Changelog
What's changed
Every release, and the reasoning behind it. Latr updates itself — there is nothing for you to install.
-
The tab comes back on its own
Until now a reminder arrived as a notification, and the page came back when you clicked it. That is fine when you are at the machine and looking. It is not fine the rest of the time — and the rest of the time is most of it. A notification you never saw was a reminder that did nothing, and Latr’s whole pitch is that you do not have to be the one keeping track.
From 1.4.0 the tab comes back by itself.
1. The page reopens, whether or not you catch the notification
- What it is: When the moment arrives, Latr opens the page — quietly, in a background tab — and shows the notification as well.
- How it works: The tab opens without taking you away from whatever you are doing. You find out the usual way: the notification, and the count on the toolbar icon. The page is simply already there when you go looking, opened at the spot you stopped reading, exactly as clicking the notification has always done.
- Why it helps: “Close the tab, it comes back” was true only if you were watching. Now it is true.
2. You decide how much it interrupts
- What it is: When the moment arrives, the first setting in Notifications.
- How it works: Three choices. Open the tab quietly, and notify me — the new default. Open the tab and switch to it, for the reminders you want to be pulled into. Only notify me — I’ll open it myself, which is exactly how Latr behaved before this release, for anyone who preferred it.
- Why it helps: How much a reminder should interrupt you is a question only you can answer, and it is not the same answer for everybody.
3. A reopened tab is no longer filed as missed
- What it is: Recent activity, and the “you missed some reminders” banner, now tell the truth about a reminder whose tab came back.
- How it works: A reminder only counts as missed if nothing reached you — or if it fired late, because the browser was shut when it was due, which is still worth saying out loud. If the page reopened, it reached you, even in the case where the notification itself failed.
- Why it helps: Being told you missed something that is open in front of you is the product being wrong about its own work.
4. Twelve tabs do not arrive at once
- What it is: Reminders that come due together are spread out instead of opening as one wall of tabs.
- How it works: Five tabs reopen at a time. Anything else due in that moment waits a few minutes and comes back on the next pass, then the next, until the queue has drained — so a Friday afternoon’s worth of tabs snoozed to Monday morning arrives over a few minutes rather than all at nine o’clock. Nothing is skipped and nothing is lost; a reminder that waited is not marked missed for waiting.
- Why it helps: Getting the whole pile back at once is the thing you were trying to escape by snoozing it.
5. Two clicks to file the tab you are on
- What it is: The times you use most are on the popup itself now, above the queue.
- How it works: Open Latr and the four one-tap times are right there under the page you are on — the same times the full form offers, including any you have set up yourself. One click files the tab and closes the popup. The form is still one click away when you want a note, a tag or a repeat.
- Why it helps: Filing the page you are on used to mean opening the form even when you knew exactly when you wanted it back.
Notes: this changes behaviour on update rather than only on a fresh install, which is deliberate — the old behaviour was the reminder being conditional, and leaving existing installs on it would mean the people who have been using Latr longest are the ones it keeps failing. Nothing opens while you are asleep: quiet hours still hold the whole delivery, tab and notification together. Reminders that are paused, and early warnings, are unchanged — an early warning is a heads-up about something that has not happened yet, so it has no tab to bring back.
-
The keyboard shortcut can ask you when
Alt+Shift+Ysaves the tab you are on at your default time and opens nothing — that is the whole point of it, and it has not changed. What is new is that you can now tell it to ask instead, for the times when “an hour from now” is not the answer.1. One switch decides what the key does
- What it is: Ask for a time when I use the keyboard shortcut, in Settings under Ways to save a reminder, directly beside the row describing the key.
- How it works: Off — the default, and what every install does today — the shortcut saves straight away at your default time and nothing appears but the confirmation. On, the same key opens Latr with the reminder form already up and the cursor in the When field, so you can type tomorrow 9am or next tuesday 5pm and press Enter.
