Does Google Tasks Send Email Reminders?

Last updated: August 1, 2026 · about a 4-minute read

1The honest answer

No — Google Tasks has no built-in email reminder feature. There's no setting anywhere in Google Tasks that will send a message to your inbox when a task is due. People assume it's hiding in a menu somewhere; it isn't. The feature simply doesn't exist in the product.

That's the plain answer to the question that brought you here. The rest of this guide explains what Google Tasks does instead, the one manual workaround that gets close, and the simplest way to actually get an email.

2What Google Tasks does instead

Google Tasks has no notification engine of its own. When you add a due date and time, it syncs the task to a hidden "Tasks" calendar inside Google Calendar, and then Calendar — not Tasks — decides whether to show a notification, based on your Calendar settings.

The key point: the best case is a device pop-up, not an email. There is no native path that puts a Google Tasks reminder in your inbox. And that pop-up only appears if the task has a specific time, Calendar sync is on, notifications are enabled, and (on Android) battery optimization isn't silencing Calendar.

3The manual Calendar-email workaround

There's one route that gets you close, and it's free, so it's worth knowing. You can borrow Google Calendar's own email notifications:

1. Give your task a due date and a specific time (date-only tasks default to a silent-ish 9 AM notification).
2. Open Google Calendar and confirm the task appears on the Tasks calendar.
3. In your Google Calendar settings, set your default event notifications to include an email notification a set number of minutes or hours before.

Done carefully, this can put an email in your inbox ahead of a timed task. But it's a global, all-or-nothing default — you can't set it per task — and it does nothing for date-only tasks. It's fine for one or two items; it falls apart at scale.

4The simple fix: email reminders with TaskAlarm

TaskAlarm fills exactly this gap: it emails you when a Google Task is due, at a time you choose, without you leaving Gmail or touching Calendar settings.

It works as a Google Workspace add-on that lives in the Gmail sidebar. It reads your existing Google Tasks, lets you set an alert time on any task you pick, and then sends a clean reminder email to your inbox when that time arrives. Unlike the Calendar workaround, it's per-task, it works for tasks with any due time, and it doesn't quietly break when a global setting changes.

The point isn't to replace Google Tasks. If you like Tasks' simplicity, you keep it — TaskAlarm just adds the one piece Google left out.

5How to set it up

1. Install TaskAlarm from the Google Workspace Marketplace.
2. Open Gmail and launch the TaskAlarm sidebar — your existing Google Tasks appear there automatically.
3. Pick a task and choose the time you want to be reminded.
4. Save. TaskAlarm watches your tasks and emails you a reminder when the time arrives.

That's the whole workflow. Set it once per task and the reminder handles itself.

Frequently asked questions

No. Google Tasks has no built-in email reminder feature. A task with a date and time only triggers a Google Calendar device notification, not an email. To get an actual email when a task is due, you need an add-on like TaskAlarm.

Partly. You can give a task a specific time and set Google Calendar's default event notifications to include email, which can email you before a timed task. But it's a global, all-or-nothing setting and it doesn't work for date-only tasks.

Use an add-on that watches your tasks and emails you at a chosen time. TaskAlarm runs inside Gmail: pick a task, set an alert time, and it sends a reminder email to your inbox.

Yes. TaskAlarm offers a free plan for email reminders on a limited number of active tasks, with a Pro upgrade for unlimited reminders.