Want to see only the tasks you need to see—at a particular time, for a certain occasion, urgency or mood, or at a location perhaps? Find out here how to organize tasks in Apple Reminders flexibly with smart lists.
First, by a Book
A source of comforts aplenty in many a home, Cheryl Mendelson’s classic Home Comforts sets off with a revelatory discovery. Picture the author combing through the housekeeping literature of old…
…finding to my astonishment that my grandmothers, both of them so right and so sure about everything, had not always done things by the book.
With that in mind, let’s head off to getting things done, I fathom, by your book:
How to Organize Apple Reminders with Smart Lists
Time needed: 3 minutes
To set up a new smart list that gathers to-do items based on custom criteria in Apple Reminders on a Mac, iPhone or iPad:
- Click or tap Add List under the current list of lists in Apple Reminders.
Seeing the list: On an iPhone, select < Lists to get to the overview, on a Mac press Command Option S if you do not see the sidebar and list initially.
Mac keyboard shortcut: On macOS, you can also press Command Shift N to start setting up a smart list. - Type the name you want to use for the list under Name:.
Example. Use “Important and not urgent” for a list of high-priority items due in the next few days, for instance.
Icon and color: Choose an icon and list color like you would for a regular new to-do list in Apple Reminders. - Choose Smart List for List Type:.
- Choose the criteria for items to include in the smart list.
iPhone: Tap Edit Filters to get to the list of criteria on an iPhone.
Mac: Click + to add further filtering criteria.
Criteria: See below for the possible filtering criteria and their uses.
One of each: Note that you can use each criterion just once in the list of filters. - Click OK (on a Mac) or tap Done (on iPhone and iPad).
Looking to work without distraction: How to Mix White Noise with Everything on iPhone
Smart List Criteria in Apple Reminders
First, choose whether you want the list to include items that match either all or any of the filters you specify.
The possible filters are the following:
Date
Match items by due date (or time).
You can choose relative and absolute days; select No Date to match items that have no due date.
Note that if you choose hours for a relative due date, only items with a due time (within the time period) will match. items that have a due date but no due time will not appear.
Time
Include or exclude to-do items based on their due time.
You can also include only items that do not have a specific due time (using No Time).
Lists
Either include or exclude all items that are on specific regular to-do lists.
Tags
Filter items with all or any of the chosen tags, or, of course, all items with no tags at all.
Priority
Include only items with a particular priority level in the smart list, all set to any lever, or just those with no level at all.
If you want to make sure all items are duly prioritized, for example, set up a list that collects all items that do not have their priority set.
Location
Match items that are set to appear when you arrive at or leave a location; choose Specific and pick the location from the list or add a new one. You can also match all items that do not have a location associated.
Use this filter to preview all items on your “Shopping” list set for the camping goods store, for example.
Flag
Sort out either only flagged or unflagged to-do items.
How to Organize Apple Reminders with Smart Lists: FAQ
How do I change the criteria for an existing smart list?
To edit the list of rules that make up a smart lists’s items:
- On a Mac: Click with the right mouse button on the list and select Show Smart List Info from the menu.
- On iPhone and iPad: Tap and hold the smart list, then select Show Smart List Info from the context menu.
Can I construct more advanced rules with nested criteria?
No.
Since each criterion can appear only once in a smart list’s rules and you cannot use other smart lists as criteria for filtering, setting up arbitrarily complicated rules for smart lists is nary impossible in Apple Reminders.
Using tags, you can often work around these limitations well enough.
(Holding down Control while you click + for adding criteria, you can set up a kind of hierarchy of rules for Smart Lists in Apple Reminders for Mac. This has no practical effect, though.)
Can I share a smart list?
No.
In Apple Reminders, you can only share regular lists with others.
Can I set up or use Smart Lists in Apple Reminders on iCloud.com?
No.
On iCloud.com, Apple Reminders will only display regular lists. You cannot access existing smart lists or set up new ones using the browser interface.
(How to organize Apple Reminders with smart lists tested with macOS Sonoma 14.3 and iOS 17; first published April 2024)