There’s nothing wrong with a paper to-do list, but going digital has its benefits. Paper is fine if you enjoy writing by hand, crossing off tasks in ink or pencil, and drawing arrows to show when priorities and deadlines change. The best to-do list apps, however, let you write, organize, and reprioritize your tasks more efficiently. They also let you attach notes, links, and files to a task, and the very best ones also let you see when someone else has completed a task. In many ways, a good to-do program is the ultimate productivity app.
To find the best to-do list apps, we look for ones that are easy to use, offered on all major platforms, and have the tools you need to work productively. After considering dozens of apps in this category, these are the best we’ve tested, followed by what to look for when choosing the right app for your needs.
Why We Picked It
Todoist is a rare five-star Editors’ Choice winner because it is simply the best to-do list app on the market. It’s designed superbly with all the features anyone could need, such as custom views, natural language input, collaboration options, and more.
Who It’s For
We love Todoist Pro for individuals who need to manage all the varied aspects of their lives, from work tasks to grocery shopping lists. The Business grade version of Todoist is also excellent for small teams that need to coordinate ongoing work or lightweight projects collaboratively.
PROS
- Cross-platform support with effortless, reliable syncing
- Excellent features, such as natural language input and productivity reports
- Efficient interface
- Collaboration features
- Works offline
CONS
- A few important features not available to free users
- Prices have increased sharply since 2021
Asana
Best for Workflow Management
Why We Picked It
Whenever PCMag readers ask for advice about managing work, our reply always includes the following: “Have you tried Asana yet?” It is hands-down one of the best apps for managing the to-do list of any team or business. It borders on being a full project management app but works equally well if not better for groups of people who need to get work done together. If your team passes along work tasks from one person to another, you should 100% look at using Asana to manage it.
Who It’s For
Asana is for teams. Individuals absolutely can use it to manage their own tasks, projects, and lists, but it really excels as a collaborative team app for managing work.
PROS
- Flexible, fast, and modern design
- Capable free version
- Feature-rich
- Timeline view makes it easier to manage dependencies
CONS
- Not ideal for graphics-intensive work
- Prices slightly higher than competitors’
OmniFocus 3
Best for GTD on Apple Devices
Why We Picked It
OmniFocus is an excellent to-do list app with a long features list. It’s powerful and it works well. You can add a tremendous amount of detail to tasks. We also like that you buy OmniFocus either as a standalone product for a one-time fee or as a subscription, depending on what works best for your wallet.
Who It’s For
OmniFocus is only available on Apple devices, with some support for a web app, so it’s really best for people who use a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, but not Windows or Android devices. Beyond that, it’s for people who follow the Getting Things Done method of productivity and organization. Getting Things Done is a trademarked method by David Allen who wrote a book by the same name. It prescribes a way to stay organized, and OmniFocus was built and designed for people who follow that method. OmniFocus doesn’t offer collaboration, so it’s also only suited for people who plan to manage their tasks solo.
PROS
- Designed for GTD
- Plentiful features
- Can add a lot of detail to tasks
- Options for perpetual license or subscription
CONS
- No collaboration
- Confusing pricing and no free version
- Not available for Windows or Android
- Too much clicking and jumping between fields required
TickTick
Best for the Pomodoro Technique
Why We Picked It
TickTick is a powerful to-do list app with a reasonable price tag, and you can use it just about anywhere. It’s available as a desktop app for macOS and Windows, as well as a mobile apps for iOS and Android that are compatible with Apple Watch and Android Wear. TickTick also has a web app, Chrome app, and browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox.
Who It’s For
TickTick is designed to support people who follow both the Getting Things Done method and those who use the Pomodoro Technique. Getting Things Done is a method of staying organized, coined by David Allen and explained in a book by the same name. The Pomodoro Technique is a strategy for focusing on important tasks without wasting time or procrastinating. It involves using a timer, and Tick Tick has one such specialty timer built right into the app.
PROS
- Collaborative
- Rich with features
- Cross-platform support
- Includes features useful for GTD
CONS
- Restrictions on both free and paid accounts
- No free trial
- Some features don’t work as expected
Things 3
Best for Apple Users
Why We Picked It
Things 3 is a top to-do list app for Apple devices with a superbly designed interface. It’s a little light on features, but for some people, its uncluttered nature is what makes it so appealing.
Who It’s For
This app has been a niche hit among Mac, iPhone, and iPad enthusiasts for years. It’s ideal for people who work solo, as it doesn’t support collaboration, and for those who want a minimal interface without sacrificing too much power.
PROS
- Designed well and uncluttered
- One-time purchase rather than subscription
- Calendar view with calendar integration
CONS
- No collaboration features, location-based reminders, or web app
- Only compatible with Apple products
- No free version
- Weak natural language input
Why We Picked It
Toodledo is a fantastic to-do list app that goes the extra mile. This app wants to help you not only cross all your to-dos off your list, but also adopt new habits and organize your thoughts. It has an exhaustive features list, though it also throws at you an excess of information at every turn.
Who It’s For
Toodledo is for people who follow the Getting Things Done method of staying organized and productive. It’s also for people who feel strongly about customizing every detail of their to-do list app.
