How to See Apple Reminders in the Mac Menu Bar or Notch

Apple Reminders is easy to reach on iPhone and harder to keep in view on a Mac. The Reminders app is a full window, and Apple’s Reminders guide for Mac describes widgets for Notification Center and the desktop, not a menu bar icon. If you want today’s reminders one move away while you work, you need a widget you keep open, a third-party menu bar app, or a planner that syncs with Reminders.

This guide covers what macOS gives you, how the optional Reminders sync in NotchOwl works, and how to set it up. I make NotchOwl, and I’ve tried to be clear about where another option fits better.

What macOS gives you

The Reminders app

The Reminders app holds all your lists, and iCloud keeps them the same on your Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Each device has to be signed in to the same Apple Account with Reminders turned on for iCloud. On a Mac, that switch is in System Settings › your name › iCloud; on macOS 15 or later, Apple lists it under Saved to iCloud › See All.

Reminders widgets

Apple’s Reminders widgets can live in Notification Center or on the desktop. They are interactive, so you can check off completed items right in the widget, and clicking a widget opens that list in the Reminders app. You can add several, each with its own size and list.

• Notification Center: click the date and time in the menu bar, then choose Edit Widgets.
• Desktop: Control-click the wallpaper, then choose Edit Widgets.

Widgets are the simplest free option, with nothing to install. Their limit is visibility: Notification Center is hidden until you open it, and desktop widgets sit behind your windows.

Notifications

Reminders with an alert appear as notifications in the top-right corner of the screen. Their options let you mark the reminder complete or be reminded again later. Notifications tell you when something is due, but they don’t show the rest of your day.

Ways to keep Reminders in view

How NotchOwl’s Reminders sync works

NotchOwl is a Mac planner that lives in the notch: today’s tasks, a focus timer, a daily notepad and a read-only view of today’s calendar. NotchOwl has no iPhone app. Two-way Apple Reminders sync, added in version 2.0, is how its tasks reach your iPhone and Apple Watch.

• One list. NotchOwl creates a list called NotchOwl in your default Reminders account, or uses one with that name if it exists. For the list to reach your iPhone, that account should be iCloud.
• What syncs. Open tasks on today, on planned days and in the Inbox, with their title, notes, done state, due day and time, priority and deadline. Reminders has no deadline field, so NotchOwl writes it as the last line of the notes, such as “Deadline: 2026-11-20”, and reads it back.
• Both ways. Tick a task off on iPhone or Apple Watch, and it is done in NotchOwl. A reminder you add to the NotchOwl list on iPhone becomes a task; one without a date lands in NotchOwl’s Inbox. Moving a task to another day moves its reminder, and deleting an open task on one side deletes it on the other.
• History stays. Clearing completed reminders in the Reminders app never removes NotchOwl’s history.
• It rings. With Ring on iPhone and Watch, which is on by default, a task with a reminder time gets a Reminders alarm at that time, so iPhone and Apple Watch alert even while the Mac sleeps. Turning it off removes only the alarms NotchOwl added. On the Mac, the notch opens with a chime when a reminder is due, with buttons to snooze it for 5 minutes or mark it done.
• Off until you turn it on. Your planner stays on the Mac unless you switch sync on.

NotchOwl’s optional two-way Apple Reminders sync keeps a NotchOwl list in Reminders in step with its tasks, so they reach iPhone and Apple Watch through iCloud, and tasks with a reminder time ring there.

How to set it up

1. Check iCloud. On your Mac and iPhone, sign in to the same Apple Account and turn on Reminders for iCloud.
2. Install NotchOwl. It needs an Apple silicon Mac with macOS 14 Sonoma or later. Download NotchOwl, drag it to Applications and activate your license.
3. Turn on sync. Click the owl in the menu bar, choose Settings…, and under Apple Reminders switch on Sync with Reminders.
4. Allow access. macOS asks whether NotchOwl may access your reminders; allow it. If you declined earlier, turn NotchOwl on in System Settings › Privacy & Security › Reminders.
5. Check your iPhone. Open Reminders on iPhone. The NotchOwl list appears once iCloud has synced, with your open tasks in it.
6. Choose how it rings. Leave Ring on iPhone and Watch on to get alerts on your phone and watch, or turn it off if NotchOwl’s notch alert on the Mac is enough.
7. Try it. Type “call mom tomorrow at 5pm” into NotchOwl. The task lands on tomorrow with a 5 PM reminder, and with sync on it rings on your iPhone too.

One tip: with Ring on iPhone and Watch on, timed reminders also alert from the Reminders app on the Mac, so you can get the notch alert and a Reminders notification together. If you only want the notch, turn off notifications for Reminders in System Settings › Notifications, knowing that this also silences your other reminders on that Mac.

Another menu bar option

Reminders MenuBar is a free, open-source (GPL-3.0) app that puts Apple Reminders in a menu bar dropdown. Its GitHub page lists creating reminders in natural language, marking them complete, editing due dates and priorities, viewing upcoming reminders, searching all reminders, and filtering by list and tag. Reminders MenuBar needs macOS 12 Monterey or later and installs from its releases page or with Homebrew (brew install --cask reminders-menubar). Checked on its GitHub page in November 2026.

Reminders MenuBar is the better pick if you want every Reminders list you already have in the menu bar, for free, and nothing else. NotchOwl fits if you want a daily planner with a focus timer, notepad and calendar on the Mac, and are happy to keep the tasks you sync in one NotchOwl list. NotchOwl is also the wrong choice for an Intel Mac, an iPhone app of its own, or editing calendar events.

NotchOwl costs $9 once for up to three Macs, an early-bird price that is normally $29, with no subscription (see pricing). For more apps in this space, read the best menu bar to-do apps for Mac. If you use Claude, you can also connect it to NotchOwl with MCP and have it set reminders that ring on your iPhone.