I replaced my reminders app with Google Messages — here's why (and how to set it up)

Reminders are something I’ve always struggled with, and it has nothing to do with the reminder apps themselves. They all work as advertised, so this isn’t really about that. My problem is they’re too polite and too easy to ignore. I’d swipe a reminder away, thinking I’ve got it covered, only to forget it ever existed.

Recently, though, I came across a Reddit thread suggesting scheduling texts to yourself as reminders. I gave it a shot for a couple of weeks, and yes, it clicked — so here we are.

Reminders are easy to ignore — texts aren’t

Reminder apps have one job, and for the most part, they do it well. My problem is when the alert actually pops up, I either swipe it away — because I’m a serial procrastinator — or it gets buried under other notifications. Either way, I’d miss it more often than not.

Scheduling texts to myself solves this. For starters, it’s one less app cluttering my home screen. But more importantly, a text is something I’m far less likely to miss. Even if I dismiss the notification, I already open Google Messages a dozen times a day anyway. That means I’m bound to spot that unread message from myself sooner or later. I’ve also pinned the chat at the top, so every time I open the app, it’s right there in front of me.

That’s really the big difference here. A reminder app gets one shot to catch my attention. If I miss it, the task might as well not exist. A text message is almost impossible to miss, since it sits right on top of my personal and group chats.

The workflow itself is dead simple, too. When the text alert comes in, I mark it as read if the task’s already done or hit “Remind in 1 hour” if I need more time. For something that needs a shorter delay, I just snooze the notification for 15 or 30 minutes instead. And if I need to leave myself some context, like why I’m pushing it back or what I’m waiting on, I reply to the thread with a quick note.

Scheduling texts in Google Messages is easy as it gets

My favorite thing about using text messages as reminders is just how quick it is to set up one. Here’s how you can do it too.

1. Open Google Messages and start a conversation with yourself by tapping the Start chat icon.
2. Type out your reminder as you’d normally do.
3. Tap and hold the Send button, and you’ll see the Schedule send window.
4. Pick a date and time for the reminder and hit Send.

One thing that tripped me up initially was that I wasn’t getting notifications for my own scheduled texts. The reason for this turned out to be RCS. With it enabled, Google Messages treats messages to yourself a bit differently from regular texts, so the notification for the incoming “reminder” never actually shows up.

Thankfully, Google Messages lets you turn off RCS for specific chats, so all I had to do was tap my name at the top inside the chat and enable Only send SMS and MMS messages. This turned my self-chat back into a plain SMS thread, and the notifications started coming through.

I get the same reminders on my PC too

There was another benefit of replacing my reminders app with scheduled texts, and this one I honestly didn’t see coming. Since I work on a PC all day, I’ve got Google Messages for Web set up as a PWA. This helps me stay on top of my texts without reaching for my phone every few minutes or having to use apps like Phone Link.

With scheduled texts acting as reminders, I started getting them on my PC too. I get the same nudge there, which means having my phone nearby isn’t necessary. And if I accidentally mark one as read, I can always mark it as unread again.

If you haven’t tried Google Messages for Web, setting it up is painless. Head to messages.google.com in your browser and sign in with the same Google account you use in the Messages app on your phone. You’ll need to confirm the login by matching the icon that appears in your browser to the one on your phone, then wait a couple of minutes for everything to sync.

That’s really all there is to it. You’ll now see notifications for your reminder texts and other messages, as long as you’ve enabled notification access for both your browser and Google Messages for Web.

There are a few downsides, but that’s okay

Scheduling texts for reminders worked for me, but it’s not something I can confidently recommend to everyone. The biggest downside here is that there’s no easy way to set up recurring reminders. If I want to remind myself to pay my credit card bill every month or renew my internet plan every year, texts won’t cut it. Sure, technically I could schedule the same text over and over, but that’s not practical.

Another issue is the lack of extra features. There are no categories and no clean checklists to glance at. With a proper reminders app, I can organize my tasks, check off completed ones, sync them across devices, and even set up location-based triggers.

None of this is a dealbreaker for me, because I wasn’t using those features anyway. The most important thing for me is making sure I don’t miss my reminders and actually follow through — and scheduling texts helps me do that.

That’s my experience, at least. I’m curious if you’ve tried this yourself or if you’d be willing to. Share your thoughts in the comments.