remindmail 2022.9.25.3

Easily schedule reminders to be emailed

remindmail

• turns reminders written in terminal into emails; integrates with Google Assistant; supports scheduled reminders

features

• easily manage your To Do list from anywhere in the terminal
• schedule one-time or recurring reminders
• automatically sync scheduled reminders as a plaintext file with Dropbox, Google Drive, Nextcloud, or any other Cloud Storage provider using rclone

dependencies

• Linux (Raspberry Pis work great!)
• securedata
• a unique, non-Gmail address specifically for this project
  • do not use an email address that you use in other areas of your life
  • do not re-use a password you've used anywhere else; use a unique password.
• Python3

setup

  python3 -m pip install remindmail

• you also need to install and configure securedata

  • initialize using securedata config; see securedata's README for complete setup instructions
  • in securedata's settings.json, set the full directory path of your remind.md file using path -> remindmail -> local
  • in securedata's settings.json, set the email information using the example below
    • note that Gmail will not work due to their security restrictions.
    • it's very bad practice to store your password in plaintext; for this reason, never sync this file.
    • always use a unique email address specifically for this, and especially use a unique password.
  • Your settings.json file should look similar to this example:

  {
    "path": {
      "remindmail": {
        "local": "/home/pi/remindmail"
      }
    },
    "email": {
        "from": "YourUniqueAndNonGmailEmailAddress",
        "from_pw": "YourPassword",
        "from_name": "Your Name",
        "to": "RemindersSentToThisEmailAddress",
        "smtp_server": "your domain's smtp server",
        "imap_server": "your domain's imap server",
        "port": 465
    }
  }
  

pulling reminders from Google (optional)

• Create a new Google Developer project

  • Create a new project

  • Select "Enable APIs and Services"

  • Search for "Calendar"

  • Enable Google Calendar API

  • Create an OAuth 2.0 Client ID:

    • For "type", use "desktop"
    • For detailed instructions, see here

  • Find the client ID and client secret, then populate settings.json to match this example:

  {
    "path": {
      "remindmail": {
        "local": "/home/pi/remindmail"
      }
    },
    "email": {
        "from": "YourUniqueAndNonGmailEmailAddress",
        "from_pw": "YourPassword",
        "from_name": "Your Name",
        "to": "RemindersSentToThisEmailAddress",
        "smtp_server": "your domain's smtp server",
        "imap_server": "your domain's imap server",
        "port": 465
    },
    "remindmail": {
      "client_id": "Your client ID",
      "client_secret": "Your client secret"
    }
  }
  

  • Run remind pull; the terminal should prompt you to visit a link.
  • Visit the link, sign in, then copy the verification code into the terminal

• add to crontab:

  • */5 * * * * remind pull (every 5 minutes, query Google for new reminders)

syncing with rclone (optional)

• complete the steps above in "Setup"
• install rclone.
• run rclone config to set up a cloud storage provider of your choice
• set the full directory path of your cloud using securedata; set path -> remindmail -> cloud (see Setup for an example)

scheduling reminder checks

• type "crontab -e" in the terminal

• add the line below (without the >, without the #, replacing the path with your real path):

  • 0 * * * * remind generate (every hour, generate based on remind.md)

usage

• natural language, e.g. remind me to take the trash out on thursday
• scheduling remindmail pull to automatically pull reminders from Google through crontab (see below)
• scheduling remindmail generate to automatically send emails based on date match from remind.md (see below)

generate

• remind generate generates reminders from remind.md (see below)

pull

• remind pull generates reminders from Google (see above)

edit

• remind edit looks at the path -> edit -> remind -> value property in securedata's settings.json:

{
    "path": {
      "edit": {
        "remind": {
          "value": "/fullpath/to/remind.md",
          "sync": false
        }
      }
    }
  }

• Change sync to true to enable cloud syncing. This is disabled by default.

logging

• by defualt, remindmail's log path is set to securedata's default log
• otherwise, you can set path -> remindmail -> log in securedata (see Setup above) for a custom directory.

scheduling reminders with remind.md

• this file is the heart of this tool, used for scheduling one-time or recurring reminders.
• place the "good" example in the remind.md example section below in a file named remind.md.
• reminders from the remind.md file will be emailed once the conditions are met.

using colons to edit email body

• any text after a colon (:) will be placed in the body of the email.

using natural language to add to remind.md

• remind me to take out the trash will immediately send an email upon confirmation
• remind to take out the trash tomorrow will add [YYYY-MM-DD]d take out the trash upon confirmation (where YYYY-MM-13 is the next day)
  • if it is before 3AM, the reminder will immediately send an email upon confirmation
• remind write essay: need to go to library will immediately send an email with the subject write essay and body need to go to library upon confirmation
• remind me to take out the trash tomorrow will add [YYYY-MM-DD]d take out the trash upon confirmation (where YYYY-MM-DD is tomorrow's date)
• remind me take out the trash on Thursday will add [thu]d take out the trash upon confirmation
• remind to take out the trash on the 13th will add [YYYY-MM-13]d take out the trash upon confirmation (where YYYY-MM-13 is the next 13th)
• remind go to the gym in 4 months will add [YYYY-MM-DD]d take out the trash upon confirmation (where YYYY-MM-DD is 4 months from today)
• remind me spring is here in 6 weeks will add [YYYY-MM-DD]d spring is here upon confirmation (where YYYY-MM-DD is 6 weeks from today)
• remind me to finish procrastinating in 5 days will add [YYYY-MM-DD]d finish procrastinating upon confirmation (where YYYY-MM-DD is 5 days from today)
• remind me take out the trash every 2 weeks will add [W%2] take out the trash upon confirmation
  • for recurring reminders, use every n days, every n weeks, or every n months
• try other combinations, and feel free to contribute to the codebase for other scenarios!

