iPhone Reminders on iOS/iPadOS not syncing to/from iCloud/other devices

[Jason_G]

So I downloaded iOS 14 beta on my iPad and all my syncing issues with reminders is gone. My watch, iPhone and iPad work as they should

On an iPhone 8, I restored from an iCloud backup whilst on iOS13.5.1.

Once restored, I installed the iOS14 public beta.

So far, it hasn't miraculously synced my Reminders on my iPhone8 (iOS14 Public Beta) or my iPhone 11 Pro (iOS 13.5.1)

Did you have to wait a while before you noticed it was resolved/sync across devices?

 

[It just works...sometimes]

On an iPhone 8, I restored from an iCloud backup whilst on iOS13.5.1.

Once restored, I installed the iOS14 public beta.

So far, it hasn't miraculously synced my Reminders on my iPhone8 (iOS14 Public Beta) or my iPhone 11 Pro (iOS 13.5.1)

Did you have to wait a while before you noticed it was resolved/sync across devices?

Well a few weeks before the beta dropped my iPhone and iPad started syncing but it was very slow. If I completed a reminder on my phone it would take minutes to get completed on my iPad. When I downloaded the beta on my iPhone 8 everything seems is syncing like it should, quickly and reliably. The cherry on top is now , after downloading the beta, my reminders are on my watch now too. So far all three of my devises are working as they should be with Apple watch 5 with OS 6.2.6, iPhone 8 with iOS 13.5.1 and iPad Air 2 with iOS 14 beta. Even if your reminders aren’t working at this moment I’m feeling confident that soon this reminder issue will be behind us

 

[Jason_G]

Well a few weeks before the beta dropped my iPhone and iPad started syncing but it was very slow. If I completed a reminder on my phone it would take minutes to get completed on my iPad. When I downloaded the beta on my iPhone 8 everything seems is syncing like it should, quickly and reliably. The cherry on top is now , after downloading the beta, my reminders are on my watch now too. So far all three of my devises are working as they should be with Apple watch 5 with OS 6.2.6, iPhone 8 with iOS 13.5.1 and iPad Air 2 with iOS 14 beta. Even if your reminders aren’t working at this moment I’m feeling confident that soon this reminder issue will be behind us

Let's hope so! Hopefully just by me having iOS14 installed on 1 device with my AppleID it'll trigger it into life over the next few days!

 

[It just works...sometimes]

Let's hope so! Hopefully just by me having iOS14 installed on 1 device with my AppleID it'll trigger it into life over the next few days!

Let’s hope so 👍

 

[jiffry1017]

Anyone else have similar issues with shared reminders?

From reading through this thread it seems like its an iCloud account issue. My spouse has those issues syncing between her devices (iPhone, iPad, MacBook) as well as syncing with the reminder lists that are shared with me.

I've tried deleting the reminder lists and starting new ones. That seems to have partially worked (not as bad as before, but still a few that are not syncing). We're on iOS 13.

Have not tried changing to a new iCloud account. That seems like a lot of work to transfer everything over.

 

[Jason_G]

Anyone else have similar issues with shared reminders?

From reading through this thread it seems like its an iCloud account issue. My spouse has those issues syncing between her devices (iPhone, iPad, MacBook) as well as syncing with the reminder lists that are shared with me.

I've tried deleting the reminder lists and starting new ones. That seems to have partially worked (not as bad as before, but still a few that are not syncing). We're on iOS 13.

Have not tried changing to a new iCloud account. That seems like a lot of work to transfer everything over.

Yep I have the same issue with shared reminders.

Changing to a new iCloud account is not an option for me, I'd rather get the whole family using something like Things instead if it really came to it.

My iPhone 8 on iOS14 public beta was very slowly syncing the initial lists/reminders but then the battery died one night and it seems to have given up since (stuck on 322 out of 417).

My iPhone 11 Pro on iOS13.5.1 now has the spinning wheel today but still stuck on 261 out of 417 and most of the lists are still named 'New List' (shared lists included).

 

[JWreck]

I have issues where my Macs will still alert me of a reminder based on a time even if I’ve already completed it or changed the time. I simply click ignore on the Mac reminder and it has no effect on the actual reminder on my iPhone.

