The Best To-Do List Apps for Android and iOS

This colorful, beautifully designed app is simple to use yet packed with some excellent features. It’s a daily planner, task manager, and to-do list in one. Start with a simple to-do list, add lists of goals, books to read, and groceries to buy, create reminders for payments, appointments, and classes, or track work and school projects — the sky is the limit. The app includes a handy My Day feature that lets you focus on the most important tasks you need to do today, as well as Cloud sync, so you can access your to-do lists, projects, and tasks from any device. The colorful tasks and lists not only look great, but they also have handy icons so you can categorize them to suit your needs, or add files and pictures as attachments to refer to later. The app itself is free, but upgrade to premium and you can enjoy features like Google Calendar integration, location-aware reminders, the Nag me feature, which helps you stop procrastinating with overdue tasks, and handy statistics to track your progress.

With Microsoft To Do, setting up new tasks is easy, and it offers many useful tools and features, like intelligent suggestions that recommend tasks from across all your lists which may be relevant today. It’s a to-do list, task manager, and daily planner all in one. Microsoft To Do focuses on the My Day feature — starting each day with a clean slate and noting what you want to achieve each day — and it integrates with Office 365. You can set up multi-factor authentication for enhanced security, and if you’re currently part of the Microsoft ecosystem, you can flag an email in Outlook to see it as a task in To Do. Planner tasks assigned to you also show up in To Do. Recently added features include the ability to add hashtags to your tasks, to keep them organized.

If you’re obsessive about your to-do lists, 2Do is the app for you. Available on iOS, Android, iPadOS, MacOS, and WatchOS, 2Do lets you create simple tasks, checklists, and projects, add notes and attachments, and set reminders and alerts so you always know what you need to do, and when. It may not be the prettiest app around, but what it lacks in design it makes up for in functionality, with an easy-to-use tag and search feature, password protection, and simple batch editing and sharing, making it simple to collaborate on projects or tasks. You can even integrate the app with your email so you can add tasks from anywhere. 2Do is free, but you can upgrade to Pro from $20 a year to sync tasks to Dropbox or via iCloud to an external server, attach multiple alerts to tasks, and use the location feature, which adds a location to tasks and sends nearby alerts when you’re in the vicinity.

Google Tasks is simple, minimal, and well-designed, letting you create and describe tasks and subtasks. Tasks appear in a bulleted list, where you can mark each subtask complete whenever you’re done or set a due date for the main task. Each task sits under a list, and there’s no limit to the number of lists. In exchange for Google Tasks’ simplicity, you lose some of the more in-depth tagging and organizational features available in other apps. If you use Gmail on the web, you can see an overview of your Tasks on the right edge, next to the Calendar and Google Keep apps.

If you want a dedicated to-do list app, then Todoist is worth checking out, and it’s super easy to sign up with your Facebook profile or Google account. Use it to set up new tasks, set deadlines, assign priorities, and even link it to a group of similar tasks. Completing tasks involves ticking off the box to the side of the task. That’s the free part. Setting reminders, extra active projects, comments on tasks, and automatic backups are all premium features costing $4 per month or $36 a year. The latest features on the iOS app include new widgets for iOS 14, like the Task widget and Productivity widget, and Todoist Boards, which let you visually organize tasks and events by dragging and dropping tasks onto boards.

Evernote has historically been the go-to app for note-taking. Like Google Keep, it supports multiple methods of taking notes and reminders, including voice memos, full lists, and photos as wells as video, Word documents, and PDFs. Anytime you add an item to Evernote, it syncs across all of your devices. It’s easy to search for tasks and notes too, thanks to a powerful search feature that lets you combine keywords, locations, and tags to find what you’re looking for. If you want to access files offline, add extra storage, or password protect your notebooks, you’ll need to purchase the premium version for $8 per month or $70 per year.

