io.github.high5-ventures/apple-reminders

Apple Reminders for Claude

Fast, native Apple Reminders access for Claude — works in Claude Desktop, Claude Cowork, and Claude Code (CLI). One signed Swift/EventKit binary, three distribution packages.

Reminder IDs are stable across sessions. A full CRUD round-trip takes under a second on a database with 300+ reminders. Umlauts, accents, CJK characters and emoji pass through unchanged.

Published by high5 ventures GmbH — signed with Developer ID Application: high5 ventures GmbH and notarized by Apple.

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Quick start

You need a Mac (Apple Silicon or Intel) running macOS 11 or later, and Claude Desktop.

1. Download apple-reminders.mcpb from the latest release.
2. Double-click it. Claude Desktop opens an install dialog — click Install.
3. Ask Claude something like "What's on my reminders for today?"

macOS asks for Reminders access on that first question. Allow it, and Claude can read and change your reminders.

No configuration is needed: the bundle contains the server and the signed binary, and Claude Desktop sets the paths on install.

Updating is the same three steps with the newer .mcpb.

Not using Claude Desktop? See Installation for Claude Code and other MCP clients.

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Contents

• Description
• Features
• Usage examples
• Installation
• Configuration
• MCP tools
• Privacy policy
• Troubleshooting
• Support
• Architecture
• License

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Description

Apple Reminders for Claude gives Claude full CRUD access to your macOS Reminders app. It wraps Apple's native EventKit framework in a signed Swift binary that returns stable UUIDs and structured JSON, and ships three ways:

Target	Artifact	Where to get it
Claude Desktop / Cowork	.mcpb bundle	Releases
Claude Code (CLI)	Plugin with skill	/plugin marketplace add against this repository
Any MCP client	npm package	npm install -g @high5ventures/apple-reminders-mcp

All three ship the same binary and the same 13 tools, so behaviour does not differ between them.

Features

• 13 MCP tools covering the full reminder lifecycle: list lists, list reminders (open/completed/all), full-text search, today/overdue/scheduled smart queries, CRUD on individual reminders.
• Native EventKit — not AppleScript, not reverse-engineered SQLite scraping.
• Stable UUIDs — reminder IDs survive across sessions, unlike AppleScript URIs or CLI positional indexes.
• Tool safety annotations — every tool declares readOnlyHint / destructiveHint so Claude clients can auto-run queries but prompt for mutations.
• Language-neutral — the skill matches on intent, not keywords. Works identically in German, French, Spanish, Japanese, etc.
• Speed — full CRUD smoke-test completes in under 1 s on 300+ reminders across 10 lists.
• Signed + notarized — no Gatekeeper warnings; deployable via MDM.
• 100% local — no network I/O. See PRIVACY.md.

Usage examples

In Claude Desktop and Cowork the tools appear under Apple Reminders; in Claude Code the skill loads when you mention reminders. The examples below show the tool calls behind each answer.

Example 1 — "What's on my plate today?"

You: Was habe ich heute zu tun?

Claude (invokes get_today):

{ "status": "ok", "data": { "reminders": [
  { "id": "A1B2…", "name": "Zahnarzt-Termin bestätigen", "list": "Persönlich", "due_date": "2026-04-14T10:00:00" },
  { "id": "C3D4…", "name": "Rechnung #2026-0412 prüfen", "list": "Arbeit", "due_date": "2026-04-14T14:00:00" }
] } }

Claude: Du hast heute zwei offene Erinnerungen: den Zahnarzt-Termin um 10:00 (Persönlich) und die Rechnungs-Prüfung um 14:00 (Arbeit).

Example 2 — "Add a reminder to the groceries list"

You: Remind me to buy oat milk tomorrow at 6pm.

Claude (invokes create_reminder):

{ "list": "Groceries", "title": "Buy oat milk", "dueDate": "2026-04-15T18:00:00" }

Response:

{ "status": "ok", "data": { "reminder": { "id": "E5F6…", "name": "Buy oat milk", "due_date": "2026-04-15T18:00:00" } } }

Claude: Done — added "Buy oat milk" to Groceries for tomorrow at 18:00.

