Creating templates to deal with recurring items in iOS 16 Reminders

Reminders is a great app for managing tasks, but with iOS 16, it gains a powerful new feature for creating recurring item lists with ease.

Reminders started its life in iOS 5, and over the years, it has become a go-to task management system that can be used by novices and professionals alike. It offers features like list sharing, nested list items and smart lists, and in iOS 16, Apple added a new feature that helps with routines.

Templates in iOS 16 Reminders lets you save a list of items in a current list to re-use later to populate as needed when creating a new list. This is great for things like packing lists, routine checklists and more. You can even share your templates with other users by creating a link as well as download templates others have created and shared for your use.

SEE: iOS 16 cheat sheet: Complete guide for 2022 (TechRepublic)

In this article, we’ll take a look at how to create, use and share a template with others in iOS 16.

Creating a template

To create a template, you’ll start with an already populated list that has the items you’d like to turn into a template. So, if you haven’t already done that, create a new list, and add the reminders that you want to be a part of the template (Figure A).

Figure A

With that done, perform these steps to turn that list and its reminders into a template that can be reused:

1. Open the list.
2. Tap the More button in the navigation bar (three dots).
3. Tap Save as Template.
4. Give the template a name, then tap Save.

When you do this, your list will be added as a template to the Reminders app and synced amongst all devices. The original list can be deleted at this point, and the reminders contained in the template can be re-used when creating new lists.

Populating a list with a template

When you’re ready to re-use the items in this template to create a new list, do the following:

1. Tap Add List from the main Reminders view.
2. Tap the Templates segment.
3. Tap a template you wish to use.
4. When you do this, you’ll be prompted to give the new list a name.
5. Tap Create to finish the process (Figure B).

Figure B

Sharing a template with others

In the Templates segment, you can also manage your saved templates that are synced amongst your devices through iCloud by swiping right to left to delete them (Figure C). You can also tap the Info button to get even more options, including the ability to edit the template and share the template with others.

Figure C

Tapping Share Template will upload the template to iCloud and will create a share link that can be texted, emailed or shared through other means to another user. When the user taps the link, it will open the Reminders app on their device and allow them to download and import that template into their Reminders app. Revisiting this section with a template that’s shared gives the option to manage sharing, including the ability to stop sharing the template.