Updated
How to Show Reminders in the Menu Bar on Mac
With Dato
- Open the settings of Dato, and click “Events”.
- Turn on “Reminders”. If Dato shows “Not authorized”, click “Authorize…” to give it access to your reminders.
- Optional: click “Choose Lists…” to show only some of your reminder lists.
- Click Dato in the menu bar. The reminders show in the event list, on the day that they are due.
Dato shows the reminders that have a due date. A reminder without a date is not in the list. In the “Event list” section of the same settings, “Show reminders for” sets how many days of reminders the list shows.
Tips
- Right-click a reminder in the list, and choose “Mark as Completed”.
- To make a reminder from any app, set a keyboard shortcut for “New reminder” in the “Shortcuts” settings.
- Press ShiftCommandR in the Dato window to show or hide the reminders.
- Turn on “Upcoming event & reminder in menu bar” in the “Events” settings to see the next event or reminder directly in the menu bar. How to show calendar events in the menu bar.
Get Dato
Menu bar calendar and world clocks, plus fullscreen meeting notifications
$18, one-time purchase
- Platform
- macOS
- Requires
- macOS 26 or later
- Category
- Productivity
- Released
- July 2019
- Privacy
- No personal data collected
- Family Sharing
- Yes
- Updated
- November 2026
- Version
- 5.8.4
- Size
- 18 MB
- Setapp rating
- 99% positive (878 ratings)
Without an app
macOS cannot put reminders in the menu bar, but it has Reminders widgets:
- Control-click the desktop, and choose “Edit Widgets”. For Notification Center, click the date and time in the menu bar, and click “Edit Widgets” at the bottom.
- Search for Reminders in the widget gallery, click the widget to add it, and click “Done”.
- To show another list, Control-click the widget, choose the Edit command, and click the highlighted list.
You can check off a reminder in the widget, and a click on the widget opens the list in the Reminders app. Apple’s instructions for the Reminders widgets and for adding widgets. A widget on the desktop is behind your windows, and Notification Center is one click away, so this is enough for many people. Dato is for when you want the reminders and the calendar events of the day in one list.