Reminders aren't alerting me
Almost always notification permission, a Focus, or a reminder that got switched off.
Three things cause nearly every case of a reminder that does not alert. Work down them in order.
1. Notification permission
Notel asks for notification permission when you create your first reminder. If reminders already exist when Notel starts, it checks permission then too. If permission was denied, macOS blocks the banners.
Open System Settings → Notifications, find Notel under Application Notifications, and make sure Allow notifications is on. Leave sound on there too if you want the banner to make a noise.
2. Focus modes
A Focus (Do Not Disturb, Work, Sleep) holds back banners from apps that are not on its allow list. Add Notel in System Settings → Focus → your Focus → Allowed apps if you want its banners through.
This one only ever explains a missing banner. The note itself still returns to your desktop when the reminder fires, and Notel’s own reminder sound still plays, because neither goes through macOS notifications. When Notel is frontmost, it deliberately uses that in-app alert without also showing a system banner.
3. The reminder is switched off (or only muted)
Open the note’s Reminders panel and read the row carefully, because two controls there look similar and do very different things.
The switch turns that reminder off. An off reminder does nothing at all: no banner, no sound, no note coming back. The speaker button beside it only mutes the sound; that reminder still fires and the note still returns, it just arrives quietly. Further right again, an ✕ appears when your cursor is over the row, and that one deletes the reminder for good.
The bell at the top of the panel silences the lot. Hover it and the tooltip reads Silence All, or Unsilence All if you have already used it. Despite the name it is not a mute: it switches every reminder in the note off. If you once pressed it to quiet a noisy note, that is very likely why nothing has fired since. Press it again to switch them all back on.
There is no snooze button on a Notel notification. Tapping it opens the note. To be reminded again later, give the reminder a new time, or add a fresh one if it was a one-off that has already gone.
The note comes back anyway
When a reminder fires, the note itself returns to your desktop with a pulse, even if the banner was blocked. So a note that appears out of nowhere is usually a reminder you had forgotten about. Do not go hunting for the pill to prove it, though: a one-off reminder is removed the moment it fires, pill included. Repeating ones stay put.
Still nothing?
Confirm the reminder pill shows the time you meant (click it to edit). Sleep is not the culprit: Notel catches up when your Mac wakes and fires anything that fell due while it was out. If a reminder seems genuinely lost, tell us on Discord with roughly when you set it.