Todoist: To Do List & Calendar reviews
What users love and hate, from real reviews
The reference-grade productivity planner for people who live by their lists: it wins on capture speed and natural-language input, but loses neurodivergent users to gamification that treats organization through shame and anxiety.
What users love
Natural-language entry is the hook that earns forgiveness for everything else
You type "buy milk tomorrow at 9" and the app parses the date and time itself — killing the friction of calendar dropdowns and making capture faster than thought. Power users name this exact mechanic as why they stay for years and switch from rivals.
The use of natural language to enter task scheduling (rather than using a cumbersome drop-down calendar approach) is what makess Todoist a great app
Task capture is fast and natural language works great
Deslizar para acciones en una tarea y el sistema de agendado x leng. natural son features brillantes que elevan la UX
Voice capture (Ramble) turns scattered thoughts into a structured list
The user rambles a stream of to-dos and the app accurately transcribes and sorts them into dated tasks — pulling "open loops" into the system that would otherwise rot in a notes app and be forgotten. For ADHD users and on-the-go capturers it's the deciding feature.
the voice capture is very accurate and the way it adds to the existing items as you speak is impressive
The Ramble feature is amazing!! Definitely makes me want to use the app more
Ramble put this todo app over the top. I love it!!!!!!!
Deep hierarchy and customization make the app a "life OS" for power users
Nested subtasks, projects, filters, templates, an API and webhooks let users build any methodology around themselves — GTD, PARA, team boards. This pulls in disciplined users willing to invest in a system: they call it a tool that could "run the systems of any CEO," and they stay because the app scales with the complexity of their lives.
if you find yourself needing a task app with a deep hiararchry, extreme customization, and ability to create teams or share live lists with others, this is it!
Can be optimized and customized fully to run and maintain the systems of any CEO in the world
csv import + webhooks(OAuth) + automation(generous api) = better free tier features than most paid task managers
What users hate
Merging the send button into the record button breaks the core multitasking flow
After an update the send button shares space with the voice-record button and stops switching back to "send" once you minimize the app — forcing a force-close per task. It kills the exact flow the product is loved for: adding items one by one while glancing at other apps. The hook feature itself becomes the churn trigger.
The submit button shares space with the microphone / ramble button. But when app-switching away and returning, the microphone button no longer turns to a submit/send button when text is entered. The only way to solve this is to force close and reopen the app
The "send" button has changed to a record button that is SUPPOSED to switch back to a send button when i type, but it does not do that once i minimize the app once. Functionally useless for me now
When I type and save and then try another one the ramble button shows instead of the save button and I have to restart the app every time
Recurring tasks rewrite the next occurrence's time and date, stripping user control
Complete a daily task late and the app shifts the next occurrence's time to when you closed it — or even auto-completes tomorrow's task early. For someone who deliberately set a fixed medication time, this "smart" behavior breaks trust in the schedule: the system overrides what the user intentionally locked in.
If I forget to mark the 25-May task complete and complete it on 26-May, the app also automatically completes the 26-May task. Only the overdue task should be completed, not today’s upcoming recurring task
Completing a repeating task late should not alter the following days time. There is no reasonable justification for choosing for me a time I set personally
if I have a date based task that needs doing on specific date eg I clear task for 7th on the 13th I do not want the next task being set on 14th, I want it to reset for the next date due
Gamification frames organization through shame — alienating the neurodivergent users it courts
Confetti, "overdue" labels, "0/5 tasks" counters and manufactured urgency build a loop of failure and anxiety. The paradox: the app explicitly courts ADHD users, yet that exact audience calls the gamification "the opposite of accessible" — it imposes guilt on the people who need support, not punishment.
Labeled them "overdue" (artificial shame/failure) ✅ Warned of a limit (scarcity anxiety) ✅ Showed a visual "0/5 tasks" (failure display)
I didn't appreciate the visually distracting confetti effect just because I completed a first task setting it up. SEEMS LIKE A CRUEL THING TO PUT IN A NEURO DIVERSE APP!
at one point it started to become gameified and giving you achievements and a lot of notifications. I turned EVERYTHING off, but still achievements even though goals were also off
Cross-platform sync is the loyalty driver, but a silent Android sync break destroys trust
Seamless sync across phone, desktop and web is what keeps users in the system for years. So when Android silently desyncs and the web shows a different state, the blow lands on the very foundation of trust: the user works for days unaware the data diverged, then leaves — because a planner you can't trust has no reason to exist.
The sync is completely broken on android which I discovered after a few days of work, as the web app was showing a completely different state. Manually syncing did nothing. This is a simple and fundamental feature that should not break so easily
entries appear as duplicates, or just vanish randomly. When checking in the web version, they don't even exist
Excellent todo list app. Syncs across all my devices
Reminders routinely fail to fire — killing the planner's one essential job
Users disable battery savers and reconfigure everything, yet per-task notifications still don't arrive on time — even as the morning "you have N tasks" digest fires reliably. The result: people miss more tasks with the app than without it, because reminders are "stuck" inside and you'd need another app to remind you to check this one. The core function's failure zeroes out all value.
Ironically, I've missed more tasks because of Todoist than I likely would have had I not used it. That's because my reminders are stuck in the app, and it won't notify me about them unless I pay or open the app
I get the morning notification telling me I have X tasks that day, and the evening one telling me I have X left, but the notifications for the actual tasks have stopped coming through at the specified times
Reminders constantly drop off the tasks failing to send a notification which is key for my use
Tasks silently vanish and fail to save — a fatal flaw for a system you trust with memory
Collapsing a section by its arrow wipes 20+ tasks at once; written tasks don't save, vanish, or revert to old versions; there's no trash bin for deletions. A planner exists so you can offload memory into the system and stop holding everything in your head — and a system that loses data breaks the one contract it was hired for.
in list view, i collapsed a list by clicking the little arrow near the section name the entire list disappeared and over 20 tasks instantly gone!
One time a task disappeared completely, and another time I updated my task, and when I checked later, it reverted to an old version. It's crazy to me that a todo app doesn't save my todos
Todoist doesn't have a trash bin for deleted tasks
That same depth scares off newcomers who just want a list
The power that retains advanced users becomes chaos for those who just want a simple list: on first launch no tasks appear on the home screen, undated items "fall" into projects and show up nowhere, and false "you completed everything" messages appear. The app tries to serve two opposite segments — methodology nerds and people who want a notepad — and the second leaves before figuring it out.
Really disorienting. By starting with organization, no tasks appeared on the home screen. Add tasks to projects without dates, and they don't show up anywhere. You have to dig for them back in the projects tab. False positive "you completed everything" messages
didn't like it cuz too complicated and chaotic imo
over complicated, hard to use
Forced sign-up before first use cuts users off at the doorstep
The first thing a user sees is a login screen: you can't even try the product without handing over an email and creating an account. Some delete it instantly on principle ("I don't want to log in just to make a to-do list"), and deleting the account afterward takes far longer than installing. The activation barrier stands before the product ever proves value once.
I don't want to have to log on to a service just to create a to do list on my phone!
i just uninstall anything that forces me to provide my email id right even before being able to try it
Requires an account. Uninstalled right away
The widget is a beloved feature that breaks on nearly every update
The home-screen widget is something users praise specifically and keep the app visible for. But it systematically breaks with every update: it stops loading, loses its add-task button, or has to be deleted and re-added. Repeatedly breