Birthdays & Reminders

The four kinds of reminder

betterpal can prompt you in four different ways. They overlap a little; pick the ones that match how you actually use your phone.

• Day-of birthday alerts. A notification on the day. Tap it for a quick action: message, call, or open the profile.
• Advance birthday alerts. A heads-up X days before the birthday so you can plan a card or a gift.
• Note reminders. Per-note future reminders. Useful for "follow up about new job in two weeks."
• Monthly summary. A roll-up at the start of the month showing all upcoming birthdays.

Adding a birthday

1. Open someone's profile.
2. Tap the birthday field.
3. Pick the date. If you don't know the year, leave it blank. betterpal will track the day and month.
4. Save.

Setting advance alerts

In Settings, you can pick one or more lead times for advance birthday notifications, so a single birthday can nudge you more than once. Common picks: 14 days (plan a gift or a lunch), 7 days (order a card), and 1 day (last call). Select as many as you like and you'll be reminded at each.

The Upcoming tab

The Upcoming tab is your at-a-glance feed of what's coming. Today's events sit at the top under Notifications, highlighted so they're impossible to miss, and the rest are grouped by month with the day each one falls on. When a birthday includes a birth year, betterpal shows the age they're turning.

The same feed also carries:

• Scheduled note reminders - including the ones betterpal detects automatically from phrases like "call in a week," surfacing on the day they're due.
• Quick actions on today's items so you can message or call without digging.
• Dismissible cards. Once you've sent the message or made the call, clear it.

Note reminders

Any timestamped note can have a future reminder attached. Use this for the kinds of follow-ups that don't fit calendar invites: "ask about her interview in three weeks," "check in on his move next month."

The fastest way is a swipe. On any note in a person's list, swipe right to set a reminder (swipe left deletes, press and hold to edit). The swipe reveals a green reminder action and opens a quick set of options - End of day, Tomorrow, Next week, Next month, or a custom date and time. Try it:

You can also set one manually while writing:

1. Open a person's profile and add a note.
2. Tap the bell icon and pick a date.
3. The note will surface in the Upcoming tab on that date.

Why this matters

The maintenance is the relationship. A 2010 meta-analysis of 148 studies covering more than 308,000 participants found that people with stronger social relationships had a 50% greater likelihood of survival over the follow-up period, an effect comparable to quitting smoking [1]. Birthdays and follow-ups are small, low-stakes touchpoints that keep ties from quietly fading.

Common questions

Next up

Birthdays catch the calendar moments. The recall quiz helps you remember the rest of the year.