1y ago

I almost can’t believe it, but Google Tasks is finally kind of good

www.theverge.com I almost can’t believe it, but Google Tasks is finally kind of good

A half-decade later, Google finally made a decent to-do list app.

For years, Google's to-do list app Tasks was poorly integrated and underdeveloped. Recently, Google has combined all their reminder products into a single Google Tasks app that is accessible across Google products. While still lacking some advanced features, Google Tasks' simplicity and integration make it easy to add tasks and see reminders across Gmail, Calendar and Assistant. The author enjoys being able to say "What are my tasks today?" to Assistant and have tasks show up in Calendar. However, the author notes that Tasks still does not integrate well with multiple Google accounts.

TechNews @radiation.party

VERGE

I almost can’t believe it, but Google Tasks is finally kind of good

www.theverge.com /23795183/google-tasks-reminders-app-combination

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56 comments

Guess it's about time for Google to kill the project, then.

I'm not picking up any new Google products, they kill everything off so often.
- I very much prefer Android but I can't fault you for that.
  
  Same, I use android phones as well, I also use keep notes and calendar. But I've been using those for a long time, I just don't want to bother switching into anything new of theirs.

So, they should be sunsetting it sometime next year then.
- Was just about to say the same. Google often like to pick up their ball and go home after releasing something good. Maybe it’s time we stop relying on cloud apps and go back to good ol’ fashioned locally run applications.
- I was really hoping we could discuss the thing being shared on Lemmy
  instead of just reading the headline and barging in with the same old zingers...

Google Tasks is effectively unavoidable if you use Google products.
I had no idea it existed...
- I've had Pixels since the first one, this is news to me.
  Edit: Just went looking for it, not installed. It's in the play store but not sure how it could be unavoidable when it's not pre-installed.
  
  It’s also integrated with Gmail on the web, so maybe they’re assuming everyone has noticed.
  
  Sorta same. Pixel 7 here and it's my first non-apple/samsung phone so I messed around a lot on it discovering features and I didn't know about tasks. I knew you could set reminders in the calendar but I honestly thought it was a calendar-specific thing
- If you use google assistant to set reminders you now use tasks.
  I only know this because I heavily use reminders, and my pixel 5 kept annoying me to tell me reminders are being converted to tasks and will live there now
- They removed "reminders" and lowercase-t "tasks" from the Calendar and replaced them with Tasks

... aaannnnddd... It's canceled.

They need to keep Google Keeps out their mouth. It has flown under the radar and I would die if they kill it. That being said if Keeps and Tasks had better integration I would become unstoppable with my personal projects and errands.

It still sucks at giving notifications on time.
- But Google has the best engineers lol
- Yes! I thought it was just me. It's crazy, I've missed so many reminders after moving over to Tasks
- It's been on time for me until the last few days.

Whenever I see one of these write-ups, no one mentions Microsoft To-Do in the comments.
Am I high? Is it just me? I freaking love this dumb little app…
I mean sure the only reason I use it is because my employer is a MS house so it goes out to everyone as standard, and if I didn’t get it effectively free I'd probably roll Obsidian… but it deserves a little love imo.
- @runningromeo @trashhalo 100% agree. To Do used to be Wunderlist and largely preserves the design. I’ve used it on and off for years. I’ve mostly gone back and forth between Wunderlist/To Do and Todoist, but To Do is really all I need. Inline hashtags / links, sub tasks, reminders, due dates, files, repetition and Outlook integration. It walks right up to the line of project management (Todoist, I think, crosses the line, in a great way if that’s what you need).
- I was just looking for this - I think it was an independent app before, they bought the company. I think. That would explain why it's so nice. And one of the things nobody mentions is that it actually lets you print your todo list out. It's such a small thing but it means the world to me
- Yep, I've tried a bunch and always go back to Microsoft to do, it is almost perfect.

Dont worry, they will shut all that down eventually, dont trust google with any data you actually want to keep for a long time. Short term is fine.

Some feature which I absolutely need which for some reason is not part of most task apps is to repeat tasks based on the completion date instead of the start date.
Dumb example: If I have a task to water my plants every week and I do it after 4 days already then the next due date is in 10 days instead of the 7 I'd want
- 'Tasks' (open source android app) can do this. Likely you already knew (others likely don't). But I agree, a surprisingly uncommen feature.

I’m personally trying to use less google products - for both privacy and reliability (I’m pissed my domain is getting moved cause google just decided to be done with google domains)

And you would think that a Wear OS version would be a no-brainer. But nope.

Integration with Google Assistant smart speakers is the main reason I would want to use Google Tasks instead of other Todo solutions. In particular, asking Google to add groceries to my shopping list while I'm cooking, so that I don't need to bring out my phone and tap it in manually since my hands are occupied or dirty.
But the integration has sucked for so long that I had pretty much given it up. Maybe if it really actually works now (instead of putting my tasks into various other Google services), I will give Google Tasks another shot.

Is it TickTick-level good?
- Google Tasks isn’t remotely close to being a powerful project management tool on par with Todoist or some of the other apps out there. Even Apple’s Reminders app can do more. It’s much closer in spirit to a paper to-do list — just a bunch of things written down that you need to get done.
- Ticktick has wearos app, google tasks - does not.
  Last time I checked Google task it did not have "postpone task" option. Even as a personal Todo tool it is miles behind free tier of ticktick. The only benefit I found - Google tasks were shown on Google calendar.

I use it because I haven't yet found any alternative that works as well. Any recommendations?
- I can't live without todoist personally. I started with Google tasks.
  
  Any features you think google tasks lacks? Do you use the free or the paid version of todoist?
- Notion isn’t great for tasks but the all in one ecosystem for notes and databases is amazing
  
  If you like Notion, you should check out Coda.

56 comments