parse without time

• some queries, like remind me to buy 12 eggs can be misinterpreted from the date parser library, and the confirmation may ask to schedule the reminder on the 12th of the month.
  • these edge cases aren't worth fixing, in the interest of preserving the ability for something like "remind me on the 12th to buy eggs" to continue working reliably.
  • in these situations, it's worth choosing (p)arse without time, which ignores any potential dates and asks to send the reminder immediately

manually editing remind.md to schedule reminders

days

[D%1]         This reminder is sent every day.
[D%4]         This reminder is sent every 4 days.

[mon]         This reminder is sent if today is Monday.
[Monday]      This reminder is sent if today is Monday.
[thu]         This reminder is sent if today is Thursday.
[Thursday]d   This reminder is sent, then deleted, if today is Thursday.
[D01]         This reminder is sent if today is the 1st of the month.
[D31]d        This reminder is sent, then deleted, if today is the 31st of the month.

[3-5]         This reminder is sent if today is March 5.
[3/5]d        This reminder is sent, then deleted, if today is March 5.
[3/5]1        This reminder is sent, then deleted, if today is March 5.
[2022-3-5]d   This reminder is sent, then deleted, if today is March 5.

weeks

[W%3]         This reminder is sent if today is a Sunday of every third week, based on Epoch Time. See below...
[thu%2]       This reminder is sent every other Thursday.
[thu%2+1]     This reminder is sent every other Thursday (between the weeks of the line above).
[W%3+1]       This reminder is sent if today is a Sunday of every third week, _with an offset of 1_, meaning if [W%3] would normally be sent last week, it will be sent this week instead.

months

[M%5]         This reminder is sent every 5 months (_not necessarily May and October! pay attention to offsets_)
[M%2]d        This reminder is sent at the next even-numbered month, then deleted.

one-time or n-time reminders

[4/23]3       This reminder will be sent if today is April 23, then converted into [4/23]2
[4/23]2       This reminder will be sent if today is April 23, then converted into [4/23]1 (same as [4/23]d)
[4/23]1       This reminder is sent, then deleted, if today is April 23.
[4/23]d       This reminder is sent, then deleted, if today is April 23.

[M%3]6        This reminder will be sent, then decremented, every 3 months, until it becomes [M%3]1 in approximately 18 months.
[D%2]30       This reminder will be sent, then decremented, every other day, until it becomes [D%2]1 in approximately 2 months.

"any time" reminders for later

[any]         This reminder requires manual removal from remind.md
[any]         You will be given a summary of [any] reminders when generateSummary() is called.
[any]         This can be called as `remind later`

It is recommended you add remind later as a scheduled crontab action.

examples that won't work

[D50]         Months only have up to 31 days.
[D%3] d       The 'd' operator must be immediately next to the ] symbol.
[Y%5]         Year is unsupported.
(thu)         You must use brackets.
{thu}         You must use brackets.
   [W%3]      You must start reminders on the first column.
[W%3-1]       This is invalid. To add an offset, you MUST use +.
[W%3+4]       An offset of 4 makes no sense and won't be triggered because [W%3+3] is the same thing as [W%3+0]. Use [W%3+1] instead.

calculating and scheduling "every n weeks", "every n days", "every n months"

• remind offset <type> <date (YYYY-MM-DD, optional)> <n>

• (type is day, week, month)

• (n is 'every n days')

• Take the results of this function and use it to add an offset.

  • If you want something to happen every 3 days starting tomorrow, use:

  • remind offset day <tomorrow's date YYYY-MM-DD> 3

  • If the answer is 2, then you can add this to remind.md:

  • [D%3+2] Description here

how this is calculated

• The Epoch time is the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, UTC.
• For example, if the current time is 1619394350, then today is Sunday, April 25, 2021 at 11:45:50PM UTC.
• The "week number" is calculated by {epochTime}/60/60/24/7.
  • 1619394350 /60/60/24/7 ~= 2677
  • 2677 % 3 == 1, meaning scheduling a reminder for [W%3] would be sent last week, but not this week (or next week or the week after).

offset examples

• e.g. remind offset day 2022-12-31 12

• (find offset for every 12 days intersecting 2022-12-31)

• e.g. remind offset week 2022-12-31 3

• (every 3 weeks intersecting 2022-12-31)

• e.g. remind offset month 2022-12-31 4

• (every 4 months intersecting 2022-12-31)

• e.g. remind offset day 5

  • (every 5 days intersecting today)

• e.g. remind offset week 6

  • (every 6 weeks intersecting today)

• e.g. remind offset month 7

  • (every 7 months intersecting today)"""

using "d" to set one-time reminders

• an item with ]d, such as [D%5]d, will add the reminder and remove it from remind.md, meaning it will only generate once until you add it again.
  • this is useful for scheduling a reminder in the future that you don't need to repeat.

credit

• Google polling forked from https://github.com/jonahar/google-reminders-cli