Can you make recurring reminders On Windows.
Setting up one-time reminders is easy. You can mark a date on your calendar, set an alarm, and more. But what if you want to be reminded periodically of the same task? Weekly, daily, or even every few minutes?
It’s not that easy to implement. Most Android or iOS reminder apps don’t have an easy way to set up recurring reminders, so you’ll have to enter each date and time manually.
Things get even more complicated if you need a reminder that repeats for minutes (or seconds) as there is no app designed to remind the user frequently. So if you’ve been banging your head against the wall trying to find a way to set recurring reminders, this guide is for you.
How to Set Weekly or Daily Reminders on Windows
The easiest way to set up recurring task reminders on a Windows PC is to use Cortana. The native Microsoft AI assistant can schedule tasks and create timed reminders. And, unlike Siri on the iPhone, voice commands aren’t the only way to control it. You can also enter your own commands to run them.
Start by opening Cortana on your PC. You can find the app in the start menu, or just use the “Hey Cortana” voice command if you have it enabled.
Cortana’s interface resembles a chat window. Again, you can continue to speak or type commands to control Cortana.
Since Cortana can interpret commands in natural language, you can simply ask the AI assistant to set a reminder for a specific task, specifying the time and frequency (tomorrow, every day, etc.)
Cortana will create a task in Microsoft To Do for the specified time. You can edit the task yourself to change the details or remove the reminder.
Keep in mind that while this method is the easiest way to set reminders, it’s not very customizable. For example, you can ask Cortana to set a reminder every hour, but that won’t work.
If you want to set reminders that repeat at intervals of a few minutes or seconds, you need another method.
Using the Task Scheduler to Set Up Recurring Reminders
Experienced Windows users may recall the Task Scheduler, a built-in utility that allows you to pre-configure tasks. The problem with this approach is that most of the features of this tool have already been deprecated.
Microsoft has been phasing out the Task Scheduler since the last few releases of its flagship operating system, and in Windows 11, it’s nothing but legacy husks.
You can no longer display messages or send emails, limited to only running the program at the scheduled time. However, for users willing to give it a try, here are the steps:
Find Task Scheduler in the Start menu.
As you can see from the interface, the utility is quite old. To get started, select the “Create a basic task…” option.
Start by entering a name and description for the task. It can be anything – it has nothing to do with its functioning.
Next comes the trigger where you can set the frequency of the scheduled task. You have a choice of daily, weekly or monthly tasks.
Now you can set the start time and date for the task.
Finally, you get to choose the action you want to perform…although, truth be told, there isn’t much choice here. The options to send an email or display a message are deprecated and will no longer work. You can only select the program you want to open.
If you select the message display option, you can customize the content of the message, although Task Scheduler will throw an error when trying to apply it.
How to Set Up More Frequent Recurring Reminders
Using Microsoft Cortana to create weekly or daily reminders is great, but what if you want to set reminders that repeat more often? Unfortunately, there are no built-in or other applications that can do this for you.
This is where Autohotkey comes in. Primarily a macro tool, Autohotkey – or AHK as it’s commonly called – can be used to remap keys or customize hotkeys (keyboard shortcuts). But more importantly for us, AHK can also be used to set up recurring tasks to run automatically.
To create a recurring reminder in Windows, download AHK from the official website.
Simply run the downloaded setup file to install the application on your computer.
Now you can start creating AHK scripts. Simply right-click anywhere in an empty folder (or even on your desktop screen) and choose New > Autohotkey Script.
Name it whatever you like, then right-click the script and choose Open With > Notepad to edit the script.
Ignore the code that is already in the script and just type the following after it:
#PersistentSetTimer, reminder, return 50000
Reminder: MsgBox Don’t forget to complete your task! back
This will play a sound to alert you every 50 seconds (duration above is in milliseconds). You can increase or decrease this time according to your requirements. Save the file when you’re done.
Now you can run this script by simply double clicking on the file. Alternatively, you can right-click a script and select “Open” to run it.
A reminder message box will appear after the time you specified. You can click “OK” to close the message and a new reminder will reappear after the specified time.
This is, of course, a rudimentary demonstration of AHK’s capabilities. You can add sound alerts and bind a script to a specific hotkey to easily turn it on or off. You can set up several of these alerts with different messages and durations to remind you of recurring tasks.
What Is the Best Way to Set Up Repeating Reminders on Windows?
Cortana Reminders is a great way to create reminders that repeat every day of the week or every day of the month. You just give Cortana a reminder time and she will automatically create a new task in Microsoft To Do.
But when you want to remind yourself every few minutes or so, Cortana isn’t much help. Very few task scheduling apps offer recurring reminders, and almost none of them work at such short intervals.
The best way to do this is to use Autohotkey. Millions of people use it safely to create keyboard macros and automate tasks. With a couple of lines of script, you can set up a recurring reminder.
Can you make recurring reminders On Windows
Can you make recurring reminders On Windows