How to make Outlook Calendar reminders stay on top in Windows

Question

"...I want to know how to make my Outlook reminders pop up and show themselves prominently. They keep opening discreetly, as just another window in the Outlook stack on the taskbar. As a result, I keep overlooking them because they pop up behind everything else.

"How do I make them less easy to overlook?

"(Clearly, one usually doesn't want obnoxious apps that push themselves to the forefront. But there are a few places where such behavior is desirable, and Outlook calendar reminders are one of them.)"

-- thursdaysgeek March 1, 2011. See question 251963 .

This is a duplicate question.

Answer 1

For Office 365 subscribers, this feature is available if you are on Version 1804 (Build 9226.2114) or higher.

You can set up Outlook to display your reminder window on top of other programs you're working in.

1. Select File > Options > Advanced.

2. In the Reminders section, check the box marked Show reminders on top of other windows.

3. Click OK.

Reference: Set or remove reminders

Answer 2

Short answer to the issue you may have with AutoHotKey if you are as new to AutoHotKey as I - if your script with SetTimer runs only once, add #Persistent directive to the script.

As suggested by the answers on this page, AutoHotKey script can help you with not missing Outlook reminders. However, the scripts as they were suggested didn't work for me. I created a new AutoHotKey script file, put the script inside, and ran it. The result was that the timer didn't work and the script ran only once. It disappeared from the system tray as well, so I started looking into why the script was closing. After some search, I found that to have the script stay, AutoHotKey has several options, and one of them is to put #Persistent directive in the script.

The working script for me is:

ShowOutlookRemindersOnTop.ahk:

#Persistent

;Monitor Outlook Reminder window, restore and bring to the Top 
OutlookRemndrs_Init:
SetTimer, OutlookRemndrs_OnTop, 180000

OutlookRemndrs_OnTop:
    SetTitleMatchMode 2
    WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, Reminder
    WinRestore, Reminder
    return

Here is relevant part of the help file (https://www.autohotkey.com/docs/commands/_Persistent.htm):

A script is persistent if any of the following conditions are true:

• At least one hotkey or hotstring has been defined in the script or created by the Hotkey command or Hotstring function, even if it is not enabled.
• The keyboard hook or mouse hook is installed.
• The script contains any use of Gui, even if it has not been called.
• The script contains any use of OnMessage, or has called it dynamically or retrieved a reference with Func.
• The Input command has been called.
• The #Persistent directive is present anywhere in the script.

Use this directive to prevent the script from exiting after the auto-execute section (top part of the script) completes. This is useful in cases where a script contains timers and/or custom menu items but does not meet any of the other conditions listed above

Answer 3

Here is an updated / working AHK2 script. I set it to be invoked every 10 seconds (10,000ms). Two changes from the other answers to make this work properly for me:

1. Changed the window title from "Reminder" to "Reminder(s)"
2. Added WinExists check to avoid a "target window not found" error when the script runs and there is no notification window.

Persistent

;Monitor Outlook Reminder window, restore and bring to the Top 
OutlookRemndrs_Init:
SetTimer(OutlookRemndrs_OnTop,10000)

OutlookRemndrs_OnTop()
{
    SetTitleMatchMode(2)
    if WinExist("Reminder(s)")
    {
        WinSetAlwaysOnTop(1, "Reminder(s)")
        WinRestore("Reminder(s)")
    }
    return
}

Answer 4

I'm using AutoHotKey to do this. Because I have other events that I am monitoring I added this to my AHK script.

Adding this into my initialization

;Monitor Outlook Reminder window, restore and bring to the Top every ~4 minutes.
OutlookRemndrs_Init:
SetTimer, OutlookRemndrs_OnTop, 380000

And Adding this afterward

OutlookRemndrs_OnTop:
    SetTitleMatchMode 2
    WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, Reminder
    WinRestore, Reminder
    return

This is to add my two cents to question 251963 . Specific thanks to Eric L (user 10788)

Answer 5

Win 10, Outlook 2019. All suggestions didn't work. Workaround: Download + start Always on top (https://www.labnol.org/software/tutorials/keep-window-always-on-top/5213/). Focus on outlook. Type CTRL+SPACE. This will keep Outlook topmost. Minimize it. The reminder window will pop up on top. I hope, M$ adds an option to choose this (again).

Answer 6

NoReminders

I see the code above for AHK to monitor the Outlook reminder window every 4 minutes and then pin it always on top. This works great but ... too great ... it pins reminders window on top even if there are no reminders!!!!

How do I suppress this when there are no reminders?

;Monitor Outlook Reminder window, restore and pin always on Top every ~4 minutes.
OutlookRemndrs_Init:
SetTimer, OutlookRemndrs_OnTop, 380000
OutlookRemndrs_OnTop:
    SetTitleMatchMode 2
    WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, Reminder
    WinRestore, Reminder
    return

[EDIT] Actually, I just thought of this and it seems to be working:

;Monitor Outlook Reminder, restore and pin always on Top every ~4 min.
OutlookRemndrs_Init:
SetTimer, OutlookRemndrs_OnTop, 380000
OutlookRemndrs_OnTop:
   SetTitleMatchMode 2
   WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, 1 Reminder(s)
   WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, 2 Reminder(s)
   WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, 3 Reminder(s)
   WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, 4 Reminder(s)
   WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, 5 Reminder(s)
   WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, 6 Reminder(s)
   WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, 7 Reminder(s)
   WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, 8 Reminder(s)
   WinSet, AlwaysOnTop, on, 9 Reminder(s)
   WinRestore, 1 Reminder(s)
   WinRestore, 2 Reminder(s)
   WinRestore, 3 Reminder(s)
   WinRestore, 4 Reminder(s)
   WinRestore, 5 Reminder(s)
   WinRestore, 6 Reminder(s)
   WinRestore, 7 Reminder(s)
   WinRestore, 8 Reminder(s)
   WinRestore, 9 Reminder(s)
   return

Answer 7

I wrote a small program which just brings your outlook reminders to top, its very lightweight and it has on option to automatically start on login

it is free and open source, if it has any issues or you have any suggestions please feel free to reach out to me.

The program is available at https://1drv.ms/f/s!AmaHAXM9ZhPhaYN972FkhyTLHO8