- Why it helps: The fastest way to save a tab and the only way to say when it should come back were two different gestures, and which one you want depends on the tab rather than on you. Now the key is whichever of the two you use more.
2. It is the same form, resolving the same defaults
- What it is: No second composer, no second set of rules.
- How it works: The shortcut hands the save to the popup you already know: your defaults, your site rules and your templates apply in exactly the same order, the page title and the page you are on are already filled in, and everything the form offers — tags, folders, repeats, early warning, the calendar handoff — is there because it is the same form.
- Why it helps: A shortcut with its own private idea of what a reminder starts as is a second product to learn, and a second place for the two to disagree.
3. It never costs you the reminder
- What it is: The shortcut still saves, even where the browser will not let an extension open its own window.
- How it works: Opening the popup from a keypress needs Chrome 127 or Firefox 118. On anything older — or in the moment when there is no focused window to open it in — the key does what it has always done and saves at your default time, rather than appearing to do nothing at all.
- Why it helps: A keystroke that silently fails is worse than one that saves a reminder you can still edit afterwards.
Notes: the switch is off on update, so nothing about your
Alt+Shift+Ychanges unless you go and change it. The right-click menu and theremaddress-bar keyword are untouched either way — both of those already have somewhere to put a time. The tip in the popup footer and the description on the settings card both follow the switch, so neither ever describes a key that behaves differently. -
Latr now calls itself what it is
Nothing about how a reminder behaves has changed in this release. What changed is the words — the name in your extensions list, the line under it in the store, and one sentence Latr says to you after it has worked a few times. All three were saying something slightly beside the point, and all three are in every one of the nine languages Latr ships in.
1. The name says what the product does
- What it is: Latr is now listed as Latr — Tab reminder: remind me about this tab, in place of Latr — Remind me about this page.
- How it works: The name comes from the same translated catalogue the rest of the interface does, so it is the tab wording in every language — an diesen Tab erinnern, me rappeler cet onglet, напомнить об этой вкладке — and each one is word for word the extension’s own right-click menu item. The interface still says “Latr” everywhere; only the listed name is longer.
- Why it helps: People look for this by describing the job — tab reminder, snooze a tab, remind me about this tab — and the old name matched almost none of it. Naming the thing you came looking for is the difference between being found and being scrolled past.
2. The description leads on the job, not the mechanism
- What it is: The one-line description is now “Snooze a tab for later. One keystroke sets a reminder, and Latr reopens that exact page where you left off. Free, no account.”
- How it works: Same catalogue, same nine languages, each written in that language’s own words rather than translated clause by clause from English.
- Why it helps: It answers the two questions people actually have before installing anything — what does it cost, and do I have to sign up — and it spends its last words on the part nothing else does: you come back to the place on the page, not the top of it.
3. The review prompt asks for a review, not a compliment
- What it is: After Latr has got you to a few things on time, it asks once whether you would leave a review. That prompt used to end “Worth 20 seconds to say so?”. It now reads “Worth 20 seconds to review it?”
- How it works: Everything else about it is unchanged: it appears only after a reminder has actually fired and you have clicked it, it is dismissible, and saying no means you are never asked again.
- Why it helps: Say so asks you to agree with the nice thing the sentence just said, which is not a fair question and is not the one we meant. Asking for a review and leaving the verdict entirely to you is the honest version, and it is the only version the stores permit.
Notes: this is a strings-only release. No permission, setting, stored reminder or notification behaviour is touched, and nothing needs to be re-saved or re-imported. Updating changes the name shown at
chrome://extensions— that is expected, and the toolbar and popup still read simply “Latr”. -
Latr looks like the product it is
Nothing about when a reminder fires changed here. What changed is everything you look at while setting one: the colours, the edges between surfaces, and the two screens — the queue and the calendar — that had quietly turned into spreadsheets.
1. One palette, and it is the one on latr.page
- What it is: Warm paper, near-black ink, and a single amber that means a moment is arriving. The indigo is gone.
