To continue on with the Google search commands, today I want to show you how to create a reminder for your Android smartphone or tablet.
I’ve been showing you various ways to set things directly from a Google search box lately. Now you should know that you can locate your lost or stolen device from a Google search. You should also know how to send your device directions directly from a Google search as well. Today I want to take this series a step further and show you how to create a reminder from a Google search that will remind you on your smartphone or tablet.
Just like the previous tips, you’ll need to be signed into your Google account on the desktop for this to work. This Google account needs to be the same one associated with your smartphone or tablet as well.
This is just another one of those useful commands that Google hides in their search engine to make things quicker and easier to do. You could pull out your phone and set the reminder that way with a voice command or by manually typing it in. Sometimes we just don’t have our phones with us when the urge to create a reminder pops into our head. Sometimes it can be quicker to enter in the reminder if we’re already working or simply at the computer. Whatever the reason is, I love to see these types of features added into Google search. The only thing is, sometimes it can be difficult to remember all of the commands that work in a Google search. I hope keeping these tips archived here on Android Explained at least gives you a way to refer back to them if you end up forgetting.
So, just like before, we trigger this feature by entering in a certain command. . .
- Set Reminder
That’s it. And like before, there are also some other commands that work to trigger the same feature. Commands like ‘set a reminder’, ‘remind me’, ‘create a reminder’ and I’m sure there are a few others. Once you enter that into a Google search, you’ll see something like this. . .
And as you can see, this feature requires Google Now to be activated on your phone too because that is how Google handles reminders on an Android device. So you type in the text of exactly what you want to remind yourself of. Then you choose if you want to remind yourself at a certain time or when you get to a certain place. If setting a time, you can be vague or you can even set a specific time like I did. When everything is filled out, you just have to click on the Remind Me on Google Now link and it will send it to your smartphone or tablet(or both).
That really is all there is to it. I imagine that like before, some people might not get this feature. I don’t know if Google is in the middle of rolling it out to certain people or if they are just restricting features from certain people. I was able to get the find my phone and set a reminder feature to work for me at my desktop PC, but I could get the send directions to myself feature to work. When reading up on it, some people were able to get the send directions and set a reminder feature working for them, but they couldn’t get the find my phone feature to work. It just seems random to those of us on the outside, but I imagine there is a reason why certain features don’t work for everyone.
