Microsoft To Do: Lists & Tasks

Review by eFreeware

Microsoft To Do is a task manager from Microsoft Corporation, and the pitch is straightforward: keep lists, set reminders and get through the day's work in one place. It has been on Android since April 2017, carries a 4.6 average from more than 482,000 ratings, and has passed 10 million installs. The main reason to consider it is that it costs nothing, shows no ads and asks for no in-app purchases, while still tying into the wider Microsoft account you may already use.

The app is built around two ideas that sit on top of each other. One is the ordinary list: shopping, bills, chores, a project broken into steps. The other is My Day, a daily view that pulls suggested tasks from your lists so you start the morning with something to work from rather than a blank page. Everything else in the app, from reminders to shared lists to file attachments, hangs off those two.

I would treat it as a general-purpose organizer rather than a specialist tool. It handles the everyday list-making most people do, and it does so across web, iOS, Mac, Android and Windows, so a list made on a phone is there when you sit down at a desk. The developer also describes the hosting as sitting on Microsoft 365, which matters if your work already lives there.

Who this fits, and who it fits less well

The clearest fit is someone whose work or school already runs on Microsoft accounts. If your email is hosted by Microsoft, or your team uses Planner, tasks can flow into To Do rather than being retyped, and you can add more than one Microsoft account if you keep separate personal and work identities. That combination is where the app makes the most sense.

The second fit is the household organizer. Shared lists and assigned tasks mean a grocery list or a moving checklist can be handed to someone else, and the app covers the small domestic jobs that rarely deserve a project management suite. Themes, dark mode and emoji in list names are cosmetic, but they make a shared list feel less like a spreadsheet.

Where it fits less well is the heavy planning case. The app is organized around lists and tasks, not around dependencies, timelines or resource planning, and it concentrates on managing day-to-day work. If your planning needs charts and schedules, this is a lighter tool than that. For personal and small-team task tracking, though, the scope is deliberate rather than limiting.

My Day and how suggestions work

My Day is the part I would point a new user to first. It is a daily planner that fills itself with suggested tasks drawn from across your lists, so the app proposes a shortlist instead of waiting for you to decide what matters today. The suggestions are the developer's way of resurfacing things you wrote down earlier and have not gotten to.

The value here is in the narrowing. A long backlog is easy to ignore; a handful of suggestions for today is easier to act on. I would expect this to suit people who keep several lists running at once, since the suggestions can reach into school, work and personal lists and bring the relevant items forward.

It is also the feature most tied to how you already use the app. Suggestions can only recommend what you have captured, so the daily view rewards a habit of writing tasks down as they appear. Someone who keeps one short list will get less from it than someone juggling several.

Lists, steps, notes and reminders

The core list tools are the ones you would expect, done with some care. You can break a task into smaller steps, attach a note to any task, and group lists by topic or project so that a work list and a home list do not blur together. Reminders can be set for a single due date or repeat on a schedule, which covers both one-off deadlines and routines like a weekly chore.

Files can be attached to a task, up to 25 MB each, which is enough for a document, a photo of a receipt or a small spreadsheet. That suits people who want the material they need to finish a task kept with the task itself.

There is a widget for adding reminders, tasks and lists without opening the app, and the daily view can be dressed up with bold, colorful backgrounds. None of this is unusual on its own; what matters is that the pieces are present in one app rather than split across three.

Sharing, Outlook and the Microsoft connection

Lists can be shared, and tasks handed to other people. That makes the app usable for a household running a single shopping list, or a small team splitting a set of jobs, without anyone needing a paid plan.

The Microsoft integration is the other half of the story. Flagging an email in Outlook, or in any email account hosted by Microsoft, turns it into a task; Cortana can add items to lists by voice; and tasks assigned to you in Microsoft Planner show up here. Reminders and lists also sync between Outlook and To Do, so the same item appears in both places.

The developer says lists and tasks live on Microsoft 365, and describes the hosting as highly dependable with strong security. I would read that as reassurance aimed at people who already trust the account they sign in with, rather than as a reason on its own to choose the app. The practical point is simpler: if your mail and planning already sit with Microsoft, this is the task app that speaks to them.

What it costs

Microsoft To Do is free on Android. There are no ads and no in-app purchases, so there is no paid tier to weigh and nothing to unlock by spending. That is unusual for a task manager of this scope, and it removes the usual question of whether the free version is the real one.

The trade is not money but account gravity. Sync, shared lists and the Outlook and Planner connections are built around Microsoft accounts, and the app supports adding more than one. If you are happy to sign in with a Microsoft account, the cost of using it is essentially nothing.

There is no subscription to cancel and no upgrade prompt to dismiss, which I would count as a genuine advantage for anyone who has been burned by a free task app that later moved its useful features behind a paywall.

How it compares with the alternatives

Against a dedicated note-taking app, To Do is more structured: tasks have due dates, steps, reminders and assignees, and the daily view decides what to surface. Against a full project management suite, it is much lighter, with no scheduling or dependency tools. It sits in the middle, and that middle is where most personal task lists actually live.

Against the reminder app built into your phone, the difference is sharing and sync. A shared To Do list can be handed to another person and seen on a desktop. If neither sharing nor cross-device access matters to you, the built-in option is adequate.

The strongest argument for To Do over a generic list app is the Microsoft connection. Flagged Outlook mail, Planner assignments and Cortana capture all land in the same place as your handwritten lists.

A free organizer worth trying if you live in Microsoft's world

Microsoft To Do is a capable, free task manager with a clear focus: capture tasks, organize them into lists, and get a daily nudge about what to do next. My Day and its suggestions are the feature that gives it character, and the Outlook, Planner and Cortana links are what make it more than another checklist app.

I would suggest it to people who already use a Microsoft account for mail or work, and to households or small teams that want a shared list without paying for one. It also suits anyone who wants reminders, notes and file attachments in a single free app with no ads.

The app has been updated recently with bug fixes aimed at security and overall experience, which suggests it is still being looked after. If your planning is project-shaped, with schedules and dependencies, a heavier tool will serve you better; for the everyday lists that make up most of a week, this one is easy to recommend.

What's new

We've addressed several bugs to improve security and enhance the overall app experience