Troubleshooting

When your reminders never arrive

A reminder that never rang is not the same as a reminder you ignored, and the difference matters because they have completely different fixes. This is the checklist for the first case, in the order worth working through it.

A hand tapping a smartphone notification settings screen

Start by finding out what is actually working

Before changing any settings, establish the facts. Set a reminder two minutes ahead, lock the phone, put it down in the place it usually sits, and wait. Do not hold it and watch the screen — hold it and watch the screen and it will very likely work, which tells you nothing.

You are distinguishing between three outcomes. It rang and you heard it: the problem is elsewhere, probably attention rather than delivery. It appeared silently: the problem is sound, mode or channel settings. Nothing happened at all: the problem is permissions or background execution, and that is the serious category.

Do this again after each change you make. Changing five settings at once and finding it works tells you nothing about which one mattered, and these settings tend to get reset by an update, so knowing the actual cause is worth the extra four minutes.

One more distinction to make early: does it fail always, or only sometimes? An intermittent failure is nearly always battery optimisation or a doze state, because those depend on how long the phone has been idle. A consistent failure is nearly always a permission.

Android checklist

Notification permission for the app is on, and its notification categories are not individually muted.
Battery optimisation for the app is set to unrestricted, not optimised. This is the most common cause of reminders that fire late or not at all.
The app is allowed to run in the background and is not restricted by a data saver.
Alarms and reminders permission is granted, where your Android version has a separate setting for exact alarms.
Any manufacturer-specific app manager is not force-closing the app. Several Android manufacturers add their own aggressive layer on top of the standard settings, often under a name like protected apps, auto-start or app launch.
Do not disturb is off, or the app is in its allowed list, and no bedtime or focus schedule is running at the reminder time.
Ringer and notification volume are both up. They are separate from media volume.
The app is not being cleared from recents by a task-killer, and you are not swiping it away out of habit.
The phone's date, time and time zone are set automatically.

iPhone checklist

Notifications for the app are allowed, with Lock Screen, Notification Centre and Banners all enabled.
The alert style is set to persistent rather than temporary, if you want it to stay on screen.
Sounds are on for the app specifically, not just for the phone.
No Focus is active at the reminder time, and the app is on the allowed list for any Focus you use — check sleep and work focuses, which people set up once and forget.
Scheduled Summary is off for the app. It silently holds notifications back and delivers them in a batch later, which looks exactly like a broken reminder.
Background App Refresh is on for the app.
Low Power Mode is not permanently on.
The ring/silent switch is not the explanation. Test with it in both positions so you know which behaviours to expect.
Date and time are set automatically, especially after travel.

Narrowing it down when the checklists do not fix it

If both lists are clean and reminders still go missing, work through these in order.

Check whether it fails for every reminder or only some
If only repeating ones fail, or only ones set from another device, that is a synchronisation question rather than a notification one. If a single reminder fails and others are fine, look at that reminder's own settings — its delivery, its snooze, its time zone.
Check whether it fails only when the phone has been idle
Reminders that work while you are using the phone and fail overnight are almost always a background execution problem. That points squarely at battery optimisation on Android and Background App Refresh on iOS.
Check where you created it
A reminder created on the web is stored on your account and rings on your phone. If it exists in the app on your phone, the sync worked and the problem is local delivery. If it is not there at all, sign out and back in on the phone.
Change the delivery rather than the settings
If the phone is silencing notifications, use something the phone does not treat as a notification. An alarm is a different category to the operating system. An in-app call is a different category again. And a real phone call does not go through the phone's notification system at all.
Reinstall last, not first
It is the standard advice and it is the least informative step, because it resets everything at once and tells you nothing about the cause. Try it only after the checklists, and re-grant permissions carefully afterwards rather than tapping through.

Timelee does not send browser or desktop notifications for reminders

This catches people who set reminders on the web dashboard and then wait at their laptop. Reminders ring on your phone — that is where the alarm, the in-app call and the tone all live. The web app is where you create, edit and review them. The only thing that raises a browser notification is a finished timer, and only while the tab is open. Set it up on a laptop; it rings on your phone.

The failure that no setting can fix

There is one category the checklists above cannot touch: the phone was not with you. It was charging in the hall, in a bag, in a locker, in the car, on the other side of a building site. Every permission was correct and the reminder fired perfectly into an empty room.

No notification setting has an answer to this, because the entire mechanism depends on a device being near a conscious person. It is also, for a lot of people, the most common failure of all — more common than any permission problem.

This is the reason Timelee's top delivery rung leaves the phone's notification system altogether. At the reminder time, Timelee's servers place a real phone call on the network to a number you have verified. It rings when the phone is locked, when the app is closed, when a battery saver has shut everything down, and loudly enough that you hear it from another room. Call delivery uses credits, which are bought in the Android or iOS app.

It is not the answer for every reminder, and it should not be. But for the two or three things a week where the consequence of a missed reminder is real, a channel that does not depend on your phone's notification settings being correct this month is a different kind of reliable.

Common questions

Why do my reminders arrive late rather than not at all?

Almost always battery management. When a phone decides an app has been idle it delays or batches its background work, so the reminder fires when the device next wakes up rather than at the scheduled minute. Setting the app to unrestricted battery use on Android, or turning on Background App Refresh on iPhone, is the usual fix.

Will a reminder ring if my phone is on silent?

It depends on the channel and on your handset. An alarm behaves like an alarm rather than a notification, and a real phone call rings on the phone network. Exactly how your phone treats silent and focus modes is up to its own settings, so test it once with a reminder two minutes ahead rather than assuming.

I set a reminder on the web and nothing happened on my laptop. Why?

Because reminders ring on your phone, not in the browser. Reminders you create on the web sync to your account and your phone schedules and rings them. The web dashboard is for setting up and reviewing, and the only browser notification Timelee raises is for a finished timer with the tab open.

Does a reminder work without an internet connection?

A reminder already scheduled on your phone rings from the phone, so it does not need a live connection at the moment it fires. Creating and editing reminders does need a connection, because they are stored on your account so that they reach every device.

Why did a reminder fire at the wrong hour after I travelled?

Time zone handling. Check that your phone's date and time are set automatically, and be cautious with anything you set before you arrived. The safe approach for an important reminder in a new time zone is to set it after the phone has updated, then test it.

What should I do if nothing on this page works?

Get in touch and tell us the platform, the app version and the exact reminder that failed, including whether it was created on the phone or the web. Those three details are what let anyone diagnose it rather than guess at it.

Run the two-minute test now

Set a reminder for two minutes' time, lock the phone and put it down where it normally sits. What happens next tells you which half of this page to read.

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