Wishing someone a happy birthday takes little effort on your part, but it instantly makes your friends and family feel valued and cared for.
But if your brain can’t handle another big date, your ever-faithful smartphone offers plenty of ways to stay on top of birthdays and other special occasions. Be sure to use at least one of these approaches to avoid missing someone’s big day.
Checking your social media accounts is a good way to keep up with birthdays. In the Facebook app, tap you profile picture (top right), then the magnifying glass iconand search for birthdays. Tap the top result to see a list of your friend’s recent and upcoming birthdays.
[Related: How to set phone reminders for anything]
Snapchat displays a cake icon next to your contacts in the main chat list when they have a birthday. Swipe left from the camera screen to see it. You can also tap a friend’s avatar to go to their profile page. If it’s their big day, you’ll see one It’s their birthday! graphic. Unfortunately, you cannot look up dates of birth in advance.
Other social networks are less helpful. Twitter displays people’s dates of birth on their profile pages, but only if they’ve provided the information. There’s also no list or notification to use: to find out if it’s someone’s birthday, you’ll have to visit their page to find out. Instagram is even less helpful and doesn’t display birthdays at all, so you’re out of luck. Unless someone specifically puts their date of birth in their bio or uploads a “happy birthday to me” post that catches your eye.
Android and iOS features that help you remember birthdays
Google has added a birthday feature to it Contacts app, which is built into Pixel phones and available for devices from other manufacturers. Open the app, tap Highlights, and you’ll see recent and upcoming birthdays for your contacts. Using the same panel, you can set up a notification for one of these birthdays, or send a message to someone who is celebrating another year of life.
Of course, Google isn’t betting on this – this feature relies on the information provided by your contacts. To add birthday information yourself, you can open a contact page, tap the pen icon (top right), then tap Significant date. Enter the date of birth and make sure it is a Birthday label below. Similarly, you can also save dates such as birthdays. In the main Highlights menu, the app may also prompt you to more easily add birthdays to your contacts. If you see the message Add birthdaystap it, then tap the birthday cake icons you see next to each of your contacts.
The entries in the iOS Contacts app also have a birthday field for you to fill out. On a contact page, tap Edit and then tap add birthday to enter the date. The iOS Contacts app doesn’t remind you of birthdays, but the iOS Calendar app does, which brings us neatly to…
Use calendar apps to remember birthdays
Open the Calendar app on iOS, tap Calendarsand then check the Birthdays input to see all birthdays of contacts who have this information with them. From iOS Settings, go to Calendar, Default warning timesAnd Birthdaysand you can choose if and when you want to receive notifications about birthdays, as well as see them in the Calendar app.
Google Calendar offers similar integration with Google Contacts. In Google Calendar, tap the three horizontal lines (top left) and make sure the Birthdays calendar is checked (tap Show more if you can’t see it). There is no way to manage notifications for these events in Google Calendar, as these notifications are handled in Google Contacts.
There’s nothing stopping you from creating your own birthday calendars in the iOS or Android Calendar apps, giving you a little more control over formatting (such as colors) and setting different notifications for each birthday. But you have to maintain them manually, which can involve a lot more work than you’re willing to put in. The same goes for any other third-party calendar app you might be using.
Other apps to help you remember birthdays
There are quite a few third-party apps dedicated to helping you remember birthdays. The aptly named Birthday reminder and countdown for iOS is free, but you can also pay $2 per year to remove ads. In addition to notifying someone’s birthday, it can count down the days and tell you how old everyone is. You can enter birthday details manually or import directly from the iOS Contacts app.
[Related: Little kids think birthday parties actually make you get older]
More than on Android, we like that Birday, which is open source, but also easy and completely free to use. You can enter birthday data manually or import it from Google Contacts, and the app can track everyone’s age, count down to specific birthdays, and also show you all your friends’ and family’s special days on a yearly planner.
Countdown+ Widgets (for Android And iOS) emphasizes the countdown to birthdays or other events you are interested in. You can import data from your phone’s calendars or from Facebook, customize countdowns in many ways, and view all upcoming events in a simple list. You can also remove ads after paying a one-time fee of $2, which also allows you to back up your data and get even more customization options.
