How to Use Remind Me in Mail on iPhone (Snooze Email)

You open an email that needs a reply, but right now is the wrong moment. You do not want to mark it unread and forget it, and a flag buried in a long flagged list is barely better. Remind Me is Apple Mail's snooze feature: the message disappears from your inbox and resurfaces at the top at the exact time you set. It arrived with iOS 16 and works on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. This guide explains exactly how to set a reminder, where the email goes in the meantime, how to cancel or reschedule one, and when it does and does not sync to your other Apple devices.

The short answer#

Open an email in the Mail app, tap the Reply button (the curved arrow at the bottom of the screen), and select Remind Me from the action sheet. You will see four quick options — Tonight (6 PM), Tomorrow (8 AM), This Weekend (8 AM Saturday), and Remind Me Later, which opens a date-and-time picker for any future moment. Tap your choice and the email vanishes from your inbox immediately.

While snoozed, the message lives in a dedicated Remind Me mailbox. You can find it in the Mailboxes list — the screen you land on when you open Mail before tapping into any specific inbox. The Remind Me mailbox is not a folder the email has been moved to; it is a view Apple generates from the reminder metadata attached to that message. The original email stays in your inbox in the background.

At the time you set, the email reappears at the top of your inbox as if it had just arrived. A banner notification appears on your lock screen and in Notification Center — the same way any other Mail notification does — so the reminder fires even if you have the Mail app closed.

Remind Me is available on iPhone running iOS 16 or later, iPad running iPadOS 16 or later, and Mac running macOS Ventura (13) or later. If you cannot find the option, the most likely reason is that your device is running an older OS version. The troubleshooting section covers the full list of causes.

Before you start#

The Remind Me feature requires iOS 16 or later on iPhone and iPadOS 16 or later on iPad. On Mac, the equivalent feature requires macOS Ventura (version 13) or later. Check your version under Settings > General > About on iPhone, or Apple menu > About This Mac on a Mac. Devices running iOS 15 or earlier have no Remind Me option anywhere in the Mail interface.

Remind Me works with every account type you have added to the built-in Mail app — Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, Yahoo, and IMAP accounts all support it. The reminder is stored by iOS itself, not by the email provider, so the snooze behavior is consistent regardless of which account the message belongs to.

For reminders to sync across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac, all devices must be signed into the same Apple Account and have iCloud Drive turned on. If you set a Remind Me on your iPhone and it does not show up on your Mac, the most common cause is that iCloud Drive is off on one of the devices.

How to set a Remind Me on an email#

1. 1

   Open the email

   Tap the message in your inbox to open it. Remind Me is only accessible from inside an open email — you cannot set it from the message list view without opening the message first.

2. 2

   Tap the Reply button

   The Reply button is the curved arrow icon at the bottom of the screen (on iPhone) or in the toolbar (on iPad). Tap it to bring up the action sheet. On iPhone, this is the same button you use to reply, forward, or print.

3. 3

   Select Remind Me

   Scroll down the action sheet if needed — Remind Me is listed after the reply and forwarding options. Tap it.

4. 4

   Choose a time

   Four preset options appear: Tonight at 6:00 PM, Tomorrow at 8:00 AM, This Weekend at 8:00 AM (Saturday), and Remind Me Later. Tap a preset to set it immediately, or tap Remind Me Later to open a date-and-time picker where you can choose any future moment. The picker lets you set a reminder weeks or months out if needed.

5. 5

   Confirm the reminder is set

   After you tap a time, the email disappears from your inbox view and moves to the Remind Me mailbox. If you are viewing All Inboxes, the message count drops by one. The email has not been deleted — it will return to the top of your inbox at the time you chose.

Where do Remind Me emails go on iPhone?#

When you set a Remind Me, the email leaves your inbox view and moves to the Remind Me mailbox. To find it: open the Mail app, navigate back to the Mailboxes list (the overview screen, before you enter any inbox), and look for Remind Me in the list. Tap it to see all messages currently snoozed.

The Remind Me mailbox is not a separate folder. Your original email is still in the inbox it came from — the Remind Me view simply filters for messages with an active reminder attached. If you go directly to a specific account inbox, you will not see the snoozed message there. You will only find it in the Remind Me mailbox until the timer fires.

At the designated time, the message returns to the top of your inbox as if it had just arrived. It appears above newer messages and is marked as unread so it stands out. A notification fires at the same moment — unless you have Mail notifications muted — giving you a second prompt to act on it.

Remind Me across iPhone, iPad, and Mac#

The interface differs by platform, but the underlying behavior is the same. A reminder set on one device syncs to the others through iCloud, provided all devices are signed in with the same Apple Account and have iCloud Drive enabled. The table below reflects verified behavior as of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sonoma (14); verify against Apple's documentation after major OS updates.

How to cancel or change a Remind Me#

1. 1

   Open the Remind Me mailbox

   From the Mailboxes list in the Mail app, tap Remind Me. All currently snoozed emails appear here.

2. 2

   Swipe left on the message

   Swipe left on the email you want to cancel. A set of action buttons appears on the right side of the row.

3. 3

   Tap Remind Me and choose Remove or a new time

   From the swipe actions, tap Remind Me. The same time picker appears: Tonight, Tomorrow, This Weekend, and Remind Me Later. Select a new time to reschedule the reminder, or tap Remove Reminder to cancel it entirely. Removing the reminder returns the message to your regular inbox immediately.

4. 4

   Alternatively, open the email and reset from the Reply sheet

   Open the snoozed email from the Remind Me mailbox, tap the Reply button, then tap Remind Me again. The picker now shows a Remind Me Later option alongside a Remove Reminder option at the top. This is the path if you want to reschedule rather than cancel outright.

What to do when Remind Me is not appearing#

If you tap the Reply button and Remind Me is not in the action sheet, there are four likely causes. Work through them in order — most users find the fix within the first two.

A faster way to handle the inbox backlog#

Remind Me is useful for the occasional message that needs deliberate follow-up at a specific time. When the volume of messages requiring action is high enough that you are snoozeing several emails a day, the overhead of setting individual reminders compounds — you are spending real time managing the inbox rather than working through it.

We build AI Emaily, an AI-native email client for Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, and any IMAP account. Rather than snoozeing messages one at a time, it reads your inbox, identifies what needs a reply, drafts that reply in your voice, and holds it for your one-tap approval before anything sends. Copilot mode keeps every send under your control; a gated Autopilot option is available for routine messages you are comfortable clearing on their own. Every action is logged in a full audit trail. If that sounds worth comparing against your current workflow, there is a 7-day free trial on the Pro and Autopilot plans — details at aiemaily.com/pricing.