Reminders and Notifications

Kan Do's reminders are local notifications scheduled on each of your devices. There's no server involved, and the first time you turn one on the system asks whether Kan Do may send notifications.

#The three alerts

Each is a toggle in the task's details:

Subtasks with their own due date get their own reminder as well. When the parent task has Alert Until Done on, each subtask's reminder repeats on the same cadence until that subtask is checked off.

#Alert Until Done

Some tasks need nagging. Alert Until Done re-sends the reminder until the task is marked complete.

• The cadence is set per task with Remind Every: Every 30 Minutes, Every Hour, Every 3 Hours, or Every Day.
• Default follows the app-wide setting in Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Alert Until Done Reminds.
• The Add Task Shortcuts action has matching Alert Until Done and Remind Every fields.

#Alarms (iPhone and iPad)

Some tasks need more than a banner. Turn on Alarm under Alert When Due in a task's details and the task rings as a system alarm at its due time: full screen on the Lock Screen, with sound, even inside a Focus, exactly like an alarm from the Clock app. The alert shows the task's title with a Stop button and an Open button that brings you to the task in Kan Do.

• The first time you turn it on, iOS asks whether Kan Do may schedule alarms. If you decline, the toggle stays on but nothing rings until you allow alarms for Kan Do in the Settings app.
• An alarm needs Alert When Due and a due date. A date without a time rings at 9 AM that day, like the regular reminder.
• Completing, rescheduling, or deleting the task, on any device, clears or moves its alarm. The regular notification still arrives as well, so your other devices are told too.
• Alarms are an iPhone and iPad feature. The Mac, Vision Pro, and Apple TV keep the setting but can't ring; a task flagged on the Mac rings on your iPhone.

#What the notification looks like

The title is the task's title. The body reads "Due today", "Due at 3:30 PM", "Overdue — was due …", "Starts today", or "Starts at 3:30 PM". Press and hold (or pull down) the notification for its buttons:

• Mark Done completes the task.
• Snooze 1 Hour brings the same reminder back in an hour.
• Snooze Until Tonight brings it back at 6 PM.
• Snooze Until Tomorrow moves the task's due date to tomorrow.

Subtask reminders have the same buttons. Mark Done checks off just that subtask, the two short snoozes bring the subtask's own reminder back, and Snooze Until Tomorrow moves the subtask's due date, not the task's.

#Snoozing repeating tasks

The two short snoozes leave the task's date untouched, so a repeating task keeps its schedule. Snooze Until Tomorrow changes the due date, which shifts the series, so use the one-hour or tonight snooze on anything that repeats.

#Across devices

Snoozing, completing, or rescheduling a task on one device quiets it on your other iPhones and iPads within seconds. As soon as the change syncs, each device reschedules its own alerts in the background, and a banner for a task that was snoozed or moved elsewhere is cleared from that device's Notification Center. You don't need to open Kan Do on the other device for this to happen.

#Location alerts

Add a Location to a task and turn on Notify When Arriving or Notify When Leaving. These alerts are delivered by your iPhone, which needs location access for Kan Do (the system asks the first time). See Tasks and Cards.

#App icon badge

Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Badge Icon with Overdue Tasks puts the number of overdue tasks on the app icon. It's off by default.

#If reminders aren't arriving

1. Open the system Settings app, find Kan Do under Notifications, and check that notifications are allowed and that Time Sensitive or banners aren't turned off.
2. Make sure the task actually has Alert When Due (or Alert Until Done or Alert at Start) turned on. A due date alone doesn't notify.
3. Focus modes can silence Kan Do. Check the Focus you're in.
4. On the Mac, notifications are scheduled by the Mac app. If Kan Do isn't running on the Mac and the task was created elsewhere, the iPhone or iPad that has the task will still alert.

#Reminders and the widget

Widgets don't send notifications, but they refresh as soon as a change syncs in, so a snoozed or completed task updates on every Home Screen promptly.