Table of Contents
- The Short Answer
- The Anatomy of a /remind Command
- Every Recurrence Phrase That Works
- Channel Reminders vs Personal Reminders
- Listing, Editing and Deleting
- Three Things /remind Cannot Do
- When You Need More Than a Reminder
- FAQs
The Short Answer
Type /remind in any Slack message box, then say who it is for, what it is about, and how often:
/remind me to check my Asana tasks at 9:15am every weekday
/remind #nyc-office to clean out the fridge every Friday at 3pm
Slack repeats it on that schedule until you delete it. /remind list shows everything you have running.
For a one-off reminder you do not even need the command: hover over a message, click the three dots, choose Remind me about this, and pick a time. Or open the Later tab, click the plus sign, and set a date and time. Every example on this page was checked against Slack's help centre and its reminders guide on 1 October 2026.
The Anatomy of a /remind Command
Every reminder has the same three parts, in this order.
Who. Either me or a channel like #design. Guests can only set reminders for themselves.
What. Plain text, starting with "to". This is what the message will say when it fires, so write it as an instruction rather than a note to self.
When. A time, a date, or a repeat phrase. This is the part with rules, and it is where most commands fail.
Put together:
/remind me to file expenses on the 1st of every month
Slack parses this when you press enter and confirms what it understood. If the confirmation says something different from what you meant, delete it and rephrase rather than hoping it corrects itself.
Every Recurrence Phrase That Works
These are the repeat phrases Slack's own documentation uses:
| What you want | What to type |
|---|---|
| Daily | every day |
| Working days only | every weekday |
| Once a week | every Monday (or any weekday name) |
| Fortnightly | every two weeks |
| Monthly | on the 1st of every month |
A time makes them land when you want: every Monday at 9am. Without one, Slack picks the time for you.
Two limits are worth knowing before you spend twenty minutes fighting the parser:
No time increments. Slack states plainly that reminders repeat by the day, not in increments like "every hour". If you need something more frequent than daily, /remind is the wrong tool.
"Every other week" is not a documented phrase. Use every two weeks instead. They sound identical in English, and only one of them is in Slack's own examples.
Two days a week means two reminders. "Every Monday and Tuesday" is not in Slack's examples either. Set one reminder for every Monday and a second for every Tuesday, and you know exactly what each will do.
A day without a time lands at 9am. Slack defaults day-only reminders to 9am in your time zone, and recommends American English date and time formats (9:15am, 12/31) for the parser.
Channel Reminders vs Personal Reminders
They behave differently, and the difference matters more than it looks.
A personal reminder (/remind me ...) is private. It appears in your Later tab, nobody else sees it, and it nudges you to go do something.
A channel reminder (/remind #channel ...) posts into the channel for everyone. This is the closest Slack gets to chasing other people: the message lands where the team sees it, and you can mention someone in the text so they get notified.
For a recurring team nudge, the channel version is the one you want:
/remind #marketing-team to submit expenses every Thursday
Listing, Editing and Deleting
/remind list is the command worth remembering. It prints your active reminders, including channel ones, each with a Delete option.
Editing is where the two types split again. A personal reminder can be rescheduled from the Later tab by clicking the clock icon. A channel reminder cannot be edited at all. To change one, delete it from /remind list and create a replacement.
This catches people out with recurring reminders in particular. If a standup nudge needs to move from 9am to 9:30am, there is no edit. It is delete and retype.
Three Things /remind Cannot Do
/remind is genuinely good at what it does, which is repeating a fixed message on a fixed schedule. The gaps show up when you are chasing a person rather than a routine.
It does not stop when someone answers. A recurring reminder has no idea whether the invoice was paid or the approval came through. It fires on Thursday because it is Thursday. Chasing someone who already replied is the fastest way to make a nudge feel like noise, which we get into in how to stop a follow-up sequence the moment someone replies.
It says the same thing every time. A fourth reminder reading exactly like the first tells the reader nothing changed and nothing will. Real chasing escalates, and that is covered in the difference between a pushy follow-up and a persistent one.
It stays inside Slack. Clients, contractors and anyone outside your workspace never see it. For those, a reminder has to arrive by email, in the thread they already have.
When You Need More Than a Reminder
The honest rule: if you are reminding yourself to do something on a rhythm, /remind is enough, and you should stop reading here. Standup prompts, expense deadlines, Friday cleanups. It costs seconds to set up and nothing to run.
If you are chasing someone else for something specific, an overdue invoice or a stalled approval, a repeating message is the wrong shape. You need something that writes each message, gets firmer when it is ignored, and stops when they answer.
That is what autoremind.ai does. Describe the chase once in plain English, and it writes up to four messages and sends them from your own Gmail, in the thread you already have. It stops when they reply, which it detects without ever connecting to your inbox, explained in follow-up automation that does not need inbox access. It can also send to a teammate through Slack, but it does not read Slack, so a Slack reply is yours to mark as answered.
If you want every native way to automate Slack messages, including scheduled messages, Workflow Builder schedules and Slackbot keyword replies, see Slack automated messages: every way to set them up.
FAQs
How do I set a recurring reminder in Slack?
Type /remind followed by who it is for, what it is about, and how often. For example, /remind me to check the deploy queue every weekday at 9:15am. Slack repeats it on that schedule until you delete it.
Can Slack reminders repeat every two weeks? Yes. "every two weeks" is one of the recurrence phrases Slack documents, alongside every day, every weekday, every Monday and the 1st of every month. Slack does not support repeating by time increments, so "every hour" will not work.
How do I see all my Slack reminders?
Type /remind list. Slack shows your active reminders, including the ones set on channels, and gives you a Delete option next to each.
Can I set a Slack reminder for someone else? Slack documents reminders for yourself and for a channel. Setting one for another person by name is not in the current help pages, so the reliable way to nudge someone is a channel reminder that mentions them, or a tool that sends the message itself.
How do I edit a recurring Slack reminder?
Personal reminders can be edited from the Later tab. Channel reminders cannot be edited at all, so you delete the old one with /remind list and create a replacement.
Does a Slack reminder stop when someone replies? No. A recurring reminder fires on its schedule no matter what anyone does. If you need it to stop once you get an answer, you need something that watches for the reply rather than counting days.
Recurring reminders keep your routines running. Chasing people needs something that knows when to stop. Start autoremind.ai free, 3 reminders, no card needed.
See also: Slack Automated Messages: Every Way to Set Them Up · Slackbot Reminders Without Building a Bot · Slack vs Email for Business Reminders · How to Use AI to Write Slack Follow-Up Messages · Mixmax Alternatives That Work With Slack
