Manage Lists
If you use Reminders primarily to jog your memory about miscellaneous tasks, you might not need lists beyond the default one, named Reminders. However, lovers of to-do lists are likely to want to organize theirs by topic—Books to Read, Groceries, Places to Visit After COVID, and so forth. In that case, you’ll need to create new lists.
In the Reminders app in macOS, click the Add List 
icon at the bottom of the sidebar, type in a name for your list, and then press Return; in iOS/iPadOS, tap the Add List link at the bottom of window, name your list, and tap Done.
Once you have more than one list, you need to manage them, which is the point of this chapter. Let’s start with how to change your default Reminders list, and examine smart lists, a built-in way to organize lists, with features first appearing in Monterey and iOS 15/iPadOS 15 or more recently with Ventura and iOS 16/iPadOS 16. Then I move on to modifying, tagging, renaming, deleting, and grouping lists.
Change Your Default Reminders List
New reminders appear in the list named Reminders unless you change that behavior. If you want a different default list, go to Reminders > Preferences/Settings and choose one from the Default List pop-up menu (Figure 86).
From now on, all new reminders are appended to your default list, unless you choose another one (or specify it by voice with Siri).
Manage and Create Smart Lists
Smart lists collect reminders that fit certain categories and update dynamically as you make changes.
Learn About Default Smart Lists
Starting in Big Sur, four smart lists appear in the Reminders sidebar by default in macOS and iPadOS and at the top of the Reminders screen in iOS. You can add a fifth; Ventura adds a sixth:
Today: Click or tap Today to see all reminders with a deadline today, as well as those that are overdue. Press ⌘-1 to jump to this list. Ventura and iOS 16/iPadOS 16 break Today down into Morning, Afternoon, and Tonight.
Scheduled: This gives you an overview of all reminders with due dates. Press ⌘-2 to jump to this list. Starting in Ventura and iOS 16/iPadOS 16, future events are broken down into near-term and far-off dates, such as the next days, “Rest of Month” and then subsequent months.
All: This category shows all of your reminders, organized by list. Scroll through for an overview. Press ⌘-3 to jump to this list.
Flagged: Click or tap Flagged to see every reminder you’ve marked as important (seeSearch for Reminders). Press ⌘-4 to jump to this list.
Assigned: This smart list tracks reminders assigned to you (see Assign a Reminder). It doesn’t appear by default (see below on how to show it). Press ⌘-5 to jump to this list.
Completed: In Ventura, you see Completed in the Smart List area, providing quick access to all tasks you marked as done.
The default smart lists appear at the top of the sidebar and cannot be renamed. You can hide or show them or rearrange them:
macOS: Control-click or right-click the smart list and choose Hide List Name. Or use View > Show Smart List to select or deselect items. You can drag smart lists into position in the Reminders app.
iOS/iPadOS: Tap the Edit button in the upper-left corner in iPadOS or tap the More
icon in the upper-right and tap Edit Lists in iOS. Select or deselect smart lists to have them appear or not. Drag items into position using the hamburger 
icon.
Like smart albums in Photos and smart playlists in Music, you can’t directly add to these dynamic collections because they collate a set of matching conditions. However, starting in Monterey, you can create smart lists in addition to the five listed above.
Create Custom Smart Lists
To add your own smart list, follow these steps:
Click the Add List
icon (macOS) or Add List link (iOS/iPadOS) at the bottom of the Reminders window.Check or tap Make into Smart List.
Name the list.
You can add criteria of Tags, Date, Time, Priority, Flagged, or Location; in Ventura and iOS 16/iPadOS 16, you can also choose Lists. (Monterey/iOS 15/iPadOS 15 and Ventura/iOS 16/iPadOS 16 handle this aspect slightly differently, as I explain below.) To add criteria:
In macOS: Click the plus
icon to add another entry; click the minus 
icon to remove an item.In iOS/iPadOS: Tap the Off link to the right of a criterion, like Time or Priority, and then select a value, like Specific (and fill in) or Medium. Tap Done when complete.
Click OK or tap Done.
The smart list now appears along with other lists.
