Google Calendar Reminders Not Working — What It Means & How to Fix It

What Does This Error Mean?

Google Calendar reminders are not sending notifications at the right time or at all. This is almost always a notification permission or device setting issue, not a problem with your calendar data. Your events and reminders are still saved and the fix usually takes less than two minutes.

Affected Models

Google Calendar iOS App
Google Calendar Android App
Google Calendar Web
Google Workspace
All Google accounts

Common Causes

Notification permissions for Google Calendar are disabled in the device's system settings
Do Not Disturb or Focus mode is active and silencing calendar alerts
The event reminder was set to 0 minutes or was removed from the event
Battery optimization on Android is killing the Google Calendar app before it can fire notifications
Browser notifications are blocked for calendar.google.com in Chrome settings

How to Fix It

On your phone, go to Settings → Notifications → Google Calendar and make sure notifications are allowed.

On both iOS and Android, apps can have their notifications silently disabled — this is the single most common cause of missing reminders.
Check that Do Not Disturb or Focus mode is not active on your device.

DND silences all notifications including calendar reminders — add Google Calendar to the DND exceptions list if you need alerts during quiet hours.
Open the specific event in Google Calendar and confirm a reminder is set — tap the event, then Edit, and check the notification field.

Reminders are per-event — it is easy to accidentally remove them when editing an event.
On Android, go to Settings → Apps → Google Calendar → Battery → and set it to Unrestricted.

Android battery optimization can kill background apps before they fire notifications — setting Calendar to unrestricted prevents this.
For web reminders, click the lock icon in Chrome's address bar for calendar.google.com and make sure Notifications are set to Allow.

Chrome blocks notifications by default for all sites — you must explicitly allow them for Google Calendar.

When to Call a Professional

Calendar reminder issues are entirely self-fixable and do not require professional support. If reminders work on the web but not on your phone, the issue is a device permission or battery setting. For Google Workspace accounts where reminders are disabled organization-wide, contact your IT administrator.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do my Google Calendar reminders work on the web but not on my phone?

The web and mobile app use different notification systems. On mobile, the Google Calendar app needs permission to send notifications and must not be restricted by battery optimization. Check both the notification permission and the battery setting in your phone settings.

How do I set a default reminder for all new Google Calendar events?

Open Google Calendar on the web, click the Settings gear, then Settings. Under General, scroll to Event settings and set your preferred default notification time. This applies to all new events you create going forward.

Can I get Google Calendar reminders by email instead of push notification?

Yes — when creating or editing an event, click Add notification and change the type from Notification to Email. You can add both a push notification and an email reminder to the same event. Email reminders are useful as a backup if push notifications are unreliable on your device.