Apple Reminders and Calendar CLI (event)

Use the event CLI to manage Apple Reminders and Calendars directly from the terminal. You can create, view, update, and delete reminders and subtasks, as well as view and create calendar events.

Setup & Constraints

• macOS-only.
• Requires Apple Notes.app, Reminders.app, and Calendar.app to be accessible.
• If prompted, the user must grant Automation/Full Access permissions in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Reminders / Calendars.
• Some advanced reminder features (tags, flagged, parentTitle, url) require the AdvancedReminderEdit Shortcut to be installed (https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/b578334075754da9ba6e50b501515808). If it's not installed, use the --no-shortcuts flag to disable these features and only use basic fields.

General Usage

All commands support the --json flag to output results in JSON format, which is easier for you to parse.

Reminders Management

List Reminders

• List all incomplete reminders: event reminders list
• List including completed: event reminders list --completed
• Filter by specific list: event reminders list --list "List Name"

Create Reminders

• Basic creation: event reminders create --title "Buy groceries"
• With details: event reminders create --title "Project meeting" --list "Work" --due "2026-03-10 14:00:00" --priority 1 --notes "Discuss Q3 goals"
• With advanced features (requires Shortcut): event reminders create --title "Urgent bug" --tags "bug,urgent" --flagged true --url "https://github.com/issues/1"

Update Reminders

• Mark as completed: event reminders update --id <UUID> --completed
• Change title and priority: event reminders update --id <UUID> --title "New Title" --priority 5
• Add/remove flag (requires Shortcut): event reminders update --id <UUID> --flagged true or --flagged false

Delete Reminders

• Delete by ID: event reminders delete --id <UUID>

List Management

• List all reminder lists: event reminders lists list
• Create a new list: event reminders lists create "New List Name"
• Delete a list: event reminders lists delete "List Name"

Subtasks

• List subtasks for a reminder: event reminders subtasks list --id <UUID>
• Create a subtask (requires Shortcut): event reminders create --title "Subtask" --parent-title "Parent Task Title"
• Create subtask directly (bypass Shortcut): event reminders subtasks create --id <UUID> --title "Subtask Title"
• Update subtask: event reminders subtasks update --id <Parent-UUID> --subtask-id <Subtask-UUID> --completed
• Delete subtask: event reminders subtasks delete --id <Parent-UUID> --subtask-id <Subtask-UUID>

Calendar Management

List Events

• List upcoming events (default 7 days): event calendar list
• List for specific date range: event calendar list --start "2026-03-01" --end "2026-03-31"
• Filter by specific calendar: event calendar list --calendar "Work"

Limitations & Notes

• Dates: Must use yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss format (e.g., "2026-03-10 14:00:00").
• Priority: 1 = High, 5 = Medium, 9 = Low. 0 = None.
• Subtasks & Tags storage: Due to EventKit limitations, event stores tags and subtasks inside the reminder's notes field separated by ---. Be careful if manually editing notes.