Receive an alert when one of your contacts is about to have a special day

Google Contacts will now allow users to get a reminder and notification for all saved dates related to a person whose name you've saved in the Contacts app. Earlier this year Google allowed users to receive a notification for a contact's birthday. Now, you can be notified when a date of significance other than a birthday is approaching or is here for anyone on your Contacts list.

To set this up, open the Phone app on your Android handset and tap on the Contacts tab at the bottom of the display. Select the name of the contact with a date you wish to be notified about. Next, tap on the three-dot overflow menu icon in the top right corner of the display and choose Reminders. If you're making a new reminder, press the blue pill-shaped button that says "New reminder."

By default, the Birthday label shows up. But to be notified about another type of event, tab on the box marked "Label." You will then see three options: Birthday, Anniversary, and Custom. Let's say you want to save the date when you need to turn in a story about the iPhone 15 Pro Max (assuming that you're a writer for a phone blog). So you tap on "Custom" and label the notification "iPhone 15 Pro Max Story." Next, you select the date when the story is due.

Besides being reminded with an in-app notification, you can also get a phone notification by choosing to receive one on the day of the event, two days before, seven days before, or two weeks before. Yearly reminders for custom dates will appear only if notifications are added. Keep in mind that once you create a birthday, anniversary, or custom event notification, a reminder for the event is also created in Google Calendar.

The new feature appears for those running version 4.20 of Google Contacts for Android. To see what version of Google Contacts you're presently running, go to Settings > Apps  and scroll down to Contacts. Tap on Contacts and scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see the version number right there. My Pixel 6 Pro running Android 14 QPR2 Beta 1.1 is indeed loaded with version 4.20 of Google Contacts and I do have the feature on my phone.