Be productive with Calendar, Notes, Reminders, and Shortcuts

Add multiple accounts. With Calendar, you can add multiple accounts—iCloud, Google, Microsoft Exchange, and more—and manage all your events from one place. Open the Calendar app, choose Calendar > Add Account, then follow the onscreen instructions.

Add calendars. You can create separate calendars to keep track of different schedules. For example, keep all of your work meetings in one calendar and your children’s school events in another. Choose File > New Calendar. If you have multiple accounts, choose the account for the new calendar. The new calendar appears in the sidebar. To change the name or color of the calendar, Control-click it, then choose Get Info.

Create events and reminders. To create a new event or reminder, click  or double-click a day and time in the calendar window, then choose Event or Reminder. You can also include additional information, like location, a URL, or notes. After creating an event or reminder, you can edit it by double-clicking it. Reminders created in Calendar also sync back to the Reminders app.

Share a calendar with others. iCloud makes it easy to share calendars. Control-click a calendar under your iCloud account in the sidebar, then choose Share Calendar. Enter the email of the person you want to share with.

Learn more. See the Calendar User Guide.

Create or edit a note. Click in the Notes toolbar to create a new note. To change an existing note, click anywhere in the note and begin making changes.

Format and add content to notes. You can add checklists, tables, images, links, audio recordings, and more to your notes. Click to format text—for example, add a list, make a collapsible subheading or heading, or highlight text. Click to record audio, to add a photo, or to add a link to another app.

Collaborate on a note. You can send an invitation to collaborate on a list in Messages or Mail, or share the link. Click in the toolbar, choose Collaborate or Send Copy from the pop-up menu, then select Messages, Mail, or Copy Link. After you’ve invited others to join, you can track activity and manage collaboration by clicking .

Solve math problems. Crunch numbers, evaluate expressions, and assign variables—right from Notes. To define a variable, type a word or a letter, followed by the equal sign and the variable’s value. To use a variable, the variable has to precede any expression it’s used in. To solve an expression, enter the expression followed by the equal sign.

Learn more. See the Notes User Guide.

Create a reminder list. You can create a list for each of your projects to help keep your to-dos organized. With iCloud reminders, you can also create automatically categorized Grocery Lists or custom Smart Lists based on rules and filters you identify. To create a list, choose File > New List, then choose from Standard, Groceries, or Smart List.

Add or edit a reminder. Click the space below the last item on a list or click in the top right to add a new reminder. You can add notes, tags, a date, or a location to your reminder by clicking .

Collaborate on a list. Share the load by sending an invitation to collaborate on a list. Click , then choose Messages, Mail, or Invite with Link. If you share in Messages, everyone on the thread is automatically added to the list. After you’ve invited others to join, you can track activity, manage collaboration, and even assign reminders.

See what’s coming up. Keep on top of upcoming reminders and make sure you never miss a beat. Scheduled reminders show up in the Calendar app, and in the Today and Scheduled Smart Lists in Reminders. To add a date to a reminder, hold the pointer over the reminder, click , choose On a Day, then select the date you want to be reminded.

Learn more. See the Reminders User Guide.

Browse the Gallery to find shortcuts. Starter shortcuts for a range of common tasks are grouped in collections. The shortcuts you create, and ready-made shortcuts you choose or edit, are shown in All Shortcuts in the sidebar.

Create a shortcut from the gallery. Choose a shortcut from the Gallery to add it to your shortcuts. For example, in the Quick Shortcuts collection, click Play Playlist, then click . Choose the playlist you want that shortcut to play, then click Add Shortcut.

Create a custom shortcut. You can also create your own shortcuts. While viewing All Shortcuts, click in the toolbar, then drag actions from the list on the right to the shortcut editor on the left to produce the results you want. Actions are building blocks of a shortcut, like steps in a task. Shortcuts also provides “next action” suggestions to help you complete your shortcut. For ideas, see Ideas for custom shortcuts.

Shortcuts to your shortcuts. Using Siri or a widget to run a shortcut is the quickest way to get something done. You can also add shortcuts to the Finder and the Services Menu, or pin them in the Shortcuts Menu Bar. Double-click a shortcut, click , then choose options under Use a Quick Action.

Learn more. See the Shortcuts User Guide.