9 Best Free To-Do List Apps of 2026

Microsoft To Do is the rare task app where the free version is the whole product. Microsoft describes it as free and available on all your devices, and nothing in the app sits behind a subscription. The core is My Day, a short daily list you build each morning with help from suggestions pulled from your other lists. Tasks can carry one-time or recurring due dates and reminders, notes, files up to 25 MB and a list of steps. Lists can be shared with family, friends or colleagues, and everyone gets notified when a task is created, completed or removed. If you use Outlook, flagged emails show up as tasks and tasks stay in sync with Microsoft 365. The limits are about depth rather than paywalls. There is no calendar view, no board view and no nested subtasks, and filtering is simpler than in TickTick or Todoist. For a dependable free list that covers reminders, repeats and sharing, it is the easiest recommendation here.

TickTick packs the most into a free plan of any app on this list. Besides tasks with tags, subtasks, priorities, comments and recurring dates, the free tier includes list and Kanban views, a basic calendar view, natural language entry, a Pomo timer, an Eisenhower Matrix, up to 5 habits and up to 5 countdowns. It syncs across platforms, and TickTick says your data is retained if a Premium subscription ends. The catch is capacity. Free accounts get 9 lists with 99 tasks in each, 19 checklist items per task, 2 reminders per task, 1 attachment per day and 2 members per shared list. Premium, at US$49.99 per year, lifts those to 299 lists, 999 tasks per list and 29 members, and unlocks the full calendar views, timeline, task duration and AI features. For one person with a handful of areas of life to manage, the free caps are workable, and few free apps match the extra tools.

Apple Reminders has grown into a full task manager that costs nothing on Apple hardware. Reminders sync through iCloud across iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple Vision Pro. Organization goes further than most free apps: built-in Smart Lists for Today, Scheduled, Flagged and Assigned to Me, custom Smart Lists built from tags, dates, locations, flags and priority, subtasks, and section headers that can switch to a column view for simple kanban boards. Reminders can repeat at custom intervals, fire when you arrive somewhere or get in the car, or pop up the next time you message a tagged person. Shared lists let everyone add and complete items, and you can assign reminders to people on the list. Grocery lists sort items into sections such as dairy and produce on their own. The limitation is the walled garden. There is no Android or Windows app, so a mixed household or a Windows work laptop will need a different choice.

Todoist is the app many people try first, and its free Beginner plan shows why. Smart Quick Add turns a typed phrase into a task with a date, label and priority, and the free plan includes reminders, sub-tasks, priority levels, list and board layouts, comments and assigned tasks, plus email and calendar integrations. Up to 5 people can work in a personal project. The free plan is built to be outgrown, though. It allows 5 personal projects, 3 filter views, 5 MB file uploads and 1 week of activity history, and the calendar and table layouts are reserved for Pro. Pro costs US $5 per month billed yearly or US $7 month to month and raises the project limit to 300. For someone whose life fits in five projects, such as work, home, errands, health and a side project, the free plan is a clean and fast option. Anyone who organizes by many projects will hit the ceiling quickly.

Google Tasks is the simplest app on this list and, for many people, the one already sitting in their inbox. You can turn an email into a task in Gmail, see tasks in the side panel of Gmail and Calendar, and trace any task back to the message it came from. The mobile apps let you create lists, add details and subtasks, set due dates with reminders, and reorder tasks by drag and drop or by date. All of it is free with a Google Account. What it leaves out is everything a power user would reach for: tags, priorities, filters, location reminders, boards and habit tracking. That simplicity is also its appeal. If your to-dos mostly start as emails or calendar events and you want a list that stays out of the way, Google Tasks does the job with no setup and no upsell.

Tasks.org is the pick for people who want a free to-do app they can trust with their data. It is open source under the GNU GPLv3, shows no ads and, according to the project, never shares your data. The feature set is deep: filters, tags, lists, manual sorting and subtasks nested to any depth. Sync is where it stands apart. You can keep tasks offline, sync with Google Tasks, use CalDAV or DAVx5 to connect to a self-hosted server, or turn on EteSync for end-to-end encryption, and the open protocols mean the same list can show up in Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Reminders. On Google Play some features need a subscription, but you choose the price, starting at $0.99 USD per year, and installs from F-Droid get the in-app features with no subscription at all. The trade-off is reach and polish. It is built for Android, the desktop app is in alpha, and setting up CalDAV takes more effort than signing into Microsoft or Google.

Any.do combines a task list, calendar and daily planner, and its free Personal plan includes all three with sync across devices and no credit card. Apps cover iPhone, Android, Windows and Mac, and there are extensions for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari plus a Gmail add-on, so it is easy to reach from wherever you work. The daily planner helps you pick what to do today from your lists, and the calendar puts tasks next to events. The free plan has a gap that matters for many people, though: recurring tasks are a Premium feature, along with color tags, location reminders, WhatsApp reminders and the AI features. Premium costs $4.99 per month billed annually or $7.99 month to month, and a Family plan at $8.33 per month billed annually adds a shared space for up to 4 members. If you mostly track one-off tasks and like seeing them on a calendar, the free plan works. If you have weekly chores or bills, the free apps above handle repeats at no cost.

Trello is not a classic checklist app, but its free plan makes a strong visual to-do list. Each task is a card that moves across columns such as To do, Doing and Done, and cards can carry due dates and assignees. The free plan includes unlimited cards, up to 10 boards per Workspace, unlimited Power-Ups, 250 automation command runs a month, unlimited storage with a 10 MB file limit, and iOS and Android apps. An Inbox captures to-dos from email, Slack and Teams, and up to 10 collaborators can share a Workspace for free, which suits a household or a small club. The downsides show up for quick personal lists. Dragging cards is slower than ticking a box, the free plan stops at 10 boards, and advanced checklists, the Planner view and custom fields are part of Standard at $5 USD per user per month billed annually. Choose Trello if seeing work move across a board keeps you going.

Habitica is for people who know what they need to do but have trouble doing it. You create an avatar, add habits, dailies and to-dos, and earn gold, experience and items whenever you check something off in real life. Dailies repeat on daily, weekly or monthly schedules, habits can be counted several times a day, and color coding and streak counters show how you are doing. Parties let friends team up for accountability, and Challenges share task lists with a group. The developer says the app can be fully enjoyed for free; subscriptions at $4.99 per month or $47.99 per year and gem purchases are optional extras that support the project. It is open source and states that it does not sell personal data. As a pure task manager it is limited. There are no projects, calendar views or filters, and the game screens take time to learn. Use it when motivation, not organization, is the problem.