Areas, Lists and the Archive

Your lists are your Apple Reminders lists. Areas group them into the big parts of your life and work, and the Archive takes lists you no longer need out of Reminders without losing them.

How areas work

iKanban has twelve areas. You can’t add or remove areas, but you can name them. Each area has a title, a short code and a fixed color, and the color is what ties an area to its lists: a list belongs to the area whose color matches the list’s color. Cards show their area’s short code in their top line, so you can tell where a card belongs even in search results.

To rename an area:

1. In the sidebar, tap Kanban, then an area in the Areas section.
2. In the inspector, change Title and Short, then choose Save.

Under Lists in this Area, the inspector shows every list with that color. On iPhone: tap Details (i) to open the inspector.

Sort the areas

The order of the areas is the order of the lists on the board. Open an area’s context menu and choose Move Up or Move Down — every column re-sorts right away. On Mac: you can also drag an area in the sidebar.

Filter the board by area

Selecting an area shows the board with only that area’s lists. Board at the top of the Kanban sidebar brings all lists back. The context filter @ All Contexts ▾ works on top of the area filter (see The Board).

Focus on one list

The Lists section of the Kanban sidebar shows all your lists. Selecting one shows only that list on the board, fully expanded. On Mac: ⌘-click or ⇧-click more lists to see them together.

Create a list

1. Choose New › New List (On Mac: ⌘⇧N).
2. Enter a Title and pick an Area.
3. Choose Create.

The new list is a normal Reminders list in the area’s color. If you create it inside a project, it’s also assigned to that project.

Edit a list

Open the list’s inspector: tap the list’s title on the board. On Mac: or select the list in the sidebar. On iPad and iPhone: or open the list’s context menu in the sidebar and choose Details.

In the inspector you can:

• Rename the list.
• Move it to another area by tapping one of the twelve color swatches. This changes the list’s color in Reminders.
• Rename the area right there. The new name applies to every list of that color.

Choose Save (⌘S on Mac) to apply your changes.

Archive a list

Old lists clutter the board and slow Reminders down. Archiving takes a list out of Reminders and keeps it as a file.

1. Open the … menu in the list’s header on the board — or the list’s context menu in the Kanban sidebar — and choose Archive List….
2. Confirm with Archive & Remove from Reminders.

iKanban writes every card of the list into a file in the iKanban-Archiv folder in iCloud Drive, reads the file back to verify it, and only then removes the list from Reminders. If the check fails, nothing is deleted.

Restore an archived list

Once you’ve archived a list, an Archive section appears at the end of the Kanban sidebar. On Mac: right-click an entry and choose Restore List. On iPad and iPhone: tap the entry, then Restore List.

iKanban creates the list again in its original color, with all its cards — including column, flag, order, due date and attachment references. The archive file stays where it is as a backup. Two limits: Reminders gives the cards new creation dates, and repeating cards come back without their repeat rule.

The same menu offers Show in Finder on Mac and Share on iPad and iPhone. The archive files are plain JSON; you also find the iKanban-Archiv folder under Documents.