Apple fans will find the best free to do list app for iphone of 2019 right here. keep track of their grocery list on their iPhone or iPad with these simple apps.
Best For taking notes, managing your shopping list, quick reminders. The app is also great for making to-do lists. It’s easy to share notes and lists with other people.
Todoist
Overview
Todoist is the app that much of the team here at CIG uses. It has a fairly minimalist interface, yet it still packs a lot of power with its tagging and natural language processing features.
Compatibility
Pricing
- Free tier (limited features)
- Premium tier at $4 per month or $36 per year (70% off for students, though)
Pros
- Best app for natural language processing. Categorize tasks with due dates, tags, and projects while you type as fast as you think. No other app beats Todoist in this category.
- Sweet spot between power and flexibility. With projects, labels, filters, and priorities, you can tailor Todoist to your personal workflow, all while being intuitive to pick up and use. This is why Todoist is recommended by so many productivity experts as an entry-level tool, and even has courses designed with it in mind.
- Quick add from everywhere. Todoist lets you add tasks from pretty much anywhere you can be online. In addition to being available on all the mobile app stores, Todoist has native apps on both Windows and Mac, a Chrome extension, and integrations with Gmail and Outlook.
- Siri and Amazon Echo integration. “Alexa, add buy Tesla Model Y in 2021.”
Cons
- Subtasks don’t work well. Among other complaints, Todoist doesn’t let you indent subtasks in its Inbox view. WTH. (Honestly, Todoist! Even the barest option — Google Tasks — has a more intuitive native subtasks function than you do.) Some folks from Todoist contacted me after this post went live and they said that they’re working on making subtasks better! Keeping my fingers crossed.
- Windows app isn’t as good as the Mac app. This probably applies to a lot of apps. But the UI for Todoist’s Windows app doesn’t work quite as well as the mobile or Mac apps.
- Creating custom views or lists take some fiddling. Todoist has a built-in Today and Next 7 days view, but if you want to see your school tasks due the next week without worrying about the tasks for your part-time job, then it’ll take some fiddling with Todoist’s filters.
- $36 per year. If you go with Todoist, you’ll probably need to get the premium option to get the advanced flexibility of filters, priorities, and calendar syncing. (There’s a student account that goes for ~$1.50/month, though.)
Microsoft To-Do
Overview
If you’re looking for a free to-do list app that plays well with other Microsoft apps, then Microsoft To-Do is a great choice. The app has all the basic to-do functionality you need, though it does lack some “nice to have” features such as tags and natural language processing.
Compatibility
Pricing
- Free
Pros
- TOTALLY free. Touted as Microsoft’s Wunderlist replacement, Microsoft To-Do’s free features stack well against Todoist’s paid ones. For example, Todoist’s free plan doesn’t allow for reminders, calendar syncing, and file attachments, while Microsoft To-Do allows all of that for free.
- Subtasks work well. Unlike Todoist, Microsoft To-Do turns subtasks into “Steps” (a.k.a. “checklist”) for a parent task. Each step can have its own due dates and notes.
- “My Day” feature. This feature is similar to other apps that automatically organize your to-do’s for today into one place. The difference is that Microsoft To-Do’s “My Day” view starts out empty and lets you manually add tasks to the list.
- Quick Add widget in Android notification. Good for capturing tasks quickly. (At least on Android).
Cons
- No natural language processing I guess this is Microsoft’s way of saying, “Hey, it’s a free app. Be thankful.”
- No tags, filters, and smart lists. MICROSOFT WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! YOU WERE SO CLOSE. For organization, Microsoft To-Do lets you make separate lists, but other than that, there’s no way to tailor the app to your current workflow.
- Outlook-only calendar integration. I’m willing to bet my 5 internships that unless you work at a big company, you don’t use Outlook. Which means you’ll want a Google or Apple Calendar integration. Which you won’t get with this Microsoft app.
WorkFlowy
Overview
If you just need an app that will let you make lists and check things off, then WorkFlowy is an excellent solution. It lacks some standard to-do app features such as due dates, but it’s still a useful app for tracking and completing quick to-do items.
Compatibility
Pricing
- Free tier (limited features)
- Premium tier at $49 per year or $5 per month
Pros
- Roll-up feature. WorkFlowy is the original bullet-list app with its core roll-up feature for sub-bullets. All you have to do is click a bullet and all the sub-bullets beneath it roll-up into the higher one.
- Quick capture. WorkFlowy is great for capturing and outlining thoughts during brain dumps. It doesn’t force you to pick between adding subtasks or notes. Just dump ‘em all in there and decide later.
- List duplication and sharing. As simple as it is, WorkFlowy lets you duplicate, say, travel checklists for different trips and share those with your friends to make sure you don’t forget the
beerwater for spring break.
- Tags. Despite being as barebones as possible, WorkFlowy allows tags like #soon, #now, and #15min, all of which help with searching notes.
Cons
- Just lists stuff, and doesn’t help you DO stuff. WorkFlowy is great at managing lists, period. But unlike similar apps such as Dynalist and TaskPaper, there’s no native calendar syncing — which is essential to know when you actually want to do your tasks.
- No file browser. Unlike Dynalist and TaskPaper, WorkFlowy doesn’t have a file browser to organize your lists into projects or folders.
- Free plan is limited to 250 lists or items per month. This shouldn’t be a con because developers need to make money, too. But this limit pales in comparison to Dynalist’s, which lets you have unlimited items and docs on the free plan.
TaskPaper
Overview
If you need an app that plays well with the Mac ecosystem and doesn’t require a subscription, then TaskPaper is a great option. It keeps the “page-oriented” design of both WorkFlowy and Dynalist, but it adds some additional features such as natural language processing.
Compatibility
Pricing
- $24.99 after a 7-day trial
Pros
- Best list app for managing tasks on Mac. TaskPaper’s core functions are identical to WorkFlowy and Dynalist. Unlike WorkFlowy and Dynalist, TaskPaper was built to be a to-do list, first and foremost. This means it has a couple of extra features that the previous two don’t have (more on that later).
- Better organization. In Dynalist and WorkFlowy, tags are just to categorize stuff. In TaskPaper, tags can be used to add context to a line item, such as a due date, or to identify it as a project in its file browser if you put a colon at the end.
- Basic natural language processing (NLP) for dates. In addition to organizing, tags in TaskPaper let you set due dates (@due) and start dates for tasks (@start) with basic NLP. The start date feature is a pretty advanced one, something that even Todoist doesn’t have.
- Native integration with Reminders and OmniFocus. The integration with Reminders means one less app to download on your phone. And if you prefer to use another Apple-only app like OmniFocus to manage all your tasks, it’s a cinch to integrate TaskPaper into your system, too.
Cons
- Mac-only. It doesn’t have a mobile app. (Maybe the Reminders integration is a cop-out to save money developing a mobile app. )
- No recurring tasks feature. It’s still a list-making app. What can you do? (Don’t worry — everything else on this list will have a recurring tasks feature!)
Unusable after free trial (unless you pay). The upside is that the fee is a one-time thing, not a subscription. Because of this, TaskPaper’s paid plan is cheaper than Dynalist or WorkfFlowy’s.
Things
Overview
If you need a to-do list app that can do basically “all the things,” then Things is the app to go with. Things looks a lot like Todoist, but it has a lot of “under the hood features” for managing far larger, more complex projects.
Compatibility
Pricing
- One-time fee of $50–$80 (depending on which iOS devices you use):
- $50 for Mac
- $10 for iPhone and Apple Watch
- $20 for iPad
Pros
- Powerful + well-designed. Things is the task management app that has so much functionality under the hood that entire courses are made for it. At the same time, it looks and functions as simply as Todoist.
- Most intuitive to-do app. Things was designed with the messy human brain in mind. For example, it lets you drill down your life from high-level areas and projects, all the way down to nitty-gritty checklists for subheadings within tasks.
- Best due-date/do-date application. This feature is essential for juggling multiple projects. For each task, you can set a start date and a deadline and it appears in the Today view on its start date.
- Task templates. Task templates are an essential but neglected feature, especially for those of us who have recurring projects with similar requirements every week.
- Repeating projects. With Things, you can set recurring start dates for tasks or projects that automatically populates the page with everything you have to.
- Create projects from tasks. A small, but lovable feature. This is for those times when you enter “Study for Exam” and realize that it’ll take more time than just the studying itself.
Cons
- Apple-only, including calendar integration There’s no native calendar integration aside from Apple’s. The developers don’t really control whether or not the app plays well with other calendars apart from Apple’s.
- Limited natural language processing. Except for dates, for a premium app, it’s disappointing that Things doesn’t have NLP for projects and tags. Dealbreaker for some people.
- Separate purchases for desktop and mobile apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad. I’ll be honest: this annoyed me. Couldn’t you have just one payment for both iPhone and iPad at least? (Still cheaper than the next app on our list, though).
Asana
Overview
Asana is a robust to-do list and team productivity app. While it’s designed to help teams manage large projects, you can also use it to manage your personal tasks.
Compatibility
Pricing
- Free tier (enough features for individuals)
- Premium tier starting at $10.99 per month, per user (has features that are helpful for teams but unnecessary for individuals)
Pros
- Choice of kanban or list view. Asana gives you the flexibility to visualize your tasks the way you want. If you’re more of a visual thinker, then you can arrange your tasks in kanban-style columns. But if you prefer a more traditional list-based view, Asana offers that as well.
- Effective for organizing large numbers of tasks. If you have lots of different projects going on, Asana makes it easy to keep them all organized. You can break projects down into tasks, which you can then further break down into subtasks. This could be great for a student working on a thesis or an entrepreneur creating an online course.
- Comments to keep track of your progress. Asana lets you leave comments on any task you’re working on. While this is meant to help teams stay up to date, it’s also an effective way to leave notes to yourself.
Cons
- Can be overkill for individuals. In our experience, Asana shines when you use it with a team. If you’re just keeping track of your personal tasks, many of the communication and collaboration features in the app are unnecessary.
- Interface can get cluttered. While Asana is great for managing large, complex projects, the interface can get cluttered and difficult to navigate if you aren’t diligent about keeping tasks updated.
Conclusion
The key to keeping your work organized is having your to-dos listed out neatly. You have to commit to your list to actually get things done. A good to-do list app can help you manage what to do and schedule when to do your tasks. You can use your to-do list app for personal use or small teams that do not require comprehensive management features.
There are a few qualities that you should be aware of a good to-do list software, such as the interface of the task list, the range of tools for organizing and tracking your progress and the collaborative options of your list.