Is Google Tasks better than Apple Reminders?

Not on an iPhone. Reminders does more with each task, from Siri to place alerts and shared lists, and it's free. Google Tasks is the better pick when you use Android or Windows, or when your tasks start in Gmail and live on Google Calendar.

Can Google Tasks sync with Apple Reminders?

No. Neither Google nor Apple offers a way to sync the two lists, so pick one home for your tasks. To leave Google Tasks, export your tasks with Google Takeout and retype the open ones into Reminders.

Does Google Tasks work on iPhone?

Yes. The App Store lists Google Tasks as free for iPhone and iPad on iOS 17 or later. Voice goes through the Gemini app rather than Siri, and tasks with a date show in Google Calendar.

Can I use Apple Reminders on Windows or Android?

On Windows, only in a browser, by signing in to Reminders on iCloud.com. Apple makes the Reminders app only for its own devices, so an Android phone gets no app, and Google Tasks is the easier pick there.

Does Google Tasks have location reminders?

No. Google ended location-based reminders when Keep reminders moved into Google Tasks in the second half of 2025. Apple Reminders alerts you when you arrive at or leave a place, or get into a car connected to your iPhone by Bluetooth.

Which is better for a shared family list?

Apple Reminders, if your family uses iPhones. You share the whole list, everyone can add and tick off items, and you can assign an item to one person. Google Tasks shares single tasks in Chat spaces and Docs, not whole lists.

Google Tasks vs Apple Reminders (2026): which to use

The short answer

Google Tasks vs Apple Reminders comes down to the screens in your week and how much you want one task to do. On that second count Reminders packs in far more: an early alert, a place, tags, a photo, even an alarm that rings through silent mode. Google Tasks keeps each task plain, and it works inside the Google apps you already open, on any phone you own.

Price won't decide it, because both are free with an account you already have. Neither company syncs the two lists either. You're choosing one home for your tasks.

Find your row:

If you	Pick	Why
Use only Apple devices	Apple Reminders	Built in, synced over iCloud
Add tasks by voice all day	Apple Reminders	Siri files there, no setup
Want an alert when you get home	Apple Reminders	Google Tasks has no place alerts
Carry an Android phone	Google Tasks	Reminders is Apple-only
Turn emails into to-dos	Google Tasks	Add to Tasks links the email
Plan in Google Calendar	Google Tasks	Dated tasks sit on the grid

How we compared them

Everything here comes from Google's and Apple's own help pages and App Store listings, read on 30 October 2026. We didn't run either app for weeks to test it. You won't see star ratings or scores below. Both apps were free as of October 2026.

We asked each app six questions:

Which devices does it run on, and which does it leave out?
How many taps or words does it take to get a thought onto the list?
Will it alert you at the right moment, or in the right place, and repeat?
What happens once the list passes 50 items?
Can you share it with the people you live or work with?
If you change your mind, can you take your tasks with you?

Google Tasks: best for a list inside your Google apps

Google Tasks is the to-do list that comes with every Google Account. Each task can hold details, a date, a deadline, a repeat and subtasks. You file tasks into lists such as Home or Work. Starred ones gather in their own view. How big can it get? Google's task help allows 100,000 tasks in total and 20,000 unfinished ones in any single list, so you'll run out of chores long before it runs out of room.

It goes where Google's apps already are. Android phones get an app, and so do the iPhone and iPad: the App Store lists Google Tasks as free on iOS 17 or later. On a computer you use it in a browser, at tasks.google.com or inside Google Calendar. In Gmail and Google Docs it sits in the side panel, beside the email or file you're working on.

Pick it if your to-dos arrive as emails and Google Calendar is the first thing you open. Skip it if you want alerts tied to places, or one grocery list the whole house can edit.

Apple Reminders: best for iPhone households and Siri

Apple Reminders comes on every iPhone and iPad, on the Mac and on Apple Watch, and the App Store lists Reminders as free. Turn on Reminders in your iCloud settings. From then on, the same lists show on each Apple device signed in to your Apple Account.

One reminder carries a lot. Apple's Reminders help covers due dates and times and alerts for arriving at or leaving a place. A reminder also takes tags, a flag, notes, a link, photos or a scan, and subtasks. It goes further than most lists: a reminder can pop up the next time you text a certain person in Messages. Delete one by mistake and Recently Deleted holds it for 30 days.

