Notifications & Reminders

Lunatask has two ways to notify you of time-sensitive events happening in the app – those are notifications and badges.

tip

To get reminded of a task at a certain time, simply drag the task onto the calendar. When the time comes, a reminder notification will show up on all your devices.

Apple Watch support

To receive notifications on your Apple Watch, enable notifications for Lunatask app in the Watch app.

Supported desktop notifications

Desktop platforms	Supported?	Enabled by default?
Scheduled (time-blocked) tasks	✅	✅
Scheduled habits	✅	✅
Calendar meetings and events	✅	❌
Birthday and anniversaries	✅	✅
Task timer finishes	✅	✅

Desktop app are by default disabled for events coming from external calendars as most people will already receive notifications from their full-featured calendar app like Apple Calendar.

caution

On Mac, be sure to allow notifications in System Preferences > Notifications > Lunatask. On Linux, notifications are supported in any desktop environment that follows Desktop Notifications Specification.

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Note that notifications are shown only when Lunatask desktop app is running. This usually is not a problem on Mac or Windows where Lunatask minimizes into system tray on close, but it is worth noting if you are on Linux.

Supported mobile notifications

Mobile platforms	Supported?	Enabled by default?
Scheduled (time-blocked) tasks	✅	❌
Scheduled habits	✅	❌
Calendar meetings and events	❌
Birthday and anniversaries	Coming soon
Task timer finishes	Coming soon

caution

Notifications are not enabled by default in our mobile app. Visit Settings → Notifications to enable them.

tip

Time-blocking and a new calendar view are in development and will come to our mobile app in December 2024. In the meantime, what you schedule or time-block in our desktop app will also trigger notifications on all your mobile devices.

Note on data encryption

Lunatask is a multi-platform, multi-device application that users usually run on several devices. Our mobile notifications must be triggered and sent from Lunatask servers (so-called push notifications) to be reliable. Image the following example:

It is 10:45 AM, and you drag a task onto the calendar in our desktop app for 11 AM. In 15 minutes, you expect to receive a notification on all your devices, desktop and mobile. Meanwhile, your mobile device is placed on your table, screen off. As a result, the mobile app won't have the opportunity to sync the latest changes and trigger the notification locally.

But Lunatask servers only know that something is placed on your Lunatask calendar – they don't know what, as that data is end-to-end encrypted. For this reason, our mobile notifications won't show task or habit names. The notification you receive on your lock screen at 11 AM will read "A task on your calendar starts now. Press to see the task!" or "It's 11 AM and time for your habits!" in case of habits.

Badges

Badges are shown on individual area menu items and the habit tracker icon in the menu, as well as on the app icon in Dock (on Mac) and in the system tray (on Windows). A running timer will also show a purple badge on the area in which the task belongs.

Area badges can be configured per-area in the area settings. There are a few setting options available:

Setting	Meaning
None	Never show badges on area menu item
All coming up	Shows the number of "coming up" tasks scheduled for today or the past using date-based scheduling (default)
All actionable	Shows the number of actionable tasks in the area (usually those which are not marked as Later)
All tasks	Shown the number of all non-completed tasks in the area

The badge on the habit tracker menu item shows the number of remaining incomplete habits for today and can also be disabled in the settings.

The sum of all individual numbers on each menu item will show on the app icon in Dock or system tray.

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On Mac, if you see badges on areas in the menu but not on the app icon, be sure to allow notifications in System Preferences > Notifications > Lunatask.