Everything You Need to Know About Google Calendar Reminders: Setup and Sync Tips

September 23rd, 2024

Imagine yourself in the middle of presenting that amazing slideshow you perfected over the weekend. And then, disaster strikes: a notification pops up on the big screen. 

Not the gentle reminder to "pick up the kids from judo," no—it's the cringe-worthy one: "pick up hemorrhoid treatment."

Great vibe, right?

When it comes to managing your reminders with Google Calendar, it's best to know what you're doing to avoid any... awkward surprises.

Don’t worry, we're here to clear it all up! From reminders to pop-ups, tasks, and the (legendary) disappearance of reminders, we’ve got you covered.

By the end of this article, you’ll be the undisputed master of Google reminders. Let’s dive in!

A Pinch of Theory to Understand Google Calendar Reminders

Difference Between Reminder and Notification

A reminder prompts you to do something at a specific time and consists of the following elements:

  • When to display the reminder (a day before? A few minutes before?)

  • The delivery method (pop-up or email).

You can set reminders for entire calendars or for specific events.

💡Reminders are private information! You’re the only person who can access them.

A notification is an alert that provides you with information. In Google Calendar, there are several types of notifications:

  • Creation, modification, and cancellation of an event.

  • Participant responses.

  • Calendar: This is the list of all events sent at the beginning of the day.

Pop-up or Email

The delivery methods offered by Google Calendar for reminders and notifications are:

  • Pop-up: A contextual window that appears on your device.

  • Email: An email sent by the Google Calendar server to inform you of an event or reminder.

Reminders are only supported by pop-ups.

Event notifications in Google Calendar can be sent via pop-up or email.

Tasks and Reminders, the Big Confusion

Google simplified its system by integrating reminders into Google Tasks to unify the management of tasks and reminders under one interface.

In summary, reminders were used for simple, one-time alerts, while tasks are more robust for comprehensive action management.

👉Simply put, you no longer have a distinct "Reminders" function in Google Calendar.

Not very convenient, is it? 😕

Tasks

Reminders

Objective

Manage actions with sub-tasks.

Remind you to perform a simple action at a specific time.

Example

“Launch the marketing campaign for Mrs. Robinson”

“Take medication at 6 PM”

Visibility and Integration

Integrated into Google Tasks, Google Calendar, Google Assistant, Gmail, Google Chat.

Initially visible in Google Calendar and Google Assistant, now converted into tasks in Google Tasks.

How to Configure Reminders with Google Calendar?

Notifications

As you’ve understood, this is the only function accessible directly from Google Calendar.

You can receive notifications on your phone, computer, or by email.

To do this, you need to open Google Calendar in a browser.

To set notifications for all events:

  1. Open Google Calendar and click on “Notifications Settings.”

  2. Choose your settings: duration and channel (“desktop notifications” or “email”).

manage notifications for an entire google calendar

To set notifications for a specific event:

  1. Open Google Calendar.

  2. Click on Modify the event.

manage notifications for a single event in google calendar

Did Google Calendar Get Rid of Reminders?

Trick question! Well, as you’ve figured out, this is now done via the Tasks app.

Google Calendar vs Google Tasks

Sync Reminders to Google Calendar

No Feature to Sync Notifications Between Different Calendars

Notifications in Google Calendar are defined individually for each calendar and each specific event. There’s no native feature to automatically sync notifications between different calendars.

Example: If the same event appears in both your personal and work calendars, you need to set notifications separately for each calendar.

The Advantage of SyncThemCalendars

Our solution: A calendar synchronization app that allows you to customize notifications according to the calendar.

Example 1: You’ve synced your personal and work calendars and want notifications to differ depending on the calendar. You can do that with SyncThemCalendars.

Example 2: You’ve synced your personal and work calendars. You have an appointment noted on your personal calendar that also appears on your work calendar. You don’t want to receive the notification; you just want to remember that the slot is occupied. You can do this with SyncThemCalendars.

manage reminders for multiple google calendars

Three options for configuring "Reminder":

  • Don’t override.

  • Clear field.

  • Keep target default.

Conclusion

To sync your various Google calendars, there’s no native feature available. Nothing beats a third-party tool like SyncThemCalendars.

Check out our free and no-commitment sync tool with a 14-day trial!

Oh, and if you ever need to finely tune synchronizations between a target calendar and a source calendar, we also offer various visibility settings.

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