Alerts and Nagging
A task is only useful if you remember to look at it. 2Do supports as many alerts per task as you need, with control over when each one fires and whether it plays a sound.
Adding an Alert
Open a task, tap Alerts in the editor's bottom toolbar (or press ⌘'), then tap Create New Alert....
You can also type an alert into a new task's title, as in Call the clinic tomorrow at 3pm alert 30m or Submit the report Friday at 5pm alarm 1h. Separate several with commas to get more than one, as in Collect the cake Saturday at 4pm alert 10m, 30m. See Natural Language Input.
Stack a 15 minutes before and a 1 hour before alert on important meetings. The early one gives you prep time; the late one gets you out the door.
Presets and Custom Times
The alert editor has two forms, chosen with the segmented control at the top:
- Presets fire a fixed distance before the task's own time: On Time, 5 minutes before, 10 minutes before, 15 minutes before, 30 minutes before, 1 hour before, 2 hours before, 6 hours before, 12 hours before, 1 day before, and 2 days before.
- Custom either counts a number of days before or after the task's date and fires at a time you set, or pins the alert to an exact date and time of its own.
Play Sound decides whether the alert makes a noise. A line at the top of the screen previews exactly when the alert will fire, in orange while it still lies ahead.
Tap the confirm control in the panel's bar to keep the alert. Add another the same way if the task needs more than one.
A task's alerts are listed under Active Alerts and Inactive Alerts, so an alert that has already passed does not look like one that is still coming. Tap an alert to change it, or swipe it to Delete it. An alert 2Do added for you from your default reminders is marked Automatic.
Relative vs. Absolute Alerts
- A relative alert counts from the task's own date, so moving the task moves the alert with it. The presets are all relative, and the custom form's day offsets are too.
- An absolute alert is pinned to a date and time of its own and stays there whatever the task does. Turn the custom form's relative switch off to set one.
A task can mix the two freely.
What a Relative Alert Counts From
A line under the controls always says what the alert is measured from, so there is never any guessing:
- With a due date and a due time, it counts from the due date and time.
- With a due date but no due time, it counts from the due date, which means the start of that day.
- With no due date but a start date, it counts from the start date instead.
- A day-offset alert counts days from the task's date and fires at the time you set on this screen.
- On a task with no dates at all, saving the alert makes the task due today and counts from there.
- When there is no date to count from, the editor asks for an exact date and time instead.
Automatic Alerts
2Do can add an alert for you every time you give a task a date. Open Settings > Alerts & Badge > General and use the Default Reminders section:
- Remind me of tasks with a due time covers tasks that have a specific time. Choose At due time, or an offset from 5 minutes before through 2 days before.
- Remind me of tasks with a due date covers tasks that have a date but no time. Choose On due date, one of the same offsets, or Custom.
The section says it plainly: Applies to tasks with a due date but no due time.
Custom opens three more rows: Days, Before or after (days before or days after), and Time. Use it for a rule such as two days after the due date at 9:00 AM.
How a Due Date With No Time Is Read
A due date on its own carries no clock time, so an automatic due-date alert measures from the start of that day. To give new dated tasks a time of day automatically, set a Default Due Time under Settings > Tasks.
Alerts 2Do adds for you are ordinary alerts: open any task and change or delete them.
Nagging
Some tasks must not slip. Under Settings > Alerts & Badge > General, the Nagging section holds two controls:
- Nag me every repeats the reminder until you deal with it: Off, Every 5 Minutes, Every 15 Minutes, Every 30 Minutes, Every Hour, or Every Day.
- Snooze interval decides how long the notification's Snooze action puts a task off for: Always Ask, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours, or 1 day.
Use nagging sparingly. Save it for the things that genuinely must not slip, such as a filing deadline or the call you keep putting off.
Sounds
The Sounds section sets the Alert sound every sounding alert uses: Chime, Attention, Question, Deep Space, Welcome, Doors, Woodlands, Tinkle, Victory, or Finish. An individual alert still decides whether it plays a sound at all, through its Play Sound switch.
Acting on a Notification
When an alert arrives as a notification, pull it down for four actions:
- Snooze puts the task off by your Snooze interval. When that is set to Always Ask, this action snoozes for 5 minutes.
- Snooze 1 hour.
- Due tomorrow moves the task's due date to tomorrow.