Quite frustrating because I wake up to a bunch of reminders. Happens to both my work MacBook Pro that I’m on every day and my personal MacBook Air that I’m only on occasionally.

 

[iOnAsJ]

Let's hope so! Hopefully just by me having iOS14 installed on 1 device with my AppleID it'll trigger it into life over the next few days!

I'll try this as well.
Here, the syncing is back to normal, but the Reminders app is frustratingly slow when I want to add a new reminder. Has anyone else also experienced this?

E.g. when I try to add a reminder, I have to wait 5-10 seconds before I even can add a specific date/time reminder.
Hope it improves in iOS 14...

 

[Jason_G]

I'll try this as well.
Here, the syncing is back to normal, but the Reminders app is frustratingly slow when I want to add a new reminder. Has anyone else also experienced this?

E.g. when I try to add a reminder, I have to wait 5-10 seconds before I even can add a specific date/time reminder.
Hope it improves in iOS 14...

Yep, I seem to have that across all my devices.

Since my last post, I'm still only on:

418 reminders on iMac (10.15.6)
418 reminders on iCloud
265 reminders on iPhone 11 Pro (13.6)
367 reminders on iPhone 8 (14 Public Beta)

 

[MM07]

I will chime I’m in with Reminders issues syncing between my wife and I. We rely heavily on Reminders for shopping lists.

I noticed today I had 24 on a list and she had 4 on a shared list (I’m the owner). We have other shared lists that are off as well.

I just added something and she didn’t get it.

Also on a shared list if I move something to there from another list it doesn’t appear on her list. It is very frustrating.

We are both on iOS 13.6.

I hope this gets fixed.

 

[iOnAsJ]

Yesterday, I've noticed I had more than 13k completed reminders that weren't deleted yet.
As it's undoable to do this manually, I've noticed there's a possibility to setup this procedure in the Shortcuts app: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250727651

As I had a LOT of undeleted reminders, I had to redo the whole process several times, but now, my Reminders app seems to work much better/responsive than before.

As it might help others as well, I share this here.

 

[zebe]

Hi, I've been suffering with this issue since iOS 13 came out as well. The first symptom was my Apple Watch randomly running the battery down for no reason during the day. Then I started to notice having to complete reminders on multiple devices, and finally, they started showing up late or not at all. On my Macs, I've occasionally found the process remindd running at 100% CPU, which I assume is also happening on my watch, leading to the aforementioned battery drain.

At one point I used my Mac to delete all completed reminders as I too have thousands (WHY are these saved? Why is there no option to auto delete after a week, or not save them at all?) However, this deletion never synced to my phone, despite me turning off iCloud reminders on my phone months ago and then turning it back on. I am now using iOnAsJ's link just above to delete all 2930 reminders with Shortcuts and that, at least, seems to be working. But it's evident that my devices aren't syncing since "show completed" on my Mac only shows the ones since I did the full delete on the Mac months ago.

All devices are running the most recent non-beta releases of their respective OSes. I agree that it "feels" like something is broken in our iCloud accounts, but I have no way to analyze that further. We should probably all file bug reports or contact support. I recommend doing that after iOS 14 ships with no fix for this issue, otherwise they will simply ignore the bug and ask us to try it with 14.

 

[iOnAsJ]

Hi, I've been suffering with this issue since iOS 13 came out as well. The first symptom was my Apple Watch randomly running the battery down for no reason during the day. Then I started to notice having to complete reminders on multiple devices, and finally, they started showing up late or not at all. On my Macs, I've occasionally found the process remindd running at 100% CPU, which I assume is also happening on my watch, leading to the aforementioned battery drain.

At one point I used my Mac to delete all completed reminders as I too have thousands (WHY are these saved? Why is there no option to auto delete after a week, or not save them at all?) However, this deletion never synced to my phone, despite me turning off iCloud reminders on my phone months ago and then turning it back on. I am now using iOnAsJ's link just above to delete all 2930 reminders with Shortcuts and that, at least, seems to be working. But it's evident that my devices aren't syncing since "show completed" on my Mac only shows the ones since I did the full delete on the Mac months ago.

