Due dates, times and reminders

A due date in Roma is a day. A task due on Friday reads "Fri", sorts with Friday's tasks, and nothing buzzes your phone. State a time ("Friday at 5 pm") and the task is due at that moment, and Roma reminds you then. A day without a time can still remind you: switch on Remind me and it rings at your reminder time, 7 AM unless you set another.

How a due date is set

Type the date into the task's words and Roma reads it out. "Renew the passport before the trip, due Friday" becomes a task called "Renew passport before the trip", due Friday, and the date leaves the title. "Tomorrow at 7am", "next tue", "in 3 days" and "aug 1" all work. Roma never invents a date: a task without a stated day has no due date, and "ASAP" sets nothing. The whole pass is in create a task.

Tell your operator: "move the dentist to Monday", "the invoice is due tomorrow at 9". It reads times from your device's clock, so "in an hour" means an hour from when you said it.

Use the picker. On the Mac and in the browser, the due pill on a row, in the New task row, in the task's detail and in the table's Due date cell opens it, and so do Set due date in the task's menu and ⌘D on a focused task. It opens with Today, Tomorrow and Next week, a field for plain words that shows the day each suggestion resolves to, and the calendar. Everything you pick is saved at once and the picker stays open, so a day, a time and a reminder are one visit. On your iPhone, tap the due pill on a task, and the due date sheet offers the same quick picks, the calendar, and the time and reminder rows.

A past day is allowed ("yesterday", "last friday"), and the picker always shows the day that is really stored, even on an overdue task.

Times

A time is something you add on purpose. Nothing gains a time on its own.

• Below the calendar, Set a time starts at your reminder time (7 AM by default), already selected, and you adjust it from there. Setting a time is asking to be reminded, so a time arms the reminder.

• Removing the time keeps the due date, and the reminder's checkmark stays its own switch.

• The words resolve the same everywhere: morning is 7:00, noon 12:00, afternoon 14:00, evening 18:00, tonight 20:00, midnight 00:00. "In an hour" or "in 20 min" is that long from now, rounded up to the next five minutes. A bare "7pm" means today, or tomorrow once 7 pm has passed. "Mon" is Monday, not morning, and "4" is the fourth of the month.

• A moment already behind you when you set it, such as a date last week, arms no bell: the task reads as overdue and nothing rings.

Every due date is kept in the time zone your account holds, detected when you sign up and set under Settings. When you open Roma in another zone it asks whether to switch, and until you do every due date keeps reading in your home zone, so a weekend across a border moves nothing.

How a due date reads on the row

The pill on a task says the day alone when there is no time: Today, Tomorrow, Thu, Aug 21. With a time it adds the hour: Tomorrow 7 AM, Thu 5 PM. Today with a time is the hour alone, 5 PM, because Today would repeat what the row already says. An overdue task shows its real day in red: Yesterday, Mon, Aug 21. Under Settings you can switch on Show overdue tasks as today, and every lapsed task then reads a plain Today and sorts with today's. A time that has passed today turns orange.

The icon says which it is: a calendar for a bare day, a clock for a time that will not interrupt you, a bell for a reminder that will.

Sorting goes by the day. Inside one day, tasks with a time come first, in the order of their hours, and tasks with a day alone follow. Tasks without a due date sort after every dated one. On a board grouped by Due date, the columns are Overdue, Today, Tomorrow, This week, Later and No due date, and dragging a card into another column re-dates it. The layouts are in list, board and table layouts.

Reminders

Remind me is a row in the picker and in the task's menu, offered on a task that has a due date. A task with a time rings at that time. A task with a day alone rings at your reminder time that day. Set that time under Settings → Notifications → Reminder time, and it applies on every device.

A reminder reaches you as a notification on your iPhone and, while the Mac app is running, on your Mac. The Reminders switch under Settings → Notifications decides whether reminders notify at all, on every device at once. What the notification looks like and where a tap lands is in how a reminder reaches you, and the other switches are in notification settings.

A reminder is never set in the past. Switch it on for a task that is already overdue and the bell rolls forward to the next time that hour comes around, today if it is still ahead, otherwise tomorrow, while the due date itself stays as it was. Arming a reminder never changes the day or the time of a task.

Due dates on other lists

Any list can keep a Due date: add one under Edit list → Add property. Its items then get the due pill, the reminder, the overdue reading and the due bands on the board, exactly as tasks do. A Date property is a different thing: a day with no time, no reminder and no overdue, for a date that is not a deadline. Both are in properties.

Questions people ask

Why does my task say "5 PM" and not "Today 5 PM"?

A task due today with a time shows the hour alone, because Today would repeat what the row already says. Every other day keeps its day and its hour, like Tomorrow 7 AM or Thu 5 PM.

Can I set a reminder on a task that has no due date?

A reminder needs a day, so the picker gives it one. On a task without a date the time and reminder rows still show, and picking either sets the day too: today, or tomorrow once the moment has passed. You watch the calendar highlight land on it.

What happens to the due date when I move a task to another list?

It stays with the task. A task moved onto the Notes list and back comes back with its date and its reminder untouched. A list that keeps no Due date does not show the pill while the task is there.

Does a time move a task to another day in my lists?

No. A time orders a task inside its day, timed tasks first, and nothing else. Grouping, filtering and the day a task belongs to all go by the day alone.