Away from Apple hardware it thins out fast, because Apple makes the app only for its own devices. On a Windows PC you sign in to Reminders on iCloud.com in a browser. Don't expect them in Outlook either, because iCloud reminders don't show there through iCloud for Windows.

Pick it if you talk to your phone more than you type into it and your household is on iPhones. Skip it if an Android phone is your main device, or you want a real app on a Windows laptop.

Side by side

	Google Tasks	Apple Reminders
Price	Free	Free
Phones	Android and iPhone apps	iPhone
Computer	Any browser	Mac app or iCloud.com
Voice	Gemini, after you set it up	Siri, built in
Time	Start, duration, deadline	Due date, early alert
Place alerts	None	When you arrive or leave
Sorting	Lists, stars, sort orders	Tags, Smart Lists, sections
Sharing	Single tasks in Chat, Docs	Whole lists, assigned items
Repeat limits	Not if it has subtasks	None listed
Taking it with you	Google Takeout file	Print a list

Google Tasks wins on reach, since it opens on any phone and in any browser. On an iPhone, Reminders is the stronger list, because a single task does so much more there.

Getting a task in

Most tasks start as half a sentence in your head. The app that catches it fastest is the one you'll keep.

On an iPhone, that's Reminders. Siri is already there, on the phone or the Apple Watch. Apple's own examples include "Remind me when I leave here to stop by the grocery store" and "Remind me tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. to call Tara". In iOS 26 you can also start a reminder from Control Center or the Action button without opening the app.

Typing works too. With Apple Intelligence, Apple's iPhone guide says you can type "Feed the cat every evening at 5pm" and Reminders fills in the timing. On iOS 27 that needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer. Older phone? You tap in the date and the repeat yourself.

Google's voice route is the Gemini app. It wants setup first: you sign in and turn on Keep Activity, then connect Google Workspace. After that, "Add [task] in my to-dos" or "Remind me at [time] to call [name]" goes to Google Tasks, and @Google Tasks in the prompt makes sure it does, which is more setup than Siri ever asks for.

Email is where Google Tasks pulls ahead. Open a message in Gmail on a computer, click Add to Tasks or drag the email into the side panel, and the task links back to the original message. In Google Chat, a direct message becomes a task from its More menu. Reminders has its own version for web pages and other apps: tap Share, then Reminders, and the reminder keeps a link back to where you were.

Alerts and repeats

Take three jobs: rent on the 1st of every month, passport photos to collect on the way home, and a school form due on Friday.

Google Tasks splits time in two. A task gets a start date and time, with how long you plan to spend on it. Then there's a separate deadline, which shows in the All day row of Google Calendar. Any task with a date shows on your Google Calendar too, and you can mark yourself busy for the time it takes. When do alerts come? At the date and time you set. A task with no time alerts at 9 AM, and a deadline alerts at 9 AM local time on its day. The Google Tasks product page adds nudges that keep prompting until a task is done.

Repeats run by the day, week, month or year, and a series can end on a date or after a set count. Google's repeat help says shared tasks and subtasks can't repeat, and a repeating task can't move to another list. Stop a series and you can't switch it back on, so you build a new one. Want to delete one date from a series? You need Google Calendar for that.

The passport photos are where Google Tasks stops. When Keep reminders moved into Tasks in the second half of 2025, Google said you can no longer create or get location-based reminders.

Reminders copes with all three. Give the rent a date, tap Repeat and pick monthly. Apple's details guide adds an Early Reminder, such as 2 days before, which suits the school form. For the photos, pick a place and get alerted when you arrive or leave, or when you get into a car with a Bluetooth connection to your iPhone. Reminders needs Precise Location turned on for that. A reminder with a date and no time alerts at 9:00 AM, and you can move that hour in Settings. Since iOS 18, dated reminders also show in Apple's Calendar app beside your events.

For the thing you can't miss, turn on Urgent, new in iOS 26.2. The reminder rings as an alarm, even with the phone silenced or a Focus on, but only on the device Find My uses as your location. Google's task help describes no alarm of that kind.

If alerts are all you want, pick from the reminder apps built for nothing else.

Want one list that reads the date as you type it? In ActivityTracker, "pick up the dry cleaning tomorrow 5pm" or "water the plants every 2 weeks" gets a date, a time and a repeat, and a task with a time reminds you at that time by default.