Example 3 — "Clean up what's overdue"

You: Show me everything that's overdue, then mark the Slack-DM one as done.

Claude (invokes get_overdue):

{ "status": "ok", "data": { "reminders": [
  { "id": "G7H8…", "name": "Reply to Alex in Slack DM", "list": "Work", "due_date": "2026-04-12T17:00:00" },
  { "id": "I9J0…", "name": "Review PR #482", "list": "Work", "due_date": "2026-04-13T12:00:00" }
] } }

Claude (invokes complete_reminder with id: "G7H8…"):

{ "status": "ok", "data": { "reminder": { "id": "G7H8…", "completed": true, "completion_date": "2026-04-14T18:22:01" } } }

Claude: Two overdue items: Slack reply (now marked done) and PR #482 review (still open).

Installation

Claude Desktop / Cowork

Download apple-reminders.mcpb from Releases and double-click it. Claude Desktop shows an install dialog; click Install, then grant Reminders access in the macOS privacy prompt on the first tool call.

Updating works exactly the same way — download the newer .mcpb and double-click it.

This is how the extension is installed. The two sections below cover other MCP clients; on a Mac with Claude Desktop you do not need them.

Claude Code (CLI)

/plugin marketplace add high5-ventures/apple-reminders-for-claude

Reload Claude Code before the next step; the plugin is not visible until the marketplace has been picked up.

/plugin install apple-reminders@high5-apple-reminders-for-claude

This path offers new versions automatically, but does not install them; you still confirm each update.

Any other MCP client (Cursor, Zed, …)

npm install -g @high5ventures/apple-reminders-mcp

Then add it to your client's MCP configuration:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apple-reminders": {
      "command": "apple-reminders-mcp"
    }
  }
}

Or skip the global install and let the client fetch it on demand:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apple-reminders": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@high5ventures/apple-reminders-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

The location of that file differs per client.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/high5-ventures/apple-reminders-for-claude.git
cd apple-reminders-for-claude
./build.sh

Produces dist/reminders-eventkit (universal binary for Apple Silicon and Intel), dist/skill/ (Claude Code skill), and dist/apple-reminders.mcpb (Claude Desktop bundle). Builds are unsigned; see CONTRIBUTING.md for the signed release workflow.

Requirements for building: macOS 11+, Xcode Command Line Tools, Node.js 18+. Toolchains older than Xcode 15 also work; they compile without the macOS 14 permission API and fall back to the older request. To build only your own architecture, set ARCHS, e.g. ARCHS=x86_64 ./build.sh.

Configuration

No configuration is required for normal use. The extension runs with these defaults:

Setting	Default	Notes
Reminders permission	prompted on first use	Revocable in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Reminders
Binary timeout (Node wrapper)	30 s	Hardcoded ceiling; well under any MCP client timeout
Response payload cap	16 MB	Covers databases with thousands of reminders

If you use the npm-distributed server with a non-standard MCP client, set REMINDERS_BINARY to the absolute path of the reminders-eventkit binary:

export REMINDERS_BINARY=/absolute/path/to/reminders-eventkit

The .mcpb and Claude Code plugin installations set this variable automatically.

MCP tools

All 13 tools return a stable JSON envelope — { "status": "ok", "data": ... } on success, { "status": "error", "code": "...", "message": "..." } on failure.

Tool	Annotation	Purpose
get_lists	read-only	List all reminder lists with open/completed counts
get_list_info	read-only	Metadata for one list by name or id
list_reminders	read-only	List reminders in a list (open/completed/all)
search_reminders	read-only	Full-text search across all lists
get_today	read-only	Reminders due today
get_overdue	read-only	Overdue open reminders
get_scheduled	read-only	All open reminders with a due date
get_reminder	read-only	Fetch one reminder by ID
create_reminder	additive	Create a new reminder
update_reminder	destructive, idempotent	Update an existing reminder
complete_reminder	destructive, idempotent	Mark as completed
uncomplete_reminder	destructive, idempotent	Unmark completed
delete_reminder	destructive, idempotent	Permanently delete

"Destructive" here follows the MCP specification: it means the operation mutates existing state irreversibly from the user's point of view. Claude clients use these hints to decide when to prompt for confirmation.