PROS
- Plentiful features
- Includes features for GTD followers
- Supports notes, lists, outlines, and habits separately from tasks
CONS
- Paid plans don’t offer great value
- Dated and sometimes counterintuitive interface
- No apps for Windows or macOS
Buying Guide: The Best To-Do List Apps for 2023
How We Choose the Best To-Do List Apps
To-do list apps are a dime a dozen, and few of them stand out as being much better than others. For example, there are plenty of excellent apps for Android or iPhone, but they do you no good when you’re working on a laptop and need to jot down a thought quickly without picking up your phone and losing your place.
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That’s why for this list, we only include apps that you can access on both desktop and mobile devices. After evaluating around 25 possible contenders, we tested and evaluated them and selected the highest-scoring apps to list here.
One of the major points of consideration when testing and scoring is how well these apps help you organize and stay on top of your tasks. We also consider collaboration, meaning the ability to share a to-do list with other people, though we see it as a bonus feature and not a requirement to be included.
We also looked for apps that fit different user profiles, such as people who follow the Getting Things Done (GTD) method of organization (OmniFocus 3 and Toodledo are good choices).
One of the most popular to-do list apps, Wunderlist, was acquired by Microsoft in 2015 and taken out of commission five years later. Microsoft’s stated ambition was to build a replacement app for Wunderlist from the ground up, cloning all its best features in the process. The new app, Microsoft To Do, frankly took too long to come to market and arrived half baked, which is why it isn’t included here. It scored too low.
What to Look for in a To-Do List App
There are a few qualities to look for in a to-do app. The top three are:
Design is extra important in this category of apps because you end up looking at your to-do list app often. How will you get anything done if you can’t stand looking at your ugly app? A good design also allows the app to feel intuitive, so you can write down things that come to mind quickly.
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Every to-do list app comes with tools and features for organizing your tasks and lists, and in an ideal world, these features match up with the way you think. For example, if you are a highly visual person, you might find that color-coding your lists or tasks to show priority is important. If you are a deadline-oriented person, you’ll want an app that sorts your tasks by due date and or shows them in a calendar view. If you’re forgetful, you might want an app that sends you reminders on different devices.
As for collaboration, it’s always handy to have the option to share a to-do list. For home use, a collaborative to-do list means you can assign chores to other people or track when someone has purchased items off a shared shopping list. In business settings, collaborative task management makes working together easier and more transparent.
What Is the Best App for To-Do Lists?
Our overall top winner is Todoist. Todoist is the best to-do list app you’ll find. It works on every platform. You can use it for free or pay a reasonably fee to get all the features. It’s designed in a way that makes it productive to use. You get plenty of customization options. It does everything you could want.
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What’s the Best Free To-Do List App?
Several of the best to-do list apps have a robust free service tier. Of them, our favorites are Asana and Todoist. Asana may be too free-form for some people’s tastes. Todoist has a more inherent structure.
Another good free app is Remember the Milk, which scored a little too low to make it onto this list of the best to-do list apps. Remember the Milk looks old-school compared with the best to-do list apps, but it’s capable and reliable. It’s also highly intuitive. You can figure out all the ins and outs in minutes.
Many of the other to-do apps on this list are excellent, but their free versions are quite limited compared with the power of their paid versions.
The Best To-Do List App for Teams
It should come as no surprise that our top picks for teams are also the Editors’ Choice winners: Todoist (go for the Business subscription in this case at $8 per person per month or $72 per year) and Asana’s Premium, Business, or Enterprise plan (starting at $13.49 per person per month).
Todoist works best among small groups of people organizing relatively uncomplicated tasks, whereas Asana is better for managing more in-depth teamwork, the kind of work that changes between many hands and passes through a lot of phases before it’s complete.
Recommended by Our Editors
To-Do Lists vs. Project Management Apps
An ongoing challenge in the world of software is deciding what gets classified as a project management app and what fits into other categories, such as to-do list apps and work-management apps.
We take the view that project management apps must be designed to specifically manage project-based work and offer Gantt charts. Project-based work means a series of tasks that has a start date, end date, and deliverable. Building a house is a project. Sending a rocket to the moon is a project. Answering support emails, however, is a series of ongoing tasks and not a project.
Occasionally, we encounter an app that straddles more than one category. Here, Asana is that app. It now includes tools for traditional project management, but it also works perfectly well as a to-do list app.
Overall, project management apps and collaborative to-do apps serve the same general purpose but at a much different scale. They both keep track of what needs to get done, when, and by whom. They help people manage time more efficiently and regulate how many tasks are assigned to each person on a team. Project management apps help large groups of people juggle schedules, resources, and budgets in a way that to-do list apps can’t. To-do apps are simpler and cost less than project management software. For many types of work to-do apps are a better fit.
Use Your To-Do List to Get Organized
Having a great to-do list app can help you get organized and get more done, whether you want to manage personal tasks or those of a family or small team.
A to-do app is only as useful as the information you put into it, so in addition to picking the right app, you might also want to peruse these tips for creating better to-do lists. If you’re looking to share to-dos, you might also want to look at our story on how to make a family to-do list and calendar.
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