You swipe away every reminder? It’s not the app: the 6 best reminder apps, honestly compared, and the trick that makes any of them work

The best reminder app is the one whose alert you can’t swipe away by reflex. For most people that’s the free app already on the phone (Apple Reminders or Google Tasks), set up properly; if you snooze everything, pick one that keeps ringing until it’s done, like Due or TickTick. But the app matters less than how you write the reminder.

“Dentist.” It popped up at 10:12, between two group chat messages. You swiped it. It’s Thursday now.

Why you ignore your reminders (it isn’t the app)

A reminder fails when it shows up at a moment you can’t act on it, looking like everything else. In a week-long study of phone notifications, participants received 63.5 notifications a day on average, mostly messages and email (Pielot, Church and de Oliveira, 2014). Your reminder is one ping in that stream, and your thumb has learned to clear the stream.

Three habits make it worse:

• A noun instead of an action. “Dentist” asks you to rebuild the task from scratch. “Call the dentist, 555 0134, ask for a Tuesday” doesn’t.
• The wrong moment. A time-based reminder lands wherever the clock says, often in the car or in a meeting. Remembering on your own with no cue around is the fragile part of memory, as we saw with birthdays.
• Too many of them. Every reminder that rings for nothing teaches you that reminders can be ignored.

The 6 best reminder apps, honestly compared

They differ on one thing that matters: what happens after you ignore the first alert. Free and paid tiers change, so check the store before you choose.

• Apple Reminders (iPhone, iPad, Mac). Built in. Reminds you by time, by place (arriving at or leaving a spot) and, its best trick, “When Messaging”: the reminder appears the next time you chat with that person in Messages (Apple). Shared lists for the family. Weak spot: one alert, easy to swipe.
• Google Tasks (Android, iPhone, web). Free, shows your reminders inside Google Calendar and Gmail. Simple to a fault: no nagging, no places.
• Microsoft To Do (all platforms). Free, syncs with Outlook, and its “My Day” list makes you pick today’s tasks each morning.
• Todoist (all platforms). The best at typing: “pay rent every 1st at 9am” becomes a repeating reminder. Some reminder types need the paid plan.
• TickTick (all platforms). Tasks, habits and a focus timer in one, plus a constant reminder that rings every minute until you complete or postpone the task (TidBITS review, 2025).
• Due (iPhone only). Made for people who snooze: it auto-snoozes, re-alerting you every few minutes until you mark the reminder done or move it (TidBITS, 2024). A one-time purchase.

Which reminder app should you pick?

Pick by how you fail, not by the feature list:

• You forget to set reminders at all: the one built into your phone, because you can set it by voice in three seconds (“Hey Siri, remind me to…”).
• You set them, then swipe them: Due on iPhone, or TickTick’s constant reminder on Android. Keep the nagging for the few things that truly matter.
• Your family shares the chores: Apple Reminders’ shared lists or Google Tasks in a shared calendar. It’s a start on the mental load.
• You forget things, not tasks (the gate code, what the plumber said, a friend’s allergies): that’s not a reminder app’s job, it’s a memory’s.

How to set reminders you actually act on

1. Write the first action, with a verb

The text of the reminder should be the thing you’ll do in the next two minutes, not the topic. Plans written as “when X, I do Y” are the ones people follow through on most often (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006).

2. Tie it to a place or a person, not just a time

“When I leave work, buy bread” beats “6 p.m., bread.” Location reminders and Apple’s “When Messaging” fire at the moment you can actually act, which a clock can’t guess.

3. One alert per thing, and kill the rest

Once a week, delete every reminder you’ve snoozed three times: it’s either not happening or it needs a real slot in your calendar. Head full of loose ends? Start with a brain dump.

And for everything that isn’t a task, there’s MemoryPilot: you say “the gate code is 4521” or “remind me to call the dentist tomorrow at 9”, and later you just ask. No list to scroll, no folder to choose.

The surprise: a stuffed alien beat the written reminder

In 2016, Todd Rogers and Katherine Milkman gave coffee shop customers a coupon to use on their next visit. Everyone got the same instruction: “When you see the cash register, remember to use this coupon.” Half also saw a picture of a stuffed alien, which would sit by the register. With the alien, about 24% used their coupon, against 17% without: a 40% jump from one odd object (Rogers and Milkman, 2016).

The cue worked because it was distinctive, and it showed up exactly where the action happened. That’s the whole secret of a good reminder. Tonight, pick one thing you keep forgetting and put the cue where you’ll do it: the library book on your shoes, the parcel on the car keys.