TaskCat turns Apple Reminders into a low-friction AI task inbox

The open-source Mac app captures tasks from anywhere, sorts them with AI and stores them directly in Apple Reminders, without requiring its own cloud service.

A Chinese developer has released TaskCat 1.0, a small macOS to-do app built around a simple idea: capturing a task should take less effort than forgetting it. The software, also known as “记事喵”, is designed to keep the user inside the work they are already doing, rather than forcing them to stop, open a separate app and fill in fields before the thought disappears. According to the launch post, the app is now open source and is intended to reduce the friction that often turns a quick reminder into an abandoned intention.

TaskCat centres on three entry points. On the Mac, a keyboard shortcut brings up a quick-entry box in any application, allowing the user to type a short instruction and have the app extract a title, deadline, progress level and group automatically. If the user prefers not to rely on AI parsing, a second shortcut stores the entry exactly as written. When the user is away from the desk, the app can also accept instructions through WeChat, then confirm the parsed time and category before creating the reminder. The developer says that time-sensitive messages are always checked back with the user before anything is saved, in an effort to avoid errors over dates and appointments.

The app also tries to make large task lists easier to read. Rather than presenting a long wall of items, it gives a short summary of what is overdue and what needs attention first, then sorts tasks into overdue, today, tomorrow and the next seven days. Overdue items are highlighted, while the menu includes one-click deferral options for tomorrow or next Monday, preserving the original time. If a task is marked complete by mistake, the app provides an undo action. MacStories, in a separate review, said TaskCat stands out for combining AI-assisted sorting with a clean link to Apple’s built-in reminders system, while MacRumors described it as a productivity tool that leans heavily on native macOS behaviour rather than recreating everything from scratch.

That native approach matters because TaskCat stores reminders in Apple’s Reminders database instead of running its own cloud service. As MacWorld explains in its guide to Reminders, Apple’s system already supports due dates, notes and iCloud synchronisation across iPhone, iPad and Mac, making it a practical base for software that wants to stay close to the platform. Apple’s EventKit framework, which the developer says TaskCat uses, is the standard route for writing apps that create and manage reminders and calendars on Apple devices. In TaskCat’s case, the developer says no server is required, the user’s reminders can sync through iCloud, and AI processing can be kept local or routed through any OpenAI-compatible API the user chooses.

The project’s documentation also leans into caution around automation. The developer says any action that changes a reminder is confirmed first, deletion goes through a recycle bin, and every modification is logged before the app checks that the system reminder was written successfully. The post also describes two technical lessons from development: one involving unnecessary disk writes caused by repeated synchronisation and validation, and another involving macOS permissions, where a stable code-signing certificate was needed so that reminder access would survive app updates. TaskCat currently ships as a Swift and SwiftUI app for macOS 14 and later, weighs in at about 3MB, and comes without Apple notarisation, meaning first launch still requires the user to approve it manually in system settings. The developer says there is no separate iPhone app; on mobile, the system Reminders app remains the companion view.