Understand Smart List Criteria
Setting criteria in step 4 above can be a little tricky, partly because of a bug in Monterey and changes introduced in Ventura:
In Monterey or iOS 15/iPadOS 15, all criteria you add must match. However, Apple left an interface element in place that’s non-functional and confusing; I explain below. (In programming terms, it’s a concatenated set of ands.)
In Ventura and iOS 16/iPadOS 16, Apple added a line in the smart list configuration dialog familiar from other Apple software and from smart folders in the macOS Finder: “Include reminders matching any/all of the following filters.” If you choose “all,” the behavior matches Monterey; choose “any” and you can match sets of criteria. (For coders, that’s the difference between and and or.)
Let me demonstrate how that would differ. Let’s say you set the following criteria:
Tags:
#packingDate: Relative Range in the Next 7 Day
In Monterey or iOS 15/iPadOS 15, or in Ventura with “all” set, a reminder would have to both have #packing in its tags and be set to trigger in the next 7 days. In Ventura or iOS 16/iPadOS 16, with “any” set, a reminder could either have #packing as a tag or be set to trigger in the next 7 days.
You can get a little fancier in Ventura, too: hold down the Option key and the plus icon changes to a More 
icon. Click that and criteria appear nested below the one you just clicked the icon for. This lets you set “all” criteria when using “any” at the top level.
So you could set a smart list in Ventura using “any” set for this list of criteria:
Date: Relative Range in the Next 7 Day
Location: Getting in Car
Date: Relative Range in the Next 21 Day
Location: Leaving Current Location
The result would be matching any reminder that triggers in the next seven days when you get in a car or any reminder triggering in the next 21 days if you leave your current location.
Rearrange Lists
You’ll find a lot of advice online about how to organize to-do lists, such as Lifehacker’s Back to Basics: How to Simplify Your To-Do List and Make It Useful Again. If you decide you want to organize yours, you can. For example, you might want to arrange them in alphabetical order, or by time involved or priority (see Set Other Options).
Reminders can’t arrange lists automatically, at least not for now, but you can do so manually. To change a list’s place in the sidebar, drag it and drop it where you want it. Note that you can’t drag a list out of its category and into another (say, from Yahoo! to iCloud).
Rename Lists
Groceries list or Grocery list? If you change your mind about a list’s name, give it a new one. Control-click or right-click a list in the sidebar and choose Rename. Type in the new name.
Group Related Reminder Lists
You can group reminder lists to keep track of multiple sets of tasks for one project. Select the lists you want to group in the sidebar and choose File > New Group. Type a title into the field that appears. The lists appear underneath this header (Figure 87). You can also drag and drop a list onto another to create a group.
Pin Lists
Any list or smart list can be pinned, which places it in the upper-left corner of the Reminders app. Control-click or right-click the list in macOS and choose Pin List; or touch and hold it in iOS/iPadOS and choose Pin.To remove, do the same and choose Unpin List or Unpin.
Delete Lists
When you’re done with a list, there’s no need for it to clutter up the place. But proceed with caution: when you delete a list, it’s gone.
Here’s how to zap a list:
Mac: Select the list in the Reminders sidebar, and then press Delete. Or, Control-click or right-click a list name in the Reminders sidebar and choose Delete from the contextual menu.
iOS, iPadOS, or Mac with trackpad or Magic Mouse: With a Magic Mouse or in iOS/iPadOS, use one finger to swipe left over the list’s name; with a Mac laptop or other trackpad, use two fingers. You can click Delete or tap the Trash icon or swipe all the way left, and Reminders deletes the list.
When you use any of these methods, if the list includes reminders you’ll see a warning that asks if you’re really, really sure you want to delete it (Figure 88). Click or tap Delete if you are. Click or tap Cancel if you aren’t. You can undo a list deletion with Edit > Undo in macOS or shake to undo in iOS/iPadOS.
Create a Template
Starting in Ventura and iOS 16/iPadOS 16, you can add templates to Reminders so that you can reuse frequently used lists of tasks without having to copy and paste or recreate them in other fashions.
Create a template in macOS from any existing list by selecting a list and choosing File > Save as Template. Name the template and opt whether or not to include completed reminders. In some cases, there could be a lot of them (Figure 89). Click Create.
You can manage and use templates via File > View Templates (macOS) or tap the More icon and View Template (iOS/iPadOS). In the simplest workflow, select a template and click Create List (macOS) or just tap the template (iOS/iPadOS).