- How it works: Every colour in the interface is now measured rather than described — the contrast of each pair is checked on every surface it can land on, in both light and dark, by the same test suite that checks the code. The “fires within the hour” badge used to be the least readable text in Latr while marking its most urgent state; it is now six times easier to read.
- Why it helps: Latr was cool grey and indigo, the site selling it was warm paper and amber, and the icon on your toolbar was neither. One product should not have three opinions about what it looks like.
2. Edges you can actually see, and a dark mode built like one
- What it is: Borders, panels, menus and text fields that are visible in both themes.
- How it works: Dark mode is now four steps of surface rather than three, with the page darker than the panels and a text field recessed below the page, so a field looks like something you can type into without needing a bright ring around it. Every border is held to a floor measured against all four surfaces — including the lightest one, the pop-up menu, which nothing had ever checked.
- Why it helps: “The borders aren’t properly visible” was a real report with a real cause: in light mode the divider between things sat barely above the background. Menus and the command palette had the same problem in dark mode, in reverse.
3. The queue is a list again, and the calendar is a month
- What it is: Reminder rows without hairlines between them, titles that fit, priority written as a word, and a calendar drawn as one panel.
- How it works: A row’s title had 131 pixels while the buttons next to it had 139, which is why reminders truncated mid-word regardless of how short you named them; the countdown keeps the top corner and the row’s controls move to the line below. Priority was three ascending bars whose meaning was only reachable by hovering — it now says High, Critical or Low. The month was 42 individually outlined boxes; it is one grid with shared lines, today marks the date rather than ringing the whole cell, and reminders inside a day are a dot and a line of text rather than a filled bar.
- Why it helps: A list of things is not a table, and a week with three reminders in it should not look like a bar chart of how busy each day was.
4. Latr asks once whether you would review it
- What it is: A single prompt in the popup, after Latr has actually got you to three things on time.
- How it works: It counts notifications you clicked — a reminder that fired into an empty room proves nothing. It appears once, both answers dismiss it permanently, and it never appears at all on an install that came from no store we publish to.
- Why it helps: Ratings are the one thing that decides whether people find an extension, and they cannot be written by us. Asking after the product has demonstrably worked is the only version of that question worth asking.
Notes: Pro’s marker is amber rather than blue, and a locked feature is no longer greyed out — dimming the thing somebody would be paying for made the paid tier the least readable text on the page. Custom themes now colour their own text fields, which they never did. And the last step of the welcome tour opens the popup before it closes itself, instead of just closing a tab.
-
A reminder comes back to where you were
A tab is three things: a page, an intention, and a place on that page. Latr already replaced the first two. This release is the third — and it needs no new permission to do it.
1. Reopens Where You Were on the Page
- What it is: A reminder returns you to the line you were reading, instead of the top of the page.
- How it works: When you save, Latr notes the text at the top of your screen. When the reminder opens, the browser scrolls straight back to it and highlights it. Saving from the top of a page stores nothing, because there is nothing to come back to.
- Why it helps: Losing your place is the reason a long article, a docs page or a half-read thread stays open in a tab for a week. Saving it no longer costs you the place.
2. It works everywhere you save, and everywhere you open
- What it is: One behaviour across every gesture, rather than a feature that only works from the toolbar.
- How it works: All four ways of saving record it — the toolbar popup,
Alt+Shift+Y, the right-click menu and theremaddress-bar keyword — and every way of reopening applies it: clicking the notification, the row menu, the command palette and the calendar. - Why it helps: A feature that works from one place and not the others reads as broken rather than as partial.
3. Nothing new leaves your device
- What it is: The same privacy position as every other release.
- How it works: The remembered line is stored with the reminder in your own browser. Reopening uses a standard browser link that scrolls to text — your browser does the scrolling, so Latr never needs permission to read or change the pages you save. It is a setting, under Appearance → Where you were, and you can switch it off.
- Why it helps: “Your reminders never leave your device” and “a free install makes no network requests” are both still literally true.
