Mac Reminders Even When App Is Closed
The betas of Apple’s operating systems are for the brave. And not only because of bugs. In many cases, you can’t get your hands on the updated functionality before the official version is out.
The recent macOS 10.15 is a good example. Even though Apple announced switching to 32-bit app architecture with macOS Catalina, they haven’t managed to update all the apps for the beta release. Not to mention over 200 third-party applications not working in Catalina beta.
The Mac reminder app has many useful features that not many users are even aware of. This includes setting priorities, location alerts, sorting and working with multiple windows. In this article, you’ll discover these not-so-popular features and how you can get the most out of Apple Reminders app. Sep 10, 2019 Meet Reminders, all new, both in iOS 13 and macOS Catalina. What’s new in Reminders app. If you use your Mac for work, life is impossible without a solid GTD app. And there are quite a few advanced task managers for Mac on the App Store like Things or 2Do. Until now, Reminders have been considered a very basic version of a GTD tool.
There are a few good reasons to test Catalina beta, though. Many of Apple’s native apps arrive with cool enhancements. The Photos app will have the impressive feature of organizing photos by daily, monthly, or yearly views as well as remove duplicates across your library. But we are here to talk about another big update.
Meet Reminders, all new, both in iOS 13 and macOS Catalina.
What’s new in Reminders app
If you use your Mac for work, life is impossible without a solid GTD app. And there are quite a few advanced task managers for Mac on the App Store like Things or 2Do. Until now, Reminders have been considered a very basic version of a GTD tool — lacking functionality for complicated project management. Will the new Catalina update finally make it enough? Let’s see.
Making new design useful
I’ve been doing app descriptions for a while now. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, that would be this: “New look” is your best answer if you have nothing to say about an app update. This doesn’t work with apps like Reminders, though. The quality of a task manager can pretty much be estimated by how well it displays your tasks as well as by flexibility of editing and new task creation. That’s where the Catalina version of Reminders made a huge step forward.
Reminder Apps Free
Both iOS and macOS app now have four different sections for today’s tasks, all, scheduled, and flagged. So instead of a single list-style view, you have four — simplifying navigation across your jobs.
More flexibility with lists and reminders
A better way to describe, track, and complete your tasks. This is the ultimate goal of using a tool like Reminders. To cater for the job, Apple improved organization features in the new version of Reminders. You can group multiple lists and capture to-dos that are related to specific reminders. Thanks to smart views, the app will automatically organize your tasks by those you’ve flagged or scheduled for specific date and time.
New editing and customization options
Click on any reminder or task and you’ll get access to every editing asset you need. Change the date, time, and location, or flag your reminder and it will automatically appear in the “Flagged” view. You can also customize priority and set reminders to repeat.
As a nice perk, Reminders will have over 60 symbols and 12 colors in Catalina. So that you enjoy the view.
Attachments and tags
Enrich your tasks with attached docs, images, or links. This will help you plan your work right in the app, without switching anywhere. Plus, if you have multiple similar reminders, images might help you avoid confusion.
Reminders app in iOS 13 and macOS Catalina also has an integration with Messages, which allows you to tag people inside your reminders and get prompted whenever you chat with the person.
Enhanced Siri assistance
Once you upgrade to Catalina, your Siri support will move to the new level as well. Type longer sentences — Siri is strong enough to understand them and react with clever autosuggestions. But that’s only part of the magic. Whenever you chat with a friend in Messages and someone suggests a meeting, Siri will pick it up and prompt you to create a reminder.
Reminders alternatives for Mac
If you compare the latest version of Reminders to the one you used in Mojave, you’ll see a huge progress. Both visually and functionally, it’s just better. If you compare Reminders to its advanced analogues, Apple’s native app is still lagging behind.
The major reported user concerns are the following:
No support for projects
List grouping is useful, but it’s too limited in terms of project management. For instance, you can’t put tasks and subtasks of different complexity into a project.
Alternative: 2Do
It’s a combination of tasks, checklists, and projects. 2Do allows you to manage complicated sets of information as easily as possible. You can enable Project view to focus on specific flows of tasks, filter by tags, and batch schedule.
You need a better speed
The more shortcuts you can use in GTD tools, the better. As soon as you get used to the app, quick actions will be saving lots of your time. Apart from smart view organization, Reminders still has too few assets for speeding you up.
Alternative: TaskPaper
If shortcuts matter to you, TaskPaper is the best tool you can get. For instance, it’s enough to hit dash + space to create a new task in this app. It works for both simple to-do lists and projects. Once you open the app, you’ll be instructed on the quick actions and auto-formatting options.
Mac Reminders Even When App Is Closed 2017
Calendar sync
Some users report they don’t use Reminders because it doesn’t have any kind of calendar information. A good point, considering you plan your meetings in Apple’s Calendar. The
But you have to reboot your system to use Boot Camp, so you can’t use it at the same time as OS X; it's Mac or Windows, but not both. Which leaves Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion as your best alternatives.So, of those two, how do you decide which one is right for you? Or you could install one of three third-party virtualization programs: ( ), ( ), or ( ), each of which lets you run Windows (or another operating system) as if it were just another OS X application.Of those four options, Boot Camp offers the best performance; your Mac is wholly given over to running Windows. And while VirtualBox is free, setting it up is complicated—downright geeky, at times—and it lacks some bells and whistles you might want. 
Alternative: GoodTask
The huge asset that Reminders doesn’t have is a Calendar sync. In GoodTask, you can integrate with both Calendar and Reminders, which allows to transfer lists across your native apps. Plus, it’s a great opportunity to enrich Reminders with GoodTask’s features like text snippets, quick actions, and more.
Windows:. 
The new version of Reminders has been fully updated for the beta release, so you can try all the new perks. If you want alternatives for professional use, get all three of them mentioned in this article via Setapp subscription.