Privacy policy

This extension is 100% local at runtime — no data leaves your Mac via this extension. high5 ventures GmbH operates no server and collects no telemetry. The only network activity is the one-time download of the signed Swift binary from GitHub Releases during install (verified by Apple Developer ID signature, refuses to install on mismatch).

Read the full policy: PRIVACY.md.

Troubleshooting

Binary crashed (exit 1): spawn Unknown system error -86 — the binary was built for a different Mac. Releases up to and including v1.0.4 contain only an Apple Silicon binary that also requires macOS 14; from v1.0.5 the binary is universal and runs on Apple Silicon and Intel from macOS 11. Update to the latest release.

PERMISSION_DENIED — you (or a device policy) turned Reminders access off. Re-enable it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Reminders, then retry.

PERMISSION_UNAVAILABLE — macOS refused the request without showing a dialog, so the privacy pane stays empty and there is nothing to switch on. Granting permissions or running tccutil reset does not help, because no entry exists to grant or reset.

macOS attributes a privacy request to the process it holds responsible, normally the application that launched the server. If that application declares no Reminders usage description, the request is refused before it reaches EventKit. Since v1.0.4 the binary takes that responsibility itself, so the prompt no longer depends on the host. If the error persists, check the attribution:

log show --last 3m --predicate 'process == "tccd"' --info --debug | grep -i reminder

The AttributionChain line should name reminders-eventkit as responsible. If it names the host application instead, the self-attribution did not take effect — please include that log line when opening an issue.

Binary quarantined on first launch — releases are signed and notarized, so this should not occur. To verify:

BIN=~/Library/Application\ Support/Claude/Claude\ Extensions/local.mcpb.high5-ventures-gmbh.apple-reminders/bin/reminders-eventkit
codesign --verify --verbose "$BIN"
spctl --assess --type execute "$BIN"

If either fails, the copy may have been tampered with; re-download from Releases.

"List not found" or "Multiple lists with that name" — reminder lists are matched by exact name. Use get_lists first to see available names. For duplicates, the error response includes a candidates array with stable calendar_identifiers; re-call with id:<calendar_identifier> as the list argument.

Flagged reminders return empty — EventKit does not expose the flagged attribute. The Claude Code skill ships an AppleScript fallback (skills/apple-reminders/scripts/get_flagged.applescript) for users who need this query. The .mcpb bundle does not include this fallback because Claude Desktop does not have shell access.

Still stuck? Open an issue → Support.

Support

• Bug reports & feature requests: https://github.com/high5-ventures/apple-reminders-for-claude/issues
• Security vulnerabilities: info@h5ventures.de — see SECURITY.md
• General contact: info@h5ventures.de

Architecture

Claude Desktop / Cowork           Claude Code CLI                Any MCP client (Cursor, Zed, …)
        │                                │                                   │
        │  (stdio MCP)                   │  (Bash via plugin)                │  (stdio MCP)
        ▼                                ▼                                   ▼
    Node wrapper                 reminders-eventkit                    Node wrapper
   (server/index.js)            (Swift binary, direct)               (npm @high5ventures/…)
        │                                │                                   │
        ▼                                │                                   ▼
 reminders-eventkit                      │                          reminders-eventkit
(same Swift binary)                      │                        (downloaded on install)
        │                                │                                   │
        └────────────────────────────────┴───────────────────────────────────┘
                                         │
                                         ▼
                            Apple EventKit framework
                                         │
                                         ▼
                            macOS Reminders database

One Swift source → one binary → three distribution paths. See CONTRIBUTING.md for build internals.

License

Copyright © 2026 high5 ventures GmbH. Released under the MIT License — see LICENSE.

This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Apple Inc. or Anthropic PBC.

"Apple" and "Reminders" are trademarks of Apple Inc. "Claude" is a trademark of Anthropic PBC.