Notes: scroll-to-text is a Chromium and Safari feature, so on Firefox a reminder opens the way it always has. If a page has changed since you saved it, or renders its text late, the reminder simply opens at the top — it is never worse off for having tried.
-
Depth, in the places that had a ceiling
The largest release since 1.0! All Pro features add depth and customization while all core reminder functionality remains 100% free permanently.
1. Multiple Quiet Hours Windows (Pro)
- What it is: Set multiple quiet windows (e.g., overnight and during school run/meetings).
- How it works: Define your quiet windows in Settings. Two that touch — a night ending at 07:00 beside a block starting at 07:00 — are treated as one hold rather than two.
- Why it helps: Prevents non-urgent notifications from interrupting your sleep or family time.
2. Multiple Early Warnings on One Reminder (Pro)
- What it is: Get up to 3 advance warnings before a reminder is due.
- How it works: Set alerts for 1 day before, 1 hour before, and 15 minutes before on any reminder.
- Why it helps: Perfect for big deadlines or flight bookings where a single alert isn’t enough notice.
3. Custom Sound per Reminder (Pro)
- What it is: Assign a specific sound effect to an individual reminder.
- How it works: Choose a custom chime or sound file when saving or editing a reminder.
- Why it helps: Know immediately what a notification is for without looking at the screen.
4. Smart Snooze Suggestions
- What it is: Automatic suggestions for your favorite snooze duration.
- How it works: If you frequently snooze reminders to “Tomorrow morning”, Latr automatically suggests that preset first.
- Why it helps: Saves extra clicks when organizing your daily queue.
5. Custom Notification Text (Pro)
- What it is: Personalize notification titles and message text.
- How it works: Use placeholders like
{title},{note},{site}, and{time}in Settings to customize how notifications appear. - Why it helps: Make alerts match your preferred wording and information hierarchy.
6. Repeated Alerts for Urgent Reminders (Pro)
- What it is: High and Critical reminders can nag you if ignored.
- How it works: Re-triggers an alert after 5 to 60 minutes up to 3 times if un-answered (paused during quiet hours).
- Why it helps: Ensures critical deadlines aren’t forgotten if you leave your desk.
7. Enhanced Site Automation Rules & Rule Sets (Pro)
- What it is: Pre-fill site rules and group them into toggleable sets.
- How it works: Automatically set priority, warnings, and sounds for specific sites like
github.com. Toggle entire sets (e.g. “Work Rules”) off on weekends. - Why it helps: Automates repetitive settings and lets you disconnect off work hours.
8. Custom Categories & Subfolders (Pro)
- What it is: Custom site categories and 1-level subfolders (e.g.
Work > Project A). - How it works: Create custom categories and organize folders inside folders.
- Why it helps: Keeps complex projects cleanly structured without clutter.
9. Custom Default Views & Sorting (Pro)
- What it is: Customize saved view sort order and pick the default view Latr opens on.
- How it works: Order by date, name, or priority and set your primary starting view.
- Why it helps: Opens your queue exactly how you like to view your work.
10. Pause Repeating Reminders & Template Packs (Pro)
- What it is: Temporarily pause repeats and export setup packs for teammates.
- How it works: Pause a repeating series for vacation dates, or share your rules and templates via a single setup file.
- Why it helps: Avoid deleting and re-creating repeat rules, and onboard teammates in seconds.
11. Delivery History Log (Pro)
- What it is: Detailed logs of notification delivery status.
- How it works: Check whether each reminder was delivered, clicked, snoozed, or missed.
- Why it helps: Clear record of past reminder events.
-
A repeat you can type, and a snooze that adds time
1. Type Repeats in Plain Language
- What it is: Set recurrence rules by typing natural phrases.
- How it works: Type “every weekday at 9:30am” or “every 3 days” into the time field. Latr automatically sets both the time and repeat frequency.
- Why it helps: Fast, single-step scheduling without navigating dropdown menus.
