Support

This page covers: Getting started, Mail, Tasks, Quick add and typing shortcuts, Notes, Meeting notes, Calendar, Today, search and quick entry, Settings, permissions and notifications, Sync, backup and offline, Apple Intelligence, Keyboard shortcuts and Troubleshooting, followed by Common Questions and how to contact us.
 
 
01  Getting started
Flow brings Gmail, tasks, notes and your calendar into one app for Mac, iPhone and iPad. It needs macOS 26 or later on Mac and iOS or iPadOS 17 or later on iPhone and iPad. Apple Intelligence features, alarms and a few other features need macOS 26 or iOS 26, and Apple Intelligence also needs a supported device.
 
Mail: open Settings and choose Account, then Sign in with Google. On Mac, Settings opens from your avatar at the bottom of the sidebar. On iPhone and iPad, tap the gear on the Today screen. Flow connects one Gmail account at a time and asks Google for permission to read and manage your mail.
 
Calendar: Flow reads and writes events through the calendar accounts on your device. Add your Google, iCloud or Exchange account in the system Calendar settings (System Settings on Mac, Settings > Calendar > Accounts on iPhone and iPad), then allow Flow to access Calendar when it asks. Google Calendar events appear in Flow once your Google account is added there.
 
Reminders: if you allow access to Reminders, Flow imports your Apple Reminders once as ordinary Flow tasks. See Tasks below.
 
 
02  Mail
Checking for mail. Flow checks Gmail every 30 seconds while it is open, and on Mac also when you open the app or wake the Mac. On iPhone and iPad pull down to refresh; on Mac use the Refresh Mail button in the title bar. Flow keeps recent mail on your device: up to about 500 messages each in Inbox, Starred, Archive and Deleted, and fewer in Sent, Spam and each label. Older mail stays in Gmail, and search only covers mail already on your device.
 
Views and search. The filter bar has Inbox, Unread, Flagged and Attachments, and the menu adds Sent, Archive, Junk, Deleted and Tags (Snoozed and Scheduled too on Mac). Flag is Gmail's star. On Mac the Inbox groups mail into Flagged, Today, Yesterday and Older. Search matches the sender, subject, preview, message text and attachment names, in every folder including Archive and Deleted.
 
Actions. On Mac, use the reading pane toolbar or right-click a message: Archive, Delete, Flag, Mark as Read or Unread, Mark as Spam, Tag, Snooze, Create Task, Create Event and Create Note. With a trackpad, swipe two fingers right for Archive and Flag or left for Read or Unread and Delete; a long swipe archives or deletes. On iPhone and iPad, swipe right for Archive and Flag, swipe left for Delete and Read or Unread, and press and hold a message for more. Archive, Delete and Spam show a 10-second Undo banner on Mac and happen immediately on iPhone and iPad. Settings > Mail > After Archive, Delete, or Spam chooses whether you return to the list or move to the next message.
 
Tags. Tags are Gmail labels. Choose Tag in the reading pane toolbar (in the More menu on iPhone), type to search, or type a new name to create the label in Gmail. In Settings > Tags you can hide a label's pill in Flow without changing Gmail.
 
Snooze (Mac). Right-click a message, choose Snooze, then Later Today, This Evening, Tomorrow, This Weekend or Next Week. The message leaves your inbox in Flow and comes back as unread when the time passes, with no notification. Snooze only exists in Flow; Gmail does not know about it.
 
Writing. On Mac, use the round + button (it shows when no message is open) or Write Email in the menu bar. Reply is Command-R, Reply All is Shift-Command-R, Forward is Shift-Command-F, and Command-Return sends. Cc and Bcc appear when you click their buttons, and the paperclip attaches files. On iPhone and iPad, tap the compose button; you can attach files or up to 10 photos, and a draft is saved automatically while you type. Attachments can total about 18 MB.
 
Undo send. Every message waits ten seconds before it is sent. Tap Undo during that time and it reopens exactly as you wrote it. Keep Flow open for those ten seconds.
 
Send later. On Mac, click the arrow on the Send button (press and hold the send button in a reply) and choose Later Today, This Evening, Tomorrow, This Weekend, Next Week or Pick Date and Time. Scheduled messages appear in the Scheduled view, where you can cancel them. On iPhone and iPad, press and hold Send for options such as Tomorrow Morning; you get a short Undo but no list to review or cancel afterwards. Flow sends scheduled mail itself, so the app has to be running at that time. If a scheduled message cannot be sent you get a Scheduled Message Not Sent notification and Flow does not retry.
 
