Apple Reminders on the iPhone and on the web: how to see them off the phone

The short answer: the phone reads them, not the server. Apple Reminders has no web API an outside service can query with your permission, the way Google or Microsoft do. What exists is EventKit, the system framework used by apps installed on the device itself. That is why the Madrugo iPhone app asks the system for permission, reads Calendar and Reminders right there, and uploads them to your account — which is what makes them show up on the web too.

What you see on the web, and what you do not

Whatever comes from the phone appears alongside the rest of the day, labelled with its origin. You get the title, the due date and whether it is completed. What you do not get is editing from the browser: the web is a read-only mirror.

The reason is not laziness, it is where the data lives. Writing to Reminders requires EventKit, and EventKit only exists on the device. Creating, editing, completing or deleting an Apple reminder happens in the iPhone app, which does write to the system; the change comes back to your account on the next sync.

What you need

• An iPhone with the app installed and the Reminders permission granted in system settings.
• Sync switched on in the app. It is enabled there, not on the web.
• The phone opened now and then. If it spends a week switched off, the web shows whatever synced last.

The shared list case

A shared Reminders list arrives just like your own, because on the phone it is simply another list. Worth knowing before you connect: if you share the shopping list with someone, their items end up visible in your account too. There is no way to split them by person, because Apple does not record who created each item in a shared list.

Why we do not use your iCloud password

There is the app-specific password route, which some services use to sign into iCloud as if they were you. We do not use it for calendar or reminders: it is a credential for your entire account sitting on someone else's server, and one change at Apple breaks it without warning. We prefer the explicit system permission, which you can revoke from iPhone settings in two taps.

iCloud Mail is a separate conversation, because there IMAP is the standard path and is designed for exactly this.

If you do not have an iPhone

Then Apple Reminders will not arrive, and we would rather say so than sell a sync that does not exist. The alternatives that do work from any browser are Google Tasks, Todoist and calendars published as iCal links: we cover that in Todoist and Google Tasks in a single list.

More on this ecosystem in Apple and wearables, and the full day view in the console.