can create grocery lists in Apple’s to-do app, and Reminders will automatically sort them into categories for easier shopping. In other words, that gallon of milk will be grouped with butter under dairy, while fruits and vegetables automatically appear under protest.

Just create a new list and select Groceries as the list type. Then just type in what you need to buy and Reminders will do the sorting for you. If Reminders misfiles something, it’s easier enough to move that item to the proper part of your list.

Best of all, your grocery list is reusable. After you tick off items during one grocery store run, you can add new entries for your next errand, and they’ll once again be sortable.

(Image credit: Future)

You are likely aware of widgets that let you place little boxes containing the weather, your move goal status and other information on your home screen, saving you from having to launch an app just to look up something. And you might have guessed that Reminders has its own widgets, too. But you may not realize that there’s an interactive Reminders widget that lets you mark off to-dos without ever venturing into the app.

You can find that widget the same way you add any widget to the iPhone home screen: tap and hold on the home screen, then press Edit in the upper left corner of the screen followed by Add Widget from the pop-up menu. Scroll through the list of available widgets until you see the Reminders options, or search specifically for Reminders to jump straight to the app’s widgets.

Available in three different sizes, the Reminders widget lists upcoming to-dos. Even better, there’s a little circle next to each task that you’ll be able to tap; once you do, the task disappears from the widget, confirming that you’ve taken care of business without ever having to dive into Reminders.

(Image credit: Future)

One of the most useful Reminders features doesn’t even require you to fire up the app to create a to-do. Ever since iOS 18, you’ve been able to create tasks from within the Calendar app on your iPhone.

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To create a to-do in the Calendars app, just tap the plus (+) button as you would if you were adding an event to your calendar. On the ensuing pop-up, though, select Reminder instead of Event, and then fill in your details. The to-do will then appear in your calendar, along with any tasks you’ve created in the Reminders app, giving you a full picture of your daily schedule.

(Image credit: Future)

While we’re on the subject of Reminders interacting with other apps on your iPhone, you can set a reminder to appear the next time you text someone in the Messages app. Let’s say there’s something you want to ask someone the next time you speak to them — by tying that reminder to your Messages conversation, you can make sure that question asked instead of leaving things to chance.

When you create that reminder in the Reminders app, tap the Details button and scroll down to the Places & People section. Slide the When Messaging toggle on and select the contact you want to tie the reminder to. The next time you and that person text in Messages, the reminder you’ve just created will appear.

By the way, that reminder will also pop up if you send a text in a group conversation that involves your selected contact, which I think is a nice way to make sure you don’t forget the task at hand.

share lists of to-dos with other people using the standard share sheet that’s common throughout your iPhone’s built-in apps.

But Reminders takes things one step further by letting you assign specific tasks on that lists to different people. Just tap on that task and then select the person icon from the menu appearing above the on-screen keyboard. When you select a person from the pop-up menu for that particular task, their face will appear next to that to-do and they’ll get a notification when the task is due.

iOS 26.2 update makes it very hard to overlook a reminder’s due date. You can now mark a task as urgent in Reminders, which in turn will trigger an alarm that goes off when it’s time to complete that to-do.

When you create a reminder, the Date & Time section now has a toggle for Urgent. When that’s turned on, you can set the exact time you want an alert going off, whether that’s today or at some point in the future. At the appointed time, the alert sounds just like it would if you turned on an alarm in your iPhone’s Clock app.

(Image credit: Future)

Not everyone wants a reminder to appear at the exact moment it’s due. If you prefer a little heads up time, you can set an early reminder that appears ahead of when you absolutely, positively have to finish up a task.

I’m not just talking about setting a reminder in advance of the actual due date. What I mean is setting a reminder for when something’s due as well as including a early reminder to let you know that a deadline is looming.

When you create a reminder and set the time that the task is due, tap on the Details button at the bottom of the screen and then select Early Reminder. You can then set an advance alert for anywhere from just 5 minutes before the due date to one month ahead of time. There’s also a Custom option for setting your own early reminder.

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