2. Improved Snooze Controls
- What it is: One-click snooze and smart time addition.
- How it works: Click Snooze right from any queue item row or notification. Adding “+15 min” always adds 15 minutes from the current time.
- Why it helps: Prevents accidental scheduling errors and lets you snooze items in one click.
3. Complete Backup & Restore Reliability
- What it is: Enhanced data backup and restoration.
- How it works: Backup files now safely preserve all 27 reminder fields, including folders, priorities, pinned time zones, and completed statuses.
- Why it helps: Restoring backups never loses custom settings or reminder tags.
4. Consistent Site Automation Rules
- What it is: Site rules work across all saving methods.
- How it works: Per-site rules apply whether you save via right-click, keyboard shortcut, address bar, or popup icon.
- Why it helps: Reliable automated rules regardless of how you capture the webpage.
5. Missed Notification Tracking
- What it is: Reliable tracking for missed alerts.
- How it works: If a notification fails to display (e.g. due to system sleep), it is recorded as “Missed” and highlighted in your activity feed.
- Why it helps: You never wonder if an alert went missing.
6. Bulk Editing & Settings Layout Improvements
- What it is: Bulk repeat/done actions and a cleaner settings layout.
- How it works: Select multiple reminders to update repeat schedules or mark them done together. Enjoy a redesigned, modern settings dashboard.
- Why it helps: Faster queue management and easier navigation.
-
Done is not the same as fired
1. Mark as Done (Preserve Completed History)
- What it is: Separate “Mark Done” option alongside Delete.
- How it works: Select “Mark as done” from the item menu to finish a task without deleting its historical record.
- Why it helps: Keeps your active list clean while letting you review completed accomplishments later.
2. Automatic Follow-up Reminders
- What it is: Auto-create follow-up tasks when a reminder is completed.
- How it works: Enable follow-up on a task (e.g., “Apply for job”). When marked done, Latr automatically creates a follow-up (“Check response”) for next week with the same notes and tags.
- Why it helps: Ensures multi-step tasks are never forgotten.
3. Time Zone Lock for Repeat Reminders
- What it is: Attach repeating reminders to a specific clock time zone.
- How it works: Lock standing meetings to their home time zone (e.g. 9am London time).
- Why it helps: Prevents meeting times from shifting when you travel or when daylight savings changes.
4. Simplified Settings & Re-organized Navigation
- What it is: Plain-language labels for settings and features.
- How it works: Replaced ambiguous headers with clear terms like “Light or dark mode”, “Colour themes”, and “Organising”.
- Why it helps: The settings page is seven cards long. Typing two letters beats scrolling it.
5. Cleaner Month Calendar Layout
- What it is: Improved visual calendar layout and empty states.
- How it works: Task counter badges appear only when items exist, with a helpful intro screen for new users.
- Why it helps: Reduces clutter and makes monthly planning clearer.
-
Latr is out
Welcome to the official 1.0 release of Latr! Latr is the browser extension that reopens the exact webpage you need right when you need it.
1. Save Webpages 4 Easy Ways
- What it is: Four fast ways to save any webpage with a reminder time.
- How it works: Highlight a date on any webpage and right-click, press Alt+Shift+Y, type
remin your address bar, or click the toolbar icon. - Why it helps: Pick whichever save method is closest to your cursor.
2. Tags, Folders & Filtered Views
- What it is: Organize your saved webpages by project or category.
- How it works: Create color tags, group links into folders, and save custom filter views (e.g., “Work Tasks” or “Overdue”).
- Why it helps: Keep your queue clean and find important links instantly.
3. Smart Repeat Schedules
- What it is: 9 flexible repeat rules tailored for work and home routines.
- How it works: Repeat by daily, weekly, “the 3rd Thursday of the month”, “last working day”, or custom day intervals.
- Why it helps: Work reminders won’t trigger on weekends, and monthly deadlines adapt to short months.
