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Smart Calc and reminder suggestions

Getting started Updated 27 July 2026

Smart Calc and reminder suggestions both watch what you type and offer to finish the line. Either can be switched off in Settings → General → Smart Features.

Smart Calc

Write math in a note and the answer appears as faint ghost text at the end of the line:

  • Plain arithmetic: 7 * 7 = or just 120 / 4.
  • Named values and totals: write hotel = 200, dinner = 85, then Total = on its own line and Notel sums what came before.
  • Percentages: 15% of 200 works, as does adding + 10% to a line.
  • Currency: $200 + $49 keeps the symbol, and Notel respects how your locale writes it.

Accept a result by clicking the ghost or pressing Tab, Return, or the right arrow. Press Esc to dismiss it for that line. Accepted results stay live: change an input above and the total updates.

Dates and phone numbers are deliberately ignored, so 2024-01-01 never becomes math.

Type /smartcalc for an Item = 0 template with a Total line included.

Reminder suggestions

Type a time in a note and a small ghost appears at the end of the line: “dinner with Anna tomorrow 7pm”. Press Return and the line itself becomes the reminder: your sentence is swapped for a capsule reading 🔔 Tomorrow · 7:00 PM · dinner with Anna, tinted from the note’s own paper and ink rather than a fixed accent color. Hover it to see when it will fire, and delete the reminder to get your original sentence back. Click the ghost instead to adjust before saving, or press Esc to dismiss.

Notel understands phrases like tomorrow, tonight, next week, clock times like 5:30 or 3pm, and repeats like every monday, daily, or weekdays. Repeats can run by minutes, hours, days, or chosen weekdays. Monthly schedules are not supported yet; a monthly phrase is left alone.

Managing reminders

Every note has a Reminders panel (the bell in the note settings panel, or /remind). There you can edit times, delete reminders, mute one reminder with the speaker button on its row (it still fires, just quietly), and switch a reminder off with the toggle beside it. The bell at the top of the panel is Silence All, and it is the blunt one: it switches every reminder in the note off, so none of them fire at all until you turn them back on. When a reminder fires, the note returns to your desktop with a pulse, and clicking the notification opens it. There is no snooze; change the reminder’s time instead.

If reminders never alert you at all, that is nearly always a macOS permission: see Reminders aren’t alerting me.

Still need help?

Email [email protected] or hop into the Notel Discord and the community and the team are happy to help.