I’m a bit confused; I can figure out how to add event reminders in Cortana – it’s super easy – but when I try to delete them, it’s not an available option. How do I delete recurring reminders??
One of the biggest challenges with natural language processing is that there are a lot of ways we humans describe things. This puts a huge burden on the developers of tools like Cortana on Microsoft Windows 10 because you can’t really begin to add features until you really think through all the ways people want to use ’em. In the case of reminders, it seems pretty simple to you and me that “add reminder”, “edit reminder” and “cancel reminder” are basic features, but apparently up in Redmond they weren’t thinking about it that way.
Instead – and this is a bit weird – you can use Windows Calendar as a shortcut to jump to the reminder editing and deletion area in Cortana. Like asking Mom to ask your brother to call you rather than just going directly! Then again, maybe that’s how most families work. 🙂
Anyway, here’s the problem: Tell Cortana “edit reminders” and you get this:
Seriously? “I can’t do that yet”? If you didn’t know there was another way, you might be tempted to toss your computer out the window right about now: you can add reminders, but you can’t change them afterwards?
Don’t panic, though. Instead launch Windows Calendar and you’ll see your reminders displayed:
It’s a bit hard to read, I know, but every magenta entry is a recurring reminder. That’s a lot! On the left side, however, you can see Cortana listed and Reminders as a calendar. “Hmmm”, you think, “maybe that’s how I access the reminders to edit or delete?” Not quite:
Nope. That’s all about display color. Turns out you need to move to a specific reminder, at which point the pop-up menu includes the options you want:
Ah ha! Since this is a recurring event, Calendar calls it a “series”. Choose and click on “Edit series” and…
Weirdly…
You’ll be taken back to Cortana!
So there’s undoubtedly some way in Cortana to get here too without having to rely on Calendar, but at least you now have a path to get to this spot. At this point you can change the reminder, stop it recurring, or even leave it as is. Or you can click or tap on “Delete” on the very bottom of the window.
Once it’s deleted, you’ll be shown other reminders too:
At this point the “•••” shortcut to the right of the entry pops up a useful menu of options:
And now you can see how to navigate reminders in Cortana. A bit convoluted, but with some experimentation you can either figure out the words that will let you access the reminder list directly in Cortana, or you can see how to cheat by using Windows Calendar to jump directly to what you seek!
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Doesn’t work for me. Can’t see Cortana reminders in Calendar.