See how tasks work

Sorting a list that grows

Twelve tasks need no system. Seventy do.

Google Tasks sorts with lists and stars, plus a handful of sort orders. Its organizing help sorts a list by My order, Date, Deadline, Starred recently or Title, and in My order you drag tasks by hand. Tasks you missed gather under Past at the top. Stars pull important tasks from every list into one Starred view, but you can't reorder that view yourself. Google's help mentions no tags, so each task sits in one list and nowhere else.

Reminders gives you more to sort with. Apple's organizing guide makes a tag one word, typed with # or added from the toolbar. Pick two tags in the tag browser and you see only reminders carrying both. Smart Lists such as Today and Flagged gather reminders from every list. A custom Smart List collects them by tag, date, location, flag or priority. Inside a list you can add section headers and view them as columns, and any list can be saved as a template for the next trip or the weekly clean.

The weekly shop shows the gap best. Reminders has a grocery list type that files items into sections like dairy and produce. Google Tasks treats a shopping list like any other list. If groceries are most of what you track, look at a dedicated grocery list app first.

The two apps share in opposite ways.

Reminders shares a whole list. Tap Share and invite someone. Apple's sharing help says that once they accept, they can add items and mark them complete. After the list is shared you can assign a reminder to one person. Everyone chooses for themselves whether to hear about items being added or completed, and your own alert times stay yours. Anyone joining on an iPhone or iPad needs iOS 13 or later. No Apple device at all? Apple opens Reminders on iCloud.com to web-only accounts for collaboration, so a flatmate on a laptop can still join in.

Google Tasks shares one task at a time. In a Google Chat space you create a group task and assign it to a member, who gets an email and finds it in their own list. In Google Docs, typing @task assigns one, but the product page limits that to some Business and Enterprise plans. Those shared tasks can't take subtasks, and they can't repeat. It describes no way to share a whole personal list.

So a family shopping list belongs in Reminders, as long as the family carries iPhones. Work that already happens in Chat spaces and Docs suits Google's way, because the task shows up where someone asked for it.

Can they sync, and how to switch

Not directly. Neither Google's Tasks help nor Apple's Reminders guide offers a way to sync the two lists. Run both and every chore sits in two places, ticked in one and still open in the other, so choose one home before you move anything.

From Apple Reminders to Google Tasks:

Tick off or delete everything you won't do, so you move a short list.
On a Mac, open the list and print it with Command-P, then keep the page beside your keyboard.
Add each item in Google Tasks, in the list where it belongs.
Set each repeat again with Date/time, then Repeat, and check the next date it shows.
Make one test task due in five minutes and wait for the alert on your phone.

From Google Tasks to Apple Reminders, export first. Google's export help says a Google Takeout download carries titles, descriptions, due dates, list titles and repeat schedules, but deleted tasks stay behind. Retype your open tasks from that file, and give the ones that need it an early reminder or a place, which Google Tasks never offered.

Try both for one week

A week of real use settles it faster than any table:

Pick ten things you need to do this week. Put all ten in both apps, three with a time and two set to repeat.
Whenever a task comes to you away from your desk, say it: Siri for Reminders, the Gemini app for Google Tasks.
Turn one email into a task with Add to Tasks in Gmail, and save one web page to Reminders from the Share button.
Give one errand a place in Reminders and a plain time in Google Tasks, then see which alert you acted on.
On Friday, open both lists and count what's overdue in each.
Keep the app you opened without deciding to, and delete the other.

A weekly reflection template gives that Friday count somewhere to live.

Made-up example: Lena teaches history at a secondary school that runs on Google Workspace. She carries an iPhone, and so does her partner.

School work reaches her through Gmail and Google Chat. When her head of department sends a request, Add to Tasks turns it into a task, and its deadline lands in the All day row of the Google Calendar where she plans her lessons.

Home runs on Reminders. She and her partner share a list called House with 23 open items. The bins go to him every Tuesday. Walking out of the school gate, she gets a place alert to collect the passport photos.

For two weeks she tried running everything from one app, and it broke both ways: Google Tasks had no way to share the House list, and Reminders never saw her school email.

Now she keeps both, with one rule. A task lives in exactly one app, school in Google Tasks and home in Reminders, and she pays nothing for either.