TickTick is a powerful to-do and task manager that syncs with all your devices. Use it for agendas, memos, shopping lists, and team collaboration. You can schedule multiple reminders, view flexible calendars, set recurring tasks, create checklists, add tasks via email, upload task attachments, and even use Siri to create tasks. TickTick is free, but you can also upgrade to the premium version for advanced features like hundreds of lists, tasks, and subtasks; mass sharing of task lists; calendar subscriptions; and more. Subscriptions cost $3 per month or $28 per year. The newest features include a new iOS 14 Tasks widget that lets you configure which lists to show, a Habit widget to quickly access your habits for the day, and the Note feature, which makes it quick and easy to create handy notes using the templates provided.

Remember the Milk is a smart to-do app that lets you set up tasks and reminders, and then pings you via email, text, IM, Twitter, and notifications. Use it to share your lists and assign tasks to others while keeping information synced on all of your devices. Customize your organization with priorities, due dates, repeats, lists, tags, and more. Search your tasks and notes, save your favorite searches as Smart Lists, and view nearby tasks to plan the best way to get things done. Remember the Milk integrates with Gmail, Google Calendar, Twitter, and Evernote. The app is free to download and use, but a Pro subscription for $40 per year lets you access additional features like subtasks, unlimited sharing, colored tags, mobile reminders, an Apple Watch app, unlimited storage, file attachments, and Microsoft Outlook syncing. The app’s newest features include widgets for iOS 14.

Bear keeps your notes and to-do lists together with a traditional menu bar that lets you format text and an option to use markdown to make quick changes. You can also group lists and notes by hashtags, making it easy to find all your tasks. Bear is available for iOS, MacOS, and WatchOS for free, but if you want to sync between devices, the price is $15 per year. The newest features include some great new widgets like the large single note widget, which lets you ‘pin’ a large version of any note to your home screen.

Supposedly based on former President Dwight ‘Ike’ Eisenhower’s organizational method, Ike takes a somewhat light-hearted approach to the to-do list. The app helps you create a “priority matrix” by organizing tasks by level of urgency or importance. This allows you to mark which ones you need to do right away and which are important but can wait. The app plays customizable celebrations whenever you complete a task, and you can attach images and voice notes and set location-based reminders. Upgrading to Ike Pro is a one-off payment of $2 and unlocks access to location reminders, audio recordings, all of the customizable themes, and a few extras.

24me is a one-stop way to organize all of your notes, checklists, schedules, memos, and reminders in a single space. The app works to cover every angle of your life, so nothing slips through the cracks in your day-to-day. 24me Smart Personal Assistant can be a lifesaver for people who are on-the-go frequently; the app syncs with accounts you’re likely already using too, like Google, Yahoo, and Apple Calendars, plus MS Outlook and Exchange. The sync will save you from having to input essential information manually.

On top of managing your appointments in one space, 24me also gives users ample warning about upcoming meetings and can pull up a map to show you a fast route to get there. While this digital assistant oversees your schedule, it also supports hands-free compatibility with a voice command feature. The app is available for Apple Watch, so you can monitor your calendar even if you’re out and about. Subscriptions are $6 per month or $36 annually. The newest update includes an iOS 14 widget and an advanced recurrence feature, allowing you to set recurring tasks at a rate that fits you and your daily schedule, like “repeat every three days”, plus the option to print your schedule from within the app.

For many people, the feeling of a To-Do list isn’t satisfying or motivating enough to tackle tasks. If you’re one of those folks, consider Habitica— which turns To-Do lists into a game. In the app, you’re represented by an RPG-type character. As you complete tasks on your list, your character gains experience and gold that you can spend within the game. If you fail to finish a task on time, your avatar will sustain a bit of damage, and some of its power could slip away. One potential downside of this app— it can feel pretty daunting to set up your list. Its system of different types of tasks and rewards have to be arranged before you can start playing. The newest features include a new Support section packed with tips and advice, the ability to delete Challenge tasks from your task-list easily, the addition of Transformation Buff Items to the Special items section (so players below level 10 can now use them), and updates to the Pets screen. Now you can highlight any pet in the game that you don’t own and learn which items you may need to hatch it. You can also now set up the app to automatically launch displaying the features you use most, like Dailies or To-Dos.