Typically, a person is reminded of the meeting or task via a pop-up window. However, there can be a number of causes for reminder issues, as indicated by some of our readers. Issues such as reminders still appearing even after being dismissed, reminders continuing to appear for cancelled or deleted items, and appearing late or not at all. Follow along below as the San Diego User Group and I address a number of those causes.

The following readers have written in with various reminder issues that can be addressed by the information contained in this article.

David Fickbohm has a problem with reminders not appearing, even when they haven't been dismissed:

I'm hoping you know of a way to cause Outlook reminders to keep popping up until they're dismissed. I currently have a program that's set to run on the 11th of each month, but I need to change some dates each month before it runs. I use a reminder to remind me to make the changes and run the job. Unfortunately, last month the 11th was on a Saturday, and the reminder wasn't active until on Monday morning the 13th. So I forgot to run the job until the user asked for it, three days after it was due.

Darlene Moberly's issue is with reminders appearing late:

Some, but not all, of my Calendar reminders are not coming up properly. Sometimes my reminders pop up several hours, or even a day late. I've found that if I close down Outlook and reopen it, my reminders will suddenly pop up, most of them late.

Vig Suntharam has multiple reminders appearing for past or deleted items:

One of our work machines runs with Outlook 2003 as Exchange client. Every time the user opens Outlook hundreds of reminders are popping up. Is there is any way to fix this issue?

Madeline Balmaceda is receiving reminders for past appointments:

My Outlook Calendar reminders aren't working properly. They're giving reminders for past appointments or won't dismiss. Please help!

Sheila Marella's reminders won't dismiss and are appearing late:

Please advise...my reoccurring pop-up reminders keep popping up. Even if I hit "Dismiss" the pop-ups keep reminding me. Also, it won't remind me at the designated time, it pops up the next day or the day after.

To begin with, the Outlook program itself controls reminders, and must be running in order to receive those reminders. Make sure your Outlook program is running in order to receive reminders. Also, for a reminder to appear or activate on a reoccurring basis, the associated appointment or tasks would need to be setup as reoccurring.