4. Site Automation & Saved Templates
- What it is: Automate repetitive reminder setups for your favorite websites.
- How it works: Set site rules (e.g.
github.comdefaults to 1 day with a Work tag) or save reusable task templates. - Why it helps: Eliminates repetitive typing and dropdown selections.
5. Quiet Hours & Missed Alert Recovery
- What it is: Pause notifications during sleep or focus time.
- How it works: Set quiet hours (e.g. 10pm - 7am). Any reminder due while your laptop is shut or in quiet hours appears when you return.
- Why it helps: Keeps your sleep peaceful without missing important reminders.
6. Month Calendar Dashboard
- What it is: A full-page visual calendar for all your upcoming reminders.
- How it works: Open the calendar tab to view tasks by due date, overdue counts, repeating schedules, and pinned items.
- Why it helps: Complete visibility into your schedule for the month ahead.
7. Multi-Language & 100% Private
- What it is: Localized in 9 languages with zero server tracking.
- How it works: Supports English, German, French, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, and Chinese. All data stays inside your browser.
- Why it helps: Fast, secure, and completely private reminder tracking.
-
Weekday and monthly repeats, notes, and Outlook
1. Weekday & Monthly Repeat Rules
- What it is: Smart repeat options for work routines and monthly dates.
- How it works: Choose “Every weekday” (Mon-Fri) or “Monthly”. Monthly reminders on the 31st automatically adjust to the 28th in February.
- Why it helps: Work standups won’t fire on Saturdays, and monthly tasks never skip short months.
2. Personal Notes on Notifications
- What it is: Add custom notes to any saved webpage reminder.
- How it works: Type a note (e.g. “Compare with Best Buy price”) when saving a page. The note displays inside the notification pop-up.
- Why it helps: Reminds you of the exact reason you saved the link.
3. Outlook & Apple Calendar Handoff
- What it is: 1-Click export to Microsoft Outlook and Apple Calendar.
- How it works: Export reminders directly to Outlook.com, Outlook Work/School, Google Calendar, or
.icscalendar files. - Why it helps: Ensures important alerts reach your phone calendar.
-
Nine languages, right-to-left, and the command palette
1. Multi-Language Support (9 Languages)
- What it is: Full interface translation and natural language date parsing.
- How it works: Latr parses dates in German, English, French, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian, Ukrainian, and Chinese.
- Why it helps: Type natural phrases in your native language (e.g. nächsten Dienstag in German).
2. Right-to-Left (RTL) Layout Mirroring
- What it is: Native right-to-left layout design.
- How it works: Automatically mirrors interface elements for RTL scripts like Arabic or Hebrew.
- Why it helps: Arabic and Hebrew read right to left, and a layout that does not mirror puts every control on the wrong side of the screen.
3. Quick Command Palette (Ctrl+K)
- What it is: Fast search and action bar.
- How it works: Press
Ctrl+K(orCmd+Kon Mac) to search saved pages, trigger actions, or schedule new links. - Why it helps: Access any reminder or command instantly without mouse clicks.
-
The queue comes first
1. Queue-First Extension Interface
- What it is: Redesigned popup prioritizing your pending reminder queue.
- How it works: Opening the extension popup displays your active reminder list immediately, with the capture input compact at the top.
- Why it helps: Gives you instant visibility into your upcoming tasks without scrolling.
2. Instant Undo for Deletions
- What it is: 6-second undo bar after deleting a reminder.
- How it works: Deleting an item shows a quick “Undo” option for 6 seconds instead of asking for confirmation.
- Why it helps: Keeps workflow fast while making accidental deletes easy to recover.
3. Safer Item Action Menu
- What it is: Clean dropdown menu for reminder row actions.
- How it works: Row actions (Edit, Snooze, Delete) are safely grouped under a single
⋯menu icon. - Why it helps: Prevents accidental deletion clicks when moving your mouse across the list.
Following along? The blog covers the reasoning behind the bigger decisions in more depth.