How to set a reminder in seconds with quick add and slash commands

The fastest reminder is the one you do not have to fill in a form for. Pingr's quick add bar sits on the Home screen, asks "Add a reminder, task or event" and reads what you type on your phone, so the date is already set by the time you reach the Add button. This guide covers the sentence forms it understands, the slash commands for everything a sentence cannot say, and the other ways in: your voice and the Android share sheet.

Type it the way you would say it

Start with the thing and add a time. The placeholder in the bar is "Call mom friday 5pm", and that is the whole idea. Under the field a preview line shows what Pingr understood, for example a weekday, a date, a time and the list the item will go to. If it found no time, the preview says "No time yet" and the item is saved without one.

The reader on your phone knows phrases such as "tomorrow 9am", "in 2 hours", "every Monday", "next Friday", "Mar 5", "the 15th", "2-3pm", "for 90 minutes", "30 min before", "noon", "tonight" and "end of day". It also takes spoken forms like "nine thirty pm". A few rules decide the ambiguous cases, and they are worth knowing:

• A bare weekday means the next one. "Next Tue" means that weekday of next week, and "next week" means next Monday.
• A clock time without am or pm reads 7 to 11 as morning, and 12 and 1 to 6 as afternoon. "09:30" and "21:00" are read as 24-hour times.
• A time with no date means today if it is still ahead, otherwise tomorrow.
• A reminder given a date but no time rings at 9:00 that morning.
• A numeric date such as 3/5 is read month first, and Pingr asks you to check it because it can be read two ways.

Pick the type and the time with chips

Under the bar are quick chips for Today, This evening and Tomorrow, plus Pick time for anything else, and a chip for the list. You can set the item as a Reminder, a Task or an Event. An event needs a time, and Pingr tells you so ("An event needs a time. Pick one above") instead of guessing. When your sentence holds a date, a time or a repeat, tapping Add opens a draft titled "Add with Pingr", marked "Draft, not saved yet", with the title, when, repeat and list laid out. Change anything, then tap Save, or tap Discard draft and nothing is saved. A plain item with no date is added at once, and a short "Added" message appears with Undo, so a slip costs one tap.

Slash commands for the rest

Type a slash at the start of the text or after a space and a menu of nine commands appears. Keep typing letters to narrow it, so "/pr" leaves Priority. Each command either opens a small picker or changes the item.

A checklist turns the item into a task with subtasks. Separate entries with lines, commas or semicolons, and Pingr keeps up to 50 and drops repeats of the same text. Priority also accepts the words none, low, medium, high and urgent. A repeat needs a time to start from, so if you have none yet the message reads "Pick a time so the repeat knows where to start."

Say it or share it

When the field is empty the button beside it reads Speak. Tap it, say the sentence, and Pingr opens the same kind of draft to confirm. Your phone turns the speech into text, and only the text is sent on for the AI to read. Once there is text in the field the same button becomes Read with AI, and the draft screen also offers Read this with AI for sentences the phone reader cannot place. Every route ends in a draft you confirm or edit before anything is saved.

From any other Android app, share text or a link and choose Pingr. The Add to Pingr screen opens with the words as the title, so a message from a friend can become a reminder in two taps. Pingr adds shared text and links only; an image or a file is refused with a short explanation.

A worked example

Say you type "pay rent on the 1st /repeat". The slash menu opens, you pick Monthly, and the preview shows the first date with a monthly repeat. You add /priority high by typing it, tap Add, check the draft and tap Save. The same flow works for a class that repeats every Monday: type the subject, a time and "every Monday".The guide on alerts, quiet hours and nudge styles shows how to make sure that item actually rings.

Where Pingr is not the best fit

The sentence reader understands English phrasing for now, because Pingr is available in English. There is no signed-in website, so if you want to capture from a laptop keyboard, Pingr does not offer that: it is an Android app. It is also paid only, and the plan is $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year after 7 free days. If you only ever add one or two reminders a week, a simpler built-in phone reminder may be enough.

To try quick add on your own sentences, see how to get the app.