Twos

Reminders and your calendar

Set a reminder

iPhoneiPadAndroidWebMacWindowsLinuxWatchUpdated 2026-10-13

A reminder attaches a date and time to a thing, so Twos speaks up instead of waiting to be read.

How to Create Reminders in New Twos w/ Twos Baller Watch on YouTube

Why you'd care

Most of what you write does not need an alarm. Carry-over already makes sure unfinished to-dos keep showing up, which covers "sometime soon" without any notifications at all.

Reminders are for the smaller set of things where the moment matters. Leaving for a flight. A call at 3. Taking something out of the oven. Use them there and they stay meaningful. Put one on everything and you will start ignoring them within a week.

The 60-second version

  1. 1

    Write it with the time in the sentence

    Type "Call the dentist Thursday at 3". Twos recognizes the date as you write.

  2. 2

    Accept the suggestion

    Confirm when it offers to set the reminder. The thing keeps its text and gains an alert.

  3. 3

    Or set it by hand

    Select a thing and tap Reminder on the selection bar, or press ⌘⇧X while editing it. Then pick a date and time.

Step by step

Dates Twos finds for you

Plain language works: "tomorrow", "next Tuesday", "in 20 minutes", "Friday 9am", "the 14th". This is Settings Calendar & reminders Detect dates and times in things, and it is on by default.

When one is recognized you are asked before anything is set. Turn off Settings Calendar & reminders Ask to set reminders and Twos sets the reminder straight away instead.

A lone "today" is skipped, because people write it constantly when journaling. "Today at 5pm" still counts. Settings Calendar & reminders Detect "today" on its own turns a lone "today" back on.

Whether the date text stays in the thing is your choice. Keeping it reads naturally later ("Call the dentist Thursday at 3"), and removing it keeps the line short. That is Settings Calendar & reminders Keep date in thing text.

The full picture, including the prompt on future days, is in dates Twos finds for you.

All-day, and start and end

A reminder without a time is an all-day reminder. Instead of firing at a moment, it notifies once that day at your all-day time, 9am unless you change it in Settings Calendar & reminders All-day notifications. You can also change the time on a single all-day reminder in its sheet, or turn all-day notifications off so those reminders sit quietly on their day.

Adding an end time gives it a duration, like an event. New timed reminders start with an end time already filled in, set by Settings Calendar & reminders Default reminder duration. It still lives only in Twos unless you pick a calendar for it (see below).

Repeating

Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. Weekly lets you pick the days, so "Mondays and Thursdays" is one reminder. Custom covers the rest: every few hours, days, weeks, months or years ("every 2 weeks"), and for monthly or yearly repeats a pattern like "the second Tuesday" or "the last weekday".

Set Ends to a date to stop the repeat, so "every weekday until the end of term" is one reminder rather than forty. More on this in repeating reminders.

Location instead of time

A reminder can fire when you arrive somewhere or when you leave, rather than at a time. This is free, and it is the right tool for "buy milk" in a way a 6pm alarm never is.

Going further

Overdue reminders and carry-over. A to-do you missed will carry to today like any other unfinished to-do, but its alert stays in the past unless you say otherwise. Settings Calendar & reminders Carry over reminders rolls overdue reminders forward too, so an alert you slept through does not quietly stay behind. It is off by default because it changes when you get notified.

Advanced alerts. A default lead time before the event, a second alert, an alarm style that persists until dismissed, snooze length, and how often it re-notifies. Plus

Sending one to your calendar. A reminder only goes on your calendar if you choose one in the Calendar section of the reminder, and you choose per reminder. Leave it unset and the reminder stays in Twos, event times and all. The section appears once you have connected calendars with calendar sync.

If most of your reminders belong on one calendar, set a Settings Calendar & reminders Default calendar and new reminders start with it already picked. You can still clear it on any one reminder. Plus Settings Calendar & reminders Push all reminders to connected calendar goes further and sends every reminder to your calendar.

Setting a time in another zone. If you have added extra time zones, an "Also" line under the time shows that moment in each of them. The "Time in" switcher next to the start time lets you type the time as someone else would say it, so "3pm London time" is saved as the right moment for you. It goes back to your own zone each time you open the picker.

Shortcuts and gestures

ActionMacWindows and Linux
Set reminder⌘⇧XCtrl+Shift+X

Settings that change this

Tips

  • Write the time into the sentence rather than opening the picker. It is faster, and the picker is still there when the date is awkward.
  • All-day reminders are underused. Most "remember this on Thursday" things do not need a specific minute.
  • If you are getting too many notifications, the fix is usually fewer reminders rather than different settings.
  • A repeating reminder with an Ends date is much kinder to your future self than one that runs forever.

If it's not working

The reminder did not notify me. Check that notifications are allowed for Twos at the operating system level first, because an app-level setting cannot override a system denial. Then check the alert time, since a default lead time can move it earlier than you expect.

It notified on the wrong day. Almost always a time zone, or an all-day reminder firing at your all-day time rather than at a moment. Open the reminder with ⌘⇧X to see exactly what is set.

The date text was removed from my thing. That is the keep-date setting. Turn it on and the wording stays in the line.

A repeating reminder stopped. It reached its Ends date. Open the reminder and move that date later, or clear it.