Remind me if no reply. On Mac, the new message window has a Remind if no reply switch (in 2 days, 3 days, 1 week or 2 weeks; the default is 2 days). On Mac and iPhone, Flow also adds a 3-day reminder to any message you send that contains a question mark. If nobody replies in time, the sent thread moves to the top of its list with an orange bell and a No reply received note. There is no notification, and reminders stay on that device.
 
Mail to tasks, events and notes. Create Task makes a task titled with the subject and linked to the email. Create Event starts a new event from the earliest date found in the message. Create Note (Mac only) makes a note in Inbox titled with the subject, linked to the email.
 
Mail notifications. While Flow is running, a banner with the sender and subject appears for new unread Inbox mail. There is no alert for mail older than six hours or for spam, deleted, archived or sent mail, and more than 20 new messages at once become a single summary. Tap an alert to open the message. On iPhone, Flow also checks in the background, but not more often than about every 15 minutes, so alerts can arrive late when the app is closed. Settings > General > App Icon Badge chooses what the badge counts.
 
What Mail does not do. Flow connects one Gmail account. It does not support Outlook, iCloud Mail or other IMAP accounts, and it has no signatures or mail rules.
 
 
03  Tasks
Views. Inbox holds new tasks. Today shows flagged tasks plus anything whose start date is today or earlier. Upcoming shows every task with a date, with a strip for the next seven days (click a day to filter, click it again to clear). Anytime shows tasks with no date. Completed tasks are hidden, except inside Projects, and completed tasks are removed after about 30 days.
 
Lists. The + in the sidebar creates a Project, List, Smart List or Area. A Project shows a progress ring, keeps finished tasks at the bottom and can show a Gantt view. A List is a plain group. A Smart List collects tasks by tags, priority, flagged or list. Areas group lists. Drag a list onto another to nest it one level. Deleting a list moves its tasks to Inbox, and deleting an Area ungroups its lists.
 
Task details. Each task can have a priority (None, Low, Medium or High), a flag, tags, notes, subtasks, a Start Date, a Deadline and Hide Until Due. The date picker calls the main date Start Date, and some menus call it Due Date. A task is overdue when its deadline has passed, or its start date if it has no deadline. Hide Until Due keeps the task out of Today until its start date.
 
Repeating tasks. Choose Repeat in the date picker: every day, week, 2 weeks, month, 3 months, 6 months or year, or Custom (interval, weekdays, day of month or an Nth weekday, and Never, On Date or After N occurrences). Custom can repeat from the start date, the deadline or when you finish the task. Completing a repeating task moves it to the next date and unchecks its subtasks. Changing the date of a repeating task asks This To-Do Only or This and Following To-Dos, and Skip This Occurrence is in the task menu.
 
Reminders and alarms. A task notifies at its start date and time, and you can add an Early Reminder (1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or a date) and a deadline reminder. Tasks with only a date notify at 7 AM. Notifications let you Complete the task or snooze it for 15 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours or until tomorrow at 9. Urgent repeats the notification every 10 minutes, up to 12 times, and on iOS 26 also sets an alarm that rings through Silent mode and Focus. On iPhone and iPad you can also set a location and turn on Remind me at location (Arriving or Leaving, 100 meters, once); that needs Location set to Always.
 
Sorting and filtering. Sort by Manual, Alphabetical, By Date, By Deadline, By Priority, By Tag, By List, By Flagged or By Date Added; each list remembers its sort. Dragging a task in any other sort switches that list to Manual. Mac can filter by priority, tag, list, flagged and deadline and show a Board view; iPhone and iPad can filter by tag, has due date, has deadline and flagged.
 
Moving tasks around. On Mac, drag a task between rows to reorder, onto the middle of another task to make it a subtask, onto a sidebar list to move it, onto Today to set it for today, or onto a day in the Upcoming strip to reschedule it. On iPhone, swipe right for Today, Tomorrow and Flag, and swipe left for Delete, Done and More.
 
Apple Reminders. Once you allow access, Flow imports each reminder one time (open reminders plus those finished in the last 14 days) with its title, list, date, priority, notes, location and repeat. Tags, flags and subtasks are not brought over. After that the two are separate: edits in either app do not sync. The exceptions are that completing a task in Flow completes the reminder, and deleting a task in Flow deletes the reminder.
 
