Reminder or Alarm? When an iPhone Reminder Isn't Enough

You set a reminder to take your tablet at 8. The phone was on Silent. It buzzed once, face down on the sofa, and that was that.

What a normal reminder does

A reminder in the built-in Reminders app, in Remi, or in any to-do app arrives as a notification. On iPhone that means:

• One sound or buzz, at notification volume.
• No sound when the phone is on Silent, and held back by Focus modes unless you allow the app.
• Gone the moment you swipe it away.

That is exactly right for most things: buy stamps, call the garage, pay rent this week. You see it when you look at your phone, and nothing breaks if that is an hour later.

What an alarm does

An alarm keeps ringing until you stop or snooze it, full screen, and it rings even with the phone on Silent or in a Focus. It is not something you can miss by having your phone face down.

Urgent reminders (iOS 26.2 and later)

Since iOS 26.2, the built-in Reminders app has an Urgent switch under Date & Time. An Urgent reminder rings as an alarm at its due time, through Silent and Focus, with a fixed 9-minute snooze. If you only have one or two must-not-miss items and are on a recent iOS, that may be all you need. Remi's reminders do not have an alarm mode; they are always regular notifications.

Which to use

• Regular reminder: errands, chores, bills, renewals, birthdays, ideas, anything with a loose time. Remi is built for these, including the ones with no exact date.
• Urgent reminder or an alarm: waking up, medication, catching a flight, leaving for the school run, anything where "an hour later" is a problem.

Plenty of people use both: Remi for the long list of things that need doing sometime, and an alarm for the few that need doing now.

Updated 2026-10-01. Written by Emils Ozols, who makes Remi.