All devices are running the most recent non-beta releases of their respective OSes. I agree that it "feels" like something is broken in our iCloud accounts, but I have no way to analyze that further. We should probably all file bug reports or contact support. I recommend doing that after iOS 14 ships with no fix for this issue, otherwise they will simply ignore the bug and ask us to try it with 14.

Thanks for your feedback on this.
Indeed, the sub-lying question is why they even save completed tasks? These should be deleted immediately, unless - of course - these are recurring tasks.

The problem isn't entirely solved here. After having deleted +13k reminders thanks to the shortcut app, the app responded quickly, as it should. But new, the issues returned: when I want to add a reminder, it simply takes too long. You shouldn't have to wait several seconds before being able to set up/schedule a reminder.
Quite a bummer, as I really like the reminder app and use it a lot.

Hopefully they'll fix it in IOS 14, because I don't know what on earth I could possibly do to improve this from my perspective.

 

[Steven_M_Traveler]

I’m in the same boat with Reminders not syncing across devices. Apple support said they’re aware of the issue, but it’s frustrating. All of the issues with deleted lists reappearing, completed items not syncing, stalled initial sync after turning iCloud on/off. I was hoping iOS 14 would take care of these issues, but I’m getting less hopeful. The worst is that it seems to me to be an iCloud issue and there’s nothing I can do about that.

 

[iOnAsJ]

I’m in the same boat with Reminders not syncing across devices. Apple support said they’re aware of the issue, but it’s frustrating. All of the issues with deleted lists reappearing, completed items not syncing, stalled initial sync after turning iCloud on/off. I was hoping iOS 14 would take care of these issues, but I’m getting less hopeful. The worst is that it seems to me to be an iCloud issue and there’s nothing I can do about that.

True, after having tried out the Shortcuts 'solution', rebooting, re-installing the reminders app, etc. I'm convinced this is an iCloud issue.
Have you tried IOS14 yet? I really hope this gets fixed, or I 'll try out a new tasks/reminders app.

 

[Steven_M_Traveler]

I haven’t tried iOS 14 yet, but am also hoping it fixes it. I am concerned that, if it’s an iCloud issue, it’s also a low priority while Apple tries to finish iOS 14.

 

[Ed Hager]

I clicked to upgrade Reminders on my iPhone and my iPad. When I went to icloud.com, the reminders looked good. The Reminders app on my Mac (10.15.6) told me that the lists had been upgraded but gave no options to fix that. Here is what I did to fix it:

- In System Preferences on the Mac, I when to Internet Accounts > iCloud and I unchecked Reminders.
- I rebooted my Mac.
- In System Preferences, I when to Internet Accounts > iCloud and I checked Reminders.
- I opened the Reminders app. It started syncing with iCloud and my lists started appearing like they should.

 

[iOnAsJ]

It seems fixed after having updated to iOS14? Happy bloke here. 🙂

 

[Jason_G]

It seems fixed after having updated to iOS14? Happy bloke here. 🙂

No change for me despite iOS14 😭

 

[Alhagar]

No change here either. Frustrating.

 

[iOnAsJ]

For those of you that still have the same issue: have you tried to delete finished reminders? The whole process is described here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250727651

It helped me out to improve the speed of the reminders app, at least. (I had 13k undeleted reminders 😁)

 

[Jason_G]

For those of you that still have the same issue: have you tried to delete finished reminders? The whole process is described here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250727651

It helped me out to improve the speed of the reminders app, at least. (I had 13k undeleted reminders 😁)

I ended up deleting completed reminders via iCloud. Deleting them on my iOS devices & Mac didn't seem like it would help if there was an issue with syncing back, I still did it on all devices regardless in the hope it would help 😭

 

[iOnAsJ]

Sorry to hear that. Have you reported it to Apple?
Here iOS 14 luckily solved my problems.

 

[Jason_G]

Sorry to hear that. Have you reported it to Apple?
Here iOS 14 luckily solved my problems.

Yep, apparently it's a known issue which they don't seem to have figured out (or been bothered to) for about 8 months now

 

[Alhagar]

Deleting completed reminders did not solve the issue for me.