Reminders and your calendar
Alerts, alarms and snooze
How and when a reminder actually interrupts you.
Why you'd care
A reminder that fires exactly at the moment of the event is usually too late. You cannot leave for a 3pm appointment at 3pm. Lead time is what makes reminders useful rather than merely accurate.
The controls
Most of this layer is Plus. Plus
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Default alert | How far ahead of the time you are warned |
| Second alert | A follow-up, for things you cannot miss |
| Alarm style | Whether it can be swiped away or persists until dismissed |
| Snooze duration | How long snoozing postpones it |
| Re-notify interval | How often it comes back if ignored |
Set the default lead time in Settings Calendar & Reminders Default alert.
Going further
All-day reminders behave differently. They notify in the morning rather than at a moment. Whether they notify at all is Settings Calendar & Reminders All-day notifications.
Persistent alarms are for the handful. An alarm that will not go away is genuinely useful for a flight and actively harmful for a routine task. Use it for two or three things, not as a default.
Lead time is per reminder as well as global. The default applies to new reminders, and any individual one can differ.
Settings that change this
- Settings Calendar & Reminders Default alert sets the default lead time. Plus
- Settings Calendar & Reminders All-day notifications controls whether all-day reminders notify.
- Settings Calendar & Reminders Default color for reminders tints reminders in lists.
Tips
- Fifteen minutes is the right default lead time for most people. Anything you need an hour for should say so on the reminder itself.
- If you snooze the same reminder three times, the time is wrong, not the reminder.