Does WhatsApp Have a Reminder Feature? What It Can and Can't Do

Yes, but a limited one. WhatsApp can remind you about a specific message you have already received (long-press it and choose Remind Me), and it can remind people about an event created in a chat. It cannot, on its own, take "remind me to call the bank every Monday at 9" and act on it, and every WhatsApp reminder arrives as an ordinary phone notification.

Meta has also announced task and briefing features for its Meta AI assistant that are coming to WhatsApp, so the picture is changing. Here is what each option does as of October 2026, and where each one stops.

How do I set a reminder on a WhatsApp message?

The feature is called message reminders. 9to5Mac reported it arriving for iPhone in September 2025, in WhatsApp version 25.25.74. MacRumors describes the steps:

1. Open a chat and long-press the message you want to come back to.
2. Tap More... in the pop-up menu.
3. Tap Remind Me.
4. Choose in 2 hours, in 8 hours, in 24 hours, or Custom to pick your own time.

A small bell appears in the corner of the message so you can see a reminder is set. To remove it, long-press the message again, tap More... and choose Cancel Reminder.

When the time comes, 9to5Mac says you get "a notification just like a new text message", tagged as a reminder so you know you asked for it. Depending on your message preview settings, MacRumors notes it can show the message text, the chat it is in and a preview of any media.

It works in one-to-one and group chats, and it is private. Meta told 9to5Mac that "reminders are private, which means that no one else in the conversation will know when you've set one."

WhatsApp rolls features out gradually, so if you do not see Remind Me in the menu, update the app first. It may simply not have reached your phone yet.

What can WhatsApp message reminders not do?

Message reminders are built for one job: "deal with this message later." That shapes their limits.

• They need a message to hang on. You cannot open WhatsApp and create a free-standing reminder about something nobody has messaged you about.
• They are one-off. The options are a time from now or a custom time. There is no daily, weekly or monthly repeat in the menu, so a reminder to take a tablet every evening would have to be set again every day.
• They only remind you. Because they are private, you cannot use them to nudge a parent, partner or colleague.
• They are a notification. The reminder lands among all your other alerts. If your phone is on silent, in another room, or you swipe it away by habit, it is gone like any other notification.

Can WhatsApp remind other people about an event?

Yes, this is the one built-in way to remind someone else. WhatsApp events let you create a plan inside a chat, such as a call, a birthday dinner or a meeting, and people respond with whether they are coming.

When WhatsApp introduced events in Communities in May 2024, it said "those going will get an automatic notification when it's getting close." In April 2025 it added events in one-to-one chats, not only groups. And in January 2026 it added more control: "Now when you create and send an event in your group chat you can set custom early reminders for your invitees."

Events work well for things that happen once at a set time: a family video call, a school meeting, a get-together. They are less suited to daily routines, and as with message reminders, what reaches the other person is a notification on their phone.

Can Meta AI on WhatsApp set reminders?

Not reliably yet, depending on where you are. On 24 July 2026, Meta announced that Meta AI can now handle tasks you set up once, such as a weekly plan or an afternoon update, and give you a daily briefing "at your preferred time." Meta said these features would start "in select markets in the Meta AI app and meta.ai" and that "We'll bring them to more countries and surfaces, including WhatsApp, in the coming weeks."

So if you use Meta AI in WhatsApp, it is worth asking it whether it can remind you of something. But treat it as rolling out, not guaranteed, and check what you actually get: a message in the chat, like other WhatsApp alerts, is still something you can scroll past.

WhatsApp's reminder options compared

Option	What it reminds you about	Repeats?	Can remind someone else?	How it reaches you
Message reminder (Remind Me)	One message you received	No	No, private to you	Phone notification
Event in a chat	A planned event	No, one event	Yes, people who are going	Phone notification
Meta AI tasks	What you ask it	Announced for set-up-once tasks	Not announced	In the Meta AI chat; rolling out by market

When is a WhatsApp reminder not enough?

For "reply to this later," a message reminder is exactly right, and it is free and already on your phone. The gap shows up with reminders where missing it has a cost:

• Repeating routines. Medicines, bills that recur, a daily check-in.
• Reminders for someone else. An older parent's evening tablet, a teenager's early start.
• Things you must not sleep through or swipe away. A wake-up for an early flight, a deadline at 5pm.

Every option above ends in a notification. The difference with a phone call is that it rings until someone answers or it stops, and it does not need the person to open an app, check a chat, or even own a smartphone with WhatsApp set up.

How ReminderIt works with WhatsApp

ReminderIt is built around the idea in its tagline: text it on WhatsApp, and it calls your phone.

You send a WhatsApp message (text, a voice note or a photo of an appointment card) such as "Call me every weekday at 7:30 to take my blood pressure tablet," or set it up on the website. At the exact time, ReminderIt places a real phone call in a natural voice that reads your reminder. If the call is missed, it follows up with a WhatsApp message, so the reminder ends up in the chat where you set it.

You can also set reminders for a family member, such as a parent in another city; they confirm first before any calls start. There is no app to install.

There is a 7-day free trial with 7 free reminder calls (3 if your number is in a country where calls cost more). After that it is one plan: $7 a month, or ₹299 a month in India, with annual and 2-year options.

The short answer

WhatsApp has two reminder tools today: Remind Me on a single message, which is private, one-off and arrives as a notification, and event reminders, which notify the people going to an event in a chat. Meta AI task features have been announced for WhatsApp and are rolling out by market. For repeating reminders, reminders for other people, or anything you cannot afford to swipe away, pair WhatsApp with something that rings.

Sources: 9to5Mac, WhatsApp for iOS gets message reminders (September 2025); MacRumors, WhatsApp: How to Set a Message Reminder (September 2025); WhatsApp Blog, New to Communities: Events and Replies in Announcement Groups (May 2024); WhatsApp Blog, New Feature Roundup: Updates to group chats, events, calls, channels and more (April 2025); WhatsApp Blog, Level Up Your WhatsApp Group Chats With New Member Tags, Text Stickers, and More (January 2026); Meta Newsroom, Meta AI Doesn't Just Think, It Acts (July 2026).