Reminder Commands

February 20, 2023

Last updated on August 16, 2026

Outlook users have the luxury of creating tasks that remind them of things they need to do. Outlook and OneNote are integrated so you can create an Outlook task on a OneNote paragraph and Outlook will keep you informed of its status. But if you're a OneNote user and don't also use Outlook or don't want to pollute your Outlook tasks with OneNote-related tasks then OneMore adds a stand-alone task reminder management system to OneNote.

Note that OneMore reminders emulate Outlook tasks but are not the same and not integrated with Outlook. OneMore reminders are intended for those who do not have Outlook. However, if you do have Outlook, you can import tasks from Outlook and also create OneMore reminders. Don't confuse them!

Notifications

OneMore integrates reminders with the Windows toast popup notifications. These are popup notifications in the lower-right corner of the window off of the taskbar and show up in the Windows notification area. Clicking on one of these OneMore reminder notifications will navigate to the page containing the reminder, select the associated paragraph, and open the reminder dialog. You can then modify the reminder, or snooze it for a period of time.

Note that notifications are only sent while OneNote is running. You will not receive OneMore reminder notifications while OneNote is not running.

Cross‑Machine Reminders

Each reminder is anchored to its paragraph using a small, OneMore‑owned identifier that OneMore stores directly in the paragraph itself. This replaces OneNote's own native paragraph and hyperlink identifiers, which are only valid on the machine that generated them and cannot reliably identify the same paragraph when the notebook is opened on a different computer. Because the anchor travels with the paragraph, a reminder you create on one machine resolves correctly when the shared notebook is later opened on another machine, and reminders created before this change are migrated to the new anchor automatically the next time you interact with them.

If you copy and paste a paragraph that has a reminder, the copy is detected the next time you interact with it and is automatically given its own independent reminder, so editing or completing one copy will not affect the other.

Known limitation: if the same page's reminders are edited on two machines at nearly the same time, before OneNote has finished syncing between them, OneNote may create a conflicted copy of the page. This is a general OneNote sync behavior and is not specific to, or resolved by, OneMore reminders.

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Pages opened in multiple windows

When a OneNote page is open in more than one window, there is a known defect in OneNote that can mislead add-ins to affect the wrong paragraph or object on the page. This happens because OneNote internally marks the last-edited window as "active." If you then switch to the other window, select a different paragraph or object, and run a OneMore command, that command may instead affect the paragraph or object you had selected in the first window.

To avoid this, some OneMore commands display a warning when the current page is open in more than one window. You can choose to continue or cancel. If you're certain you're viewing the window where you last made a change, it's generally safe to continue. Otherwise, cancel the operation, return to the window where you made the last change, and rerun the command.

Commands

The Reminders menu has multiple commands to create, complete, delete, and even generate detailed reports on reminders that you create in OneNote. This menu item along with all of its commands, or individual commands, can be added to the page context menu for quick access.

Add or Update Reminder

Default shortcut is F8

Creates or updates a reminder for the current paragraph. The cursor must be positioned on the paragraph of interest with no text range selected. You can select one tag to associate with the reminder; it is recommended that you select a checkable tag, but any tag will do.

The reminder dialog also has a free‑text Assignee field so you can note who a reminder belongs to in a notebook shared with others. Assignee is not validated against notebook members or contributors, and is purely informational; it does not change who receives reminder notifications, which are still shown to everyone with the notebook open.

Complete Reminder

Marks the reminder associated with the current paragraph as complete. If the associated tag is a checkbox, it will be ticked.

Delete Reminder

Deletes the reminder associated with the current paragraph and optionally removes the tag.

Reminders Summary Report

Generates a detailed report page of all active and inactive reminders.

Strikethrough Completed To Do Tags

Toggles strikethrough text next to all completed/incompleted To Do tags. If a tag is marked completed (checked), then strikethrough styling will be applied to the text. If it is not completed, any strikethrough styling will be removed.

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