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Google Keep might be losing one of its most useful features
- Google may be preparing to remove the ability to create and view reminders directly within Google Keep.
- We’ve spotted Google testing some UI changes in Google Keep, such as eliminating the ‘bell’ icon for setting any type of reminder and removing the Reminders section from the sidebar
- These changes could signal a broader shift toward consolidating reminder functionality into Google Tasks.
Google has been working to make Google Tasks the one-stop shop for reminders across its services. Google Keep reminders are already saved to Google Tasks, but chances are you may soon not be able to create reminders in Google Keep at all.
Google has already removed the ability to create location-based reminders from Google Keep, and we’ve spotted clues suggesting this move could extend to all reminders.
While playing around in Google Keep v5.26.021.01.90, we encountered a UI with no “bell” button to create a reminder. Here is Google Keep’s current reminder-friendly UI, compared to how it could appear in the future when reminders are removed:
Eagle-eyed readers would have spotted a new “x” icon in the title area of notes, which is also a separate and upcoming feature. This “x” icon shows up when you edit the title of a note, making it easier to delete/clear the complete title field of the note with a single tap.
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Circling back to Reminders, the Reminders option in the sidebar is also gone in the new UI, as you can see in these screenshots:
We further experimented by creating a reminder within Google Keep. When done with the current UI, the reminder shows the Google Tasks icon with the time, as the Google Tasks app will deliver the reminder notification. The reminder syncs as intended, and we can also see it in the web version of Keep in the same note. However, in the upcoming UI without reminders, the same reminder no longer shows the Tasks icon or the reminder time — almost as if reminders don’t exist in Google Keep.
We don’t know if and when Google will roll out these changes to Keep. It is harder to predict removals, as there is a fair possibility that the feature could be re-added in a future release. However, given the current trajectory of Reminders within Google Keep, the writing is on the wall. There’s no need to panic, though — Google Tasks will hopefully continue to handle Reminders as it does already, though switching between two apps might push some users to search for a better alternative.
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