- Completed marks the task done.
Tapping the notification itself opens the task in 2Do.
Ring Alerts as Alarms
On iOS 26.1 or later, and on devices where system alarms are available, 2Do can deliver a task's timed alerts the way the Clock app delivers an alarm.
Open Settings > Alerts & Badge > General > Alarms and turn on Ring alerts as alarms. Task alerts then ring like a Clock alarm: full screen, through Silent mode and Focus, and they keep ringing until you dismiss them. You can set this differently for any single task.
Under it, Alarm Access shows whether iOS has given 2Do permission. Tap Enable Alarms the first time, or Open Settings if the permission was turned down earlier.
Setting It Per Task
Open a task, open its Alerts panel, and use the Ring as Alarm switch under the list of alerts. A task you have never touched follows the app-wide setting; flipping this switch records a choice for that task alone.
This choice stays on the device it was made on. It is not part of sync.
For deadlines that must not slip, turn on Ring alerts as alarms for that one task. It rings through Silent mode and keeps ringing until you deal with it.
What Rings and What Does Not
Only timed alerts ring as alarms. Location alerts, alerts that send an email, and alerts on the Apple Watch stay ordinary notifications.
If system alarms are unavailable or the permission has not been granted, the alert still arrives, as a notification. Nothing is dropped.
The Alarm Itself
A ringing alarm takes over the screen with the task's title, a Snooze button, and the system's own stop control. Snooze stops the alarm and creates a normal 2Do snooze.
The alarm cannot show 2Do's own interval picker, so when your Snooze interval is set to Always Ask, snoozing an alarm puts the task off by 5 minutes.
Silencing Alerts for Specific Lists
Some lists deserve alerts; others just make noise, such as a someday list or a busy list somebody shared with you. Open Settings > Alerts & Badge and switch to the Exclusions tab. Under List Alerts every list appears with a switch, grouped the way your source panel is. Turn off alerts for any list you do not want to hear from, including lists shared with you.
- Alerts are on for every list by default. Turn a list off to silence the alerts of every task in it.
- The tasks themselves are untouched. They still sync, still show their due dates, and still go overdue. Only their alerts go quiet.
- The choice is local to this device and is not synced, so you can mute a list here while your other devices keep alerting.
Notification Permission
Alerts need notification permission. The Notifications section at the top of Settings > Alerts & Badge > General always says where things stand, and offers Enable Notifications the first time or Open Settings if permission was turned down.
The App Icon Badge
Count on app icon in the App Icon Badge section decides what the number on 2Do's icon counts:
- None or All items
- Overdue, Today, Due Today Only, Today + Overdue, or Today + Tomorrow
- Hi-Priority or Starred
- Next 3 Days, Next Week, Next Month, Next 6 Months, or Next Year
The row also shows when iOS has badges turned off for 2Do.
Due Today Only counts unfinished tasks whose due date is today, with or without a due time, and keeps counting them after the due time has passed. Tasks due on another day, or with no due date, never count, even if they have already started. A task due today that has not started yet follows Smart Scheduling: it counts right away when scheduled tasks are shown, and only once it starts when they are hidden.
Today counts what the Today list shows for today, following its Starred and Still Working On settings, but never overdue tasks. See App Icon Badge in Settings for how the three Today options compare and which lists they include.
Overdue Tasks
A task that passes its due date without being completed becomes overdue and joins the overdue sections and counts. For a nudge on the due date itself, use an automatic due-date reminder or add an alert to the task.
A glowing dot beside a list name in the source panel marks what is waiting inside: white when a task is due today, red when something is overdue.
When Alerts Do Not Arrive
Work through these in order:
- Check notification permission. Open Settings > Alerts & Badge > General and look at the Notification Access row. If it offers Open Settings, iOS is holding the alerts back.
- Check the list. Open the Exclusions tab and make sure the task's list is switched on under List Alerts.
- Check the alert itself. Open the task's Alerts panel. An alert under Inactive Alerts has already passed and will not fire again.
- Check Focus. 2Do's alerts are sent as time-sensitive notifications, so a Focus that allows time-sensitive notifications lets them through and one that does not holds them back.
- Check alarm access. If you turned on Ring alerts as alarms, make sure Alarm Access shows that alarms are enabled. Without it, alerts fall back to notifications rather than ringing.