Guides

Step-by-step walkthroughs for the more advanced ways to use Recallection. Everything here can also be done from the app — these guides just give the detailed setup room to breathe.

📅 Turn a calendar event into a check-in

Already have the event in iPhone, Google, or Outlook Calendar? Turn it into a check-in without retyping. Pick the method for your device — then grab the matching control (the URL template or bookmarklet) back in the app under Check-ins → ⌄ More ways.

📱 iPhone — iOS Shortcut (works for Apple, Google, and Outlook Calendars)

Build this Shortcut once. After that: tap it → pick an event → Recallection opens with the title, date, and time already filled in. Most people only do this once.

1. If your events are in Google or Outlook Calendar: first sync them into Apple Calendar.app — open iPhone Settings → Calendar → Accounts → Add Account, pick Google or Outlook, sign in. Your events now appear in Calendar.app and the Shortcut below sees them. (Skip this step if you already use Apple Calendar directly.)
2. Open the Shortcuts app → tap + to create a new Shortcut.
3. Add action "Find Calendar Events" with these settings:
   • Filter: Start Date — is in the next 12 months. (Wide enough to catch birthdays and anniversaries months out, not just this week's appointments.)
   • Sort by: Start Date — oldest first. (Soonest event leads the picker, which matches how you mentally scan your calendar.)
   • Limit: 100 events. (Bump higher if you have a dense shared calendar.)
4. Add action "Choose from List". The input should be the Calendar Events from the previous step; the prompt can be "Pick an event". iOS shows a search box at the top of the list once it's past a handful of items, so you can type "dad" or "birthday" to filter instantly instead of scrolling. This action's output is called "Chosen Item" — the single event you picked.
5. (Optional — for maximum reliability across regions.) Add action "Format Date" to turn the event's start time into a clean ISO string. You can skip this — Recallection also reads Apple's default date format — but adding it removes any ambiguity:
   • Date: tap the input field, choose Select Variable → Chosen Item, then tap that variable and pick Start Date.
   • Date Format: tap it and choose Custom.
   • Format String: enter exactly yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm (the 'T' has straight single quotes around the T). This produces something like 2026-06-02T08:00.
6. Add action "URL". Don't just paste and run — Shortcuts treats [Title] as literal text, not a variable. Instead, copy the template from the app (Check-ins → ⌄ More ways → iPhone, the Copy URL template button), type it into the URL field, then insert two Magic Variables where the brackets are:
   • Paste the template, then select the text [Title] (including the brackets), delete it, and with the cursor there tap Insert Variable → Chosen Item, then tap that variable and pick Title.
   • Select [Event date] (including the brackets), delete it, and insert the event's start time: if you added the Format Date action above, insert its Formatted Date output; otherwise insert Chosen Item, then tap that variable and pick Start Date. Either works.

   When you're done, the URL field reads https://www.recallection.com/app?new-checkin&title= Title &when= Formatted Date — with Title and Formatted Date shown as colored variable chips, not plain text. If you still see the literal words [Title] or [Event date], the variables weren't inserted — that's why the Message would show "[Title]" instead of the real event name.

7. Add action "Open URLs" (its input is the URL you built in the previous step).
8. Name the Shortcut "Recallection this event", give it the Recallection icon, and add it to your Home Screen, Action Button, or assign to Siri ("Hey Siri, Recallection this event").

Tips & troubleshooting

What auto-fills: the recipient's Message (from the event title) and the date + time (from the event's start). You still choose recipient, channel, and repeat in the modal, then tap Schedule.

Message shows "[Title]" or the time is wrong? The Magic Variables didn't get inserted into the URL action (or the Format Date format string has a typo). Open the Shortcut, delete the bracketed placeholder text, and re-insert the Chosen Item → Title and Formatted Date variables so they appear as colored chips rather than plain text.

Birthdays and other recurring events: after the modal opens, set Repeat to Yearly (or Monthly / Weekly as appropriate). You set the Shortcut up once and Recallection fires every year on its own — you don't have to re-run the Shortcut next year.