Tasks from email and notes. Create Task in Mail makes a task linked to the email. In Notes, the checklist icon creates a task linked to that note, shown under the note title. In a meeting note, Create Tasks turns each unchecked item into a task. Flow does not offer shared or collaborative lists.
 
 
04  Quick add and typing shortcuts
Where. Use the + in Tasks, Command-N on Mac, the menu bar item on Mac, or the Quick Add sheet on iPhone and iPad. Flow shows what it understood as chips before you save, and anything you pick by hand beats what it guessed.
 
Dates and times. Try tomorrow, tmr, friday, next friday, 3pm, at 230, half past 3, noon, in 3 days, in a couple weeks, this weekend, the 15th, first of the month, second tuesday of next month and tonight. eod, eow, eom and eoy mean 5 PM at the end of the day, week (Friday), month or year.
 
Deadline, start and hide until. by friday, due friday and deadline friday set the Deadline. start friday sets the Start Date. defer until monday (also deferred to and don't show until) hides the task until then.
 
Tag, list, priority and flag. #family adds a tag (only the first one counts, and no spaces). ~Groceries puts it in a list and creates the list if it does not exist. !high, !medium, !low and !none set priority; p1 is Low, p2 Medium and p3 High; asap means High. !flag, a flag emoji or ending with flagged flags it.
 
Repeat. every day, every week, every other month, every 2 weeks, every 3 months, every weekday, every mon and wed, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, biweekly, quarterly and twice a year all work. Other intervals such as every 3 weeks are not recognized.
 
Reminder, location, notes. remind me 30 minutes before, alert 1 hour before and remind me the day before set an Early Reminder (the task needs a date). at Starbucks or @ the office fills the location. notes: followed by text fills the notes. waiting on adds a #waiting tag. someday or no date removes any date it found.
 
What is ignored. Durations such as for 2 hours and repeat end clauses such as until dec 31 are understood but not saved on tasks; they only apply to events.
 
 
05  Notes
Storage. Every note is a Markdown (.md) file whose name is the note title (characters that are not allowed in file names become dashes). With iCloud Drive turned on for Flow, notes are stored in Flow's iCloud folder and sync between your devices. On a Mac that folder is ~/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~flowapp~FlowNative/Documents/Notes. It also appears as a Flow folder in iCloud Drive, in Finder and in the Files app. Without iCloud, notes stay on the device (on Mac in ~/Library/Application Support/FlowApp/Notes). Folders are real folders and can nest as deep as you like.
 
Other apps. Flow's own formatting (colors, highlights, underline, toggles, tables, images) is saved with special markup, so another app shows it as plain text. Flow notices changes made to note files in iCloud, but the note you have open in Flow takes priority. If two devices change the same note, the most recent save wins.
 
Organizing. Inbox, Daily Notes and Meetings are built in. On Mac, the + beside Folders adds a folder, and right-click a folder to add a subfolder, change its icon or color, rename it or delete it. On iPhone and iPad, use the Folder Options menu. Drag a folder onto another to nest it. Deleting a folder moves its notes to Inbox. Pin a note (right-click on Mac, press and hold on iPhone) to keep it at the top of its folder. Sort by Manual, Date Modified, Title (A to Z or Z to A) or By Tag. Add tags with the tag icon in the editor.
 
Writing. Type - and a space for a bullet, - [ ] for a checkbox, > for a quote, # then a space for a heading (up to three levels), --- then Return for a divider, and 1. for a numbered list, which continues and renumbers itself. **bold**, *italic* and [[Note title]] convert when you type the closing marker. Tab and Shift-Tab indent and outdent list lines, and Return on an empty list line ends the list. On Mac, type / at the start of a line for a menu (Header, Subheader, Body, Bullet List, Numbered List, Toggle List, Checklist, Callout, Quote, Table, Divider, Backlink, Image, Attach File), or select text for a floating bar with bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, headings, colors, lists and links. On iPhone and iPad the bar above the keyboard has the same tools plus Attach and Alignment.
 
Links and attachments. Type [[ to link to another note, and a Linked Mentions section at the bottom of a note lists the notes that link to it. Renaming a note updates links to it in your other notes. Attach images and files from the slash menu on Mac, or the Attach button on iPhone and iPad (Photo Library, Draw or Attach File). Attachments are stored with Flow, not inside the Notes folder.
 
Tasks, export and undo. The checklist icon creates a task linked to the note and shows it under the title. A - [ ] checkbox line in an ordinary note does not become a task by itself. Export a note as PDF or Word from the export button, right-click menu or the ... menu. Deleting a note shows a 10-second Undo banner.