Lists are a great way to keep track of a lot of different things, from shopping to projects to chores and more. Google Keep has included checklist functionality ever since it was released in 2013, but that app is built for general note-taking.
But in 2018, Google spun to-do list functionality out of Gmail and Calendar to create Google Tasks, a standalone to-do app that’s worked its way into my regular rotation of Google apps. If you haven’t paid attention to Tasks lately, it may be time to give it a second look.
Way better than Google Keep for lists
Google Keep lets you create checklists inside notes, but Google Tasks adds helpful extra functionality and has an interface tailor-made for handling lists.
Both Keep and Tasks allow you to create subtasks under primary tasks to keep track of the smaller parts of big jobs. But the Tasks app takes it a step further, with fields for notes about both tasks and their constituent subtasks. This is, of course, handy if you need to keep track of finer details about your tasks. I also like to add related URLs in Tasks’ notes fields.
And while Google Keep lets you set reminders for notes, Tasks is directly tied to Google Calendar‘s reminder functionality. You can set due dates for individual tasks, making them populate on your Google Calendar. Asking Gemini or the Google Assistant to set a reminder also creates a task in Tasks, in a dedicated Reminders to-do list.
A take I don’t agree with
Tasks should be the next app in the Google graveyard
There’s little point in having a standalone app
Source: Google
Tasks was long limited by its availability. Prior to the release of the standalone Tasks platform in 2018, it was only accessible within other Google apps. Now, though, Tasks is available as a standalone product on practically every platform.
It’s got an Android app, of course — and with an average rating of 4.6 stars on the Play Store, it’s better reviewed than tentpole Google apps like Gmail, Messages, YouTube, Photos, and plenty more. It’s also available on iOS via the App Store (with an even higher 4.8-star average), as well as on desktop by way of a highly functional web app. I’ve created a taskbar shortcut to Tasks on my MacBook, which opens Tasks in its own window. It’s not a native app, but it’s close enough.
I particularly like the desktop web app interface, which organizes your various to-do lists into a horizontally scrolling layout. From this view, it’s easy to reorganize lists by dragging and dropping tasks around. If you need to move a task from one list to another, you just drag it from one list to another. This functionality, along with options to add detail and due dates to tasks and subtasks, lets you use Tasks as a makeshift Kanban board. You can’t do that in Google Keep.
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Google Tasks has had an odd history, starting as a feature built into other Google apps before being spun out into its own product. It’s situation in the Google ecosystem remains a little awkward, too: it’s where Google stashes reminders created in its assistant apps, and some of its features still overlap with Google Calendar.
Still, if you’re in the market for a better task management experience and you haven’t looked at Google Tasks in a while, give it a shot. You might be surprised.