🤖 Android — Share menu (Google, Samsung, Outlook Calendar)

1. Install Recallection on your home screen first — open Chrome on your Android phone, then on Recallection tap ⋮ menu → Install app. (Required so Recallection shows up in the Share sheet.)
2. Open any event in your calendar app (Google Calendar, Samsung Calendar, Outlook Mobile). Tap the Share button (usually a ⤴ icon, or via the ⋮ menu). Some apps hide Share behind "Send a copy" or "Export" — same thing.
3. In the Android Share sheet, scroll until you see Recallection. Tap it. (First time only: Android may ask you to confirm; tap "Just once" or "Always".)
4. Recallection opens with the shared event text in the Message field (and, if your calendar app includes a separate subject line, the event title in the Label too).
   • Set the date and time manually. Android's Share sheet only passes the event title + description as text — never a structured date. So the date/time will be blank and you tap the picker to enter when the reminder should fire. (This is the one real difference from the iPhone Shortcut, which does auto-fill the time. If you want the date to auto-fill on Android too, use the automation method below.) For a birthday, set the date to that birthday and toggle Repeat.
   • Check the Label. Many calendar apps (including Google Calendar) share only one blob of text and no separate subject, so the Label may be empty — Recallection auto-derives one from the first line of the Message, or you can type your own.
   • Birthdays and other recurring events: set Repeat to Yearly (Monthly / Weekly as appropriate). Set it once, Recallection fires every year on its own.
   • Clean up the Message if the calendar app stuffed extra metadata in (event ID, "Created by …", "View on Google Calendar"). The label is what recipients see first; trim the body to what you actually want them to read.
   • Pick recipient + channel, then tap Schedule.

If Recallection isn't in the Share sheet: the PWA install didn't register a Share Target. Reinstall from Chrome's ⋮ menu → Install app (not "Add to Home screen" — that's a shortcut, not an install). Restart the phone if it still doesn't appear; Android sometimes caches the Share Target registry until reboot.

💻 Computer — bookmarklet (Google Calendar / Outlook Web)

1. Show your browser's bookmarks bar (Cmd+Shift+B on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+B on Windows).
2. Drag the 📌 Recallection this event button (in the app under Check-ins → ⌄ More ways → Computer) to the bookmarks bar. Clicking it directly does nothing — bookmarklets only run from a saved bookmark.
3. Open any calendar event in Google Calendar or Outlook Web. With the event detail view open, click the bookmark in your bar.
4. The bookmarklet prompts you for a title (your selected text or the page title is pre-filled — edit if needed) and a date/time in YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM format. Leave the date blank to schedule for "now."
5. Recallection opens in a new tab pre-filled. Pick recipient + channel + Repeat, tap Schedule.

What auto-fills: whatever you type into the two prompts — the bookmarklet does not read the event off the page. Google / Outlook lock the event's structured data behind OAuth, so it asks you instead. The upside: it works on every web calendar, every email with a date in it, even a plain blog post. For birthdays, set Repeat to Yearly in the modal once.

🔗 Automate it — let another app create check-ins for you

What this does: lets another app schedule check-ins for you automatically, without you opening Recallection each time. If you use a service that connects your apps together — Zapier, Make, or IFTTT — or anything that can open a web link, point it at the check-in URL and it'll create the check-in for you. For example: "whenever a new event is added to my work calendar, automatically schedule a check-in." If those tools aren't already part of your routine, you can skip this — the calendar methods above cover most people.

Grab the raw URL format from the app (Check-ins → ⌄ More ways → Automate it, the Copy button), then fill in the parameters:

• All params optional except new-checkin.
• title seeds the Message (and the Label).
• when is an ISO datetime (2026-06-15T14:00) — this is the part that makes the date + time auto-fill.
• channel is sms|voice|email.
• recur is once|daily|weekday|weekly|biweekly|monthly|yearly (use yearly for birthdays + anniversaries so the reminder fires every year on its own).
• recipient matches by email or US phone (last 10 digits).
• URL-encode the title if it might contain &, #, or +.

Android, hands-free (auto date + time): the Share-sheet method can't pass a date, but any automation that builds this URL can. Point a Tasker HTTP-Request task, an IFTTT/Zapier/Make "new calendar event" trigger, or a Google Apps Script at it and map the event's title → title and start time (formatted as ISO) → when. Have the automation open the resulting URL (Tasker: "Browse URL"; Zapier/Make: a "Webhooks → GET" or an Android-app open-URL step). Recallection then opens fully pre-filled — title, date, and time — just like the iPhone Shortcut.

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