In the days before personal computers and mobile devices, we had to rely on paper calendars and to-do lists to help us organize our time and activities. Now, we have powerful tools, like Apple’s Calendar and Reminders, that are much more responsive to our needs. Put an event on your schedule, invite others to join, or set yourself an alarm (or more than one). Or, keep a list of to-do items, add to it and view it on all your Apple devices, and share your list with family or friends.
The sixth edition features complete coverage of macOS 26 Tahoe, macOS 15 Sequoia, iOS 26/iPadOS 26, iOS 18/iPadOS 18, and watchOS 18 and 26, along with the new Apple Intelligence features on supported devices. Glenn guides you through getting to know these incredibly helpful apps, including lesser-known (but handy) features. For example, did you know that Calendar lets you set an alert that factors in public transportation schedules and time to get to your starting point, so you can leave early enough to catch the train, bus, tram, or ferry you need—and any connections—and arrive at your event on time? Or that Reminders can prompt you to do something not only at a certain time, but also once you’ve reached a specific destination, like the grocery store?
If you’ve never taken the opportunity to explore Calendar and Reminders, this book will show you how to make them an important part of your daily routine. If you’ve already been using Calendar and Reminders, you’ll learn how to use them more effectively, troubleshoot common problems, and delve deeper into their capabilities.
Learn how to get the best out of Calendar and Reminders, including how to:
- Customize Calendar to your liking, from setting time zones, to color coding specific calendars
- Create events, making them repeat at regular intervals or on certain dates
- Embed video links in Calendar events for quick launching
- Add reminders from within the Calendar app
- Use the new Multi Day view in Calendar for iPhone
- Set up notifications and alerts, so you never miss an event
- Invite people to events, or share your calendar with them
- Share calendars and reminders using iCloud Family Sharing, and assign reminders to a specific person
- Create, manage, and share lists in Reminders, including subtasks and powerful smart lists
- Organize reminder lists into categories and optionally view them in columns
- Designate a list as a grocery list, so that items auto-sort into supermarket departments
- Set alarms in Reminders at a certain time or a certain place
- Use Siri to save time when creating events or reminders
- Easily check events and reminders on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, or HomePod
- Recover deleted reminders within 30 days
- Print a calendar (to paper or PDF)
- Troubleshoot common problems in Calendar and Reminders
Take Control Books Executive Editor Glenn Fleishman spent 30 years writing for publications like The Atlantic, Fast Company, The Economist, The New York Times, Macworld, and TidBITS. Glenn now focuses his time on Take Control Books, Six Colors (as a columnist), and his own micro-publishing endeavor, Aperiodical, where he writes books about type, printing, comics, and language history, like Six Centuries of Type & Printing and How Comics Are Made. You can find Glenn on Mastodon and Bluesky. Reach him by email at glenn@glennf.com.
What’s New in Version 6.1
After enormous changes in the previous releases of Apple’s major operating systems, the company took a deep breath on Calendar and Reminders with the release of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 Tahoe, and watchOS 26.
Note: Apple has shifted to employing the same version number across all their platforms, using the last two digits of the year following the release year.
Apple focused on interface changes this time around:
- Liquid Glass: Apple’s new unified interface design has meant item locations have moved and some descriptions required updating. Because this book is intended to cover the last three releases, I have added information for the newest operating system updates throughout the book as needed, and updated some screenshots where it’s useful for your clarity.
- iPad windows and menus: With iPadOS 26, Apple has created a true multitasking, windows, and menu environment for iPad users that resembles the Mac. Because of Apple’s responsive-design principles, resizing a Calendar or Reminders window on an iPad may have it transform the app into a size and exhibit features exactly the same as the iPhone version. Some descriptions in the book have been updated where it’s useful to call that out or to describe additional options on an iPad. In particular, see “Go Full Screen on a Mac or in iPadOS 26.”
Apple has no documented new features for Calendar.
Here’s what’s new in Reminders since the last update:
- Auto-Categorize: With Apple Intelligence, you can have Reminders add categories to your items. See “Recognize Events Using Visual Intelligence.”
- Suggested reminders: If you share from other apps to Reminders, Apple Intelligence recommends to-do items, follow-ups, and grocery items. See “Use the Share Icon to Add Reminders.”
- Spotlight: You can now create reminders in the expanded Spotlight set of options. See “Add a Reminder.”
- Time zones: Reminders can now have a time zone set, just like calendar events. See “Set a Date and Time.”
- Visual Intelligence: The Visual Intelligence feature (requiring certain iPhone models and Apple Intelligence) lets you add calendar events from things around you, like flyers. See “Recognize Events Using Visual Intelligence.”
What Was New in the Sixth Edition
This edition reflected changes and new features made in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS 15 Sequoia, and watchOS 11, released in September 2024. These changes included:
- Reminders in Calendar: Deserving a true finally, reminders now appear in the Calendar app. You can also create and edit them there without a Reminders app round-trip. This integration is described throughout the book, though see “Tap into Special Calendars” for how the Reminders “calendar” appears and “Add a Reminder in the Calendars App” for details on how to do that.
- Multi Day view plus new Month view options in Calendar for iPhone: iPhones and Macs offer similar views, but iPhones are constrained by their proportions. iOS 18 adds the Multi Day view between Day and Week; see “Multi Day View.” Apple also revamped iPhone’s Month view, offering so many options it requires its own section; see “Customize Month View on an iPhone.”
- Stop pinching! Or start, rather: Apple lets you use two fingers to pinch or expand vertically in Day, Multi Day, Week, and Month views on an iPhone or iPad. See those view entries in “Meet Calendar.”
- Design refresh in Calendar: Apple updated the visual appearance of Calendar, and all screen captures throughout the book now reflect the latest updates. Notably, there’s an icon in every event and task in Day, Multi Day, and Week (all platforms) and every all-day event and task in Month view (Mac and iPad).
- Subtasks in Reminders: The Reminders app now reveals subtasks in standard lists, making those items more readily viewable. See “Create Subtasks.” This edition also more consistently refers to these tasks as subtasks, instead of by different descriptors.
- Deleted Reminders are recoverable: At long last, Apple added a Recently Deleted list to Reminders, in which you can see deleted items for 30 days after you removed them. See “Restore a Reminder.”
- Apple Intelligence: Apple Intelligence shipped in iOS 18.1/iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1 Sequoia. The feature adds machine-learning features throughout the operating system, few of which don’t affect calendars or reminders. See, in particular, “Set Up Notifications.”
Note: Apple Intelligence can be enabled on an iPhone 15 Pro or any iPhone 16 or 16 Pro, an iPad Air or iPad Pro with an M1 or later chip, or any Apple silicon Mac (i.e., M1 or later).
- Siri changes: Using Siri and its settings locations are slightly different in the latest operating system updates—both the major release of iOS 18/iPadOS 18 and Sequoia and the minor one for Apple Intelligence. “See How to Activate Siri” and changes throughout the book.
Posted by Joe Kissell on February 26, 2021
Scholle McFarland joined Chuck Joiner on MacVoices to explore the third edition of her book Take Control of Calendar and Reminders. The conversation includes talk about new features, troubleshooting, and more.
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