In macOS, hover over a template, click the More icon at its right-hand edge, or in iOS/iPadOS, tap the Info 
icon, and choose:
Show Template Info (macOS): You can modify its default name, color, and icon.
Edit Template: Work with the template to modify it.
Share Template: Share it with other people. A share sheet or popover lets you select people or apps to use to share (Figure 90).
Figure 90: A template can be shared like other items by selecting a person, copying the link, or opening it with an app, which sends the link and may open a dialog in that app. (Ventura shown here.) macOS has a few additional elements. The Share Template dialog lets you choose to include the Date & Time on recurring items, and Reminders lets you know that the next occurrence will result in an alert. You can also click Show Preview to view what the recipient will access. If you’re fine with what appears, click Continue. Reminders warns you again if you have left Date & Time checked. The list is now shared.
Rename Template, Delete Template: If you want to rename without using the Show Template Info option or delete it, use these options.
Once the template is shared, the menu option changes from Share Template to Manage Link. Click or tap Update Link, Send Link (which brings up the same initial sharing options), or Stop Sharing, which has a confirmation step.
Customize Your Lists’ Look
Make your iCloud-synced lists easy to tell apart at a glance by customizing their appearance with choices of 12 colors, 82 symbols, and the whole set of emoji. Lists with reminders on other calendar servers let you set only their color.
Double-click a list’s circular icon in the sidebar to access the list’s Info dialog. With iCloud lists, click a new icon to replace the generic one or click the emoji symbol to pick one of those (Figure 91). With a list connected to any server, click a color to change that. You can also modify the name in this dialog. Click OK when complete.
Share Lists with Others
If you’re using iCloud with Reminders, you can share an editable list with other iCloud users. As examples:
Share a grocery list with your spouse so that whoever gets to the store first knows what to buy.
Share a list of household chores with your roommates (or children) and everyone can check off chores as they’re completed.
Share a project or call list with a coworker and you’ll both know what needs to be tackled next.
Everyone who shares a list may check off items as they’re completed, and add, edit, and remove reminders. Note that notifications aren’t shared, so the alarms you set ping only you.
You can access shared Reminders lists using Reminders on a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. You can also access shared reminders by signing in to your account at iCloud.com. (You can disable this access, too; see Specify Where Your Lists Will Live.)
To set up a shared list and send out invitations in Monterey:
Hover over the space to the right of the list’s name in the sidebar to reveal the Share
icon. Click this.Choose how to send your invitation. You might opt to click Mail or Messages.
Click Share.
Follow the particular steps for this method (see below).
Type a note in the message body in Mail or Messages if you choose.
Finally, click Send.
Apple revamped these steps in Ventura:
Hover over the space to the right of the list’s name in the sidebar to reveal the Share
icon. Click this.Choose how to send your invitation. You can select people with whom you’ve recently communicated or shared items; Mail, Messages, and a larger scope of Apple apps (such as News, Notes, and Shortcuts); and third-party apps. Click your choice.
Fill out the dialog that appears or (see below).
Send the message or email, add the entry, or perform whatever final task is required depending on the app.
For instance, to share via Mail in Monterey and earlier in step 4 above, in the To field, type the iCloud account email address of a person you want to share the list with. Your Mac suggests matches from the Contacts app. Click one to choose it. You can invite as many people as you’d like by typing in one or more email addresses and then pressing Return.
In Ventura in step 3 above, clicking Mail opens a Mail message with the Reminders list link embedded that you can address and send just as with any other email message.
Everyone you’ve invited receives an invitation via email. They must accept in order to gain access to the list.
If you think of someone else you’d like to invite later, click the Share icon next to the shared list and click the Add People button (Monterey and earlier) or Share With More People (Ventura). Then, go through the steps described above again.
To check who’s sharing a Reminders list, click the Share icon next to a list in the Reminders sidebar (Figure 92). In all versions of macOS, all shared parties are listed. Hover over a person and click the More icon and click Remove Access to remove them. Click Done when complete.
icon to see who shares a list with you. (Monterey shown here.)You can also turn off sharing for the list by clicking Stop Sharing and then clicking Done.