Sidecar / Extensions / Cancel-By Reminder

Cancel-By Reminder

Catches the renewal date buried in a receipt from six weeks ago.

v1.0.0Gmail0 requestsFree

Works in
Chrome, Edge, Brave on macOS and Windows
Reminder
3 days before, as a browser notification
Bank access
None. Reads your inbox, not your finances
Network
None
Version
1.0.0, Manifest V3

Cancel-By Reminder is a free Chrome extension that finds trial end and subscription renewal dates in emails you open, and reminds you three days before the date arrives. It needs no bank link, no card access and no account, unlike subscription trackers that connect to your finances. Everything is read

No bank link, and that is the point

Subscription trackers usually work by connecting to your bank or card and watching the charges. That means handing a company access to every transaction you make in order to catch a handful of renewals.

This reads what is already in your inbox instead. It cannot see your finances because it never touches them, and there is no account to create and nothing to connect.

How it avoids false positives

Two conditions must both hold. First, a commitment phrase: not the word "trial" on its own, which appears in every marketing email ever sent, but wording describing an arrangement you are already in, like "your free trial ends", "renews on", "cancel by" or "unless you cancel". Second, a real future date near that phrase.

Wording that means the opposite disqualifies the message outright: "start your free trial", "try it free for 30 days", "your trial has ended", "cancellation confirmed". That filter does most of the work.

When it does save something, a card confirms what it found with a "Not a trial" button, so a mistake takes one click to correct and is never re-added for that message.

Picking the right date

Emails often carry several. Candidate dates are scored by how close they sit to the phrase that made them interesting, so in "your plan begins on September 2 and will automatically renew on October 15" the date beside "renew" wins. Dates already in the past are ignored, since a cancel-by date that has passed is not actionable.

It reads September 3, 2026, 3 September 2026, 2026-09-03, 09/03/2026, and relative phrasing like in 14 days.

One honest limit

A browser extension can only read what the page has rendered, so this checks messages you open. It cannot sweep an entire mailbox, because that would need the Gmail API and a linked account, which is the exact thing this product exists to avoid. In practice that works, because the emails that matter are the confirmations you open anyway when you sign up.

Permissions

Gmail only, plus storage, alarms and notifications. It reads a message when you open it, in the tab, to look for subscription wording and a date. Nothing is sent anywhere. Saved reminders hold a service name, a date and a link back to the thread, and are deleted a week after the date passes.

Install it

About a minute, no account, no configuration.

01

Download the .zip and unzip it wherever you keep things.

02

Open chrome://extensions in your browser.

03

Switch on Developer mode, top right of that page.

04

Click Load unpacked and pick the unzipped folder.

05

Reload the page you want it on. That is the whole setup.

Download Cancel-By Reminder

Questions about Cancel-By Reminder

Does it need access to my bank or card?

No, and it never will. That is the difference between this and a finance-linked subscription tracker. It reads subscription wording in emails you open and nothing else.

Does it scan my whole inbox?

No. It checks messages as you open them. Sweeping a mailbox would require the Gmail API and a linked account, which this product is deliberately built without.

What if it gets one wrong?

Press "Not a trial" on the confirmation card. That reminder is removed and will not be created again for that message.

When does the reminder arrive?

Three days before the date, as a browser notification, fired from a background alarm so it reaches you whether or not Gmail is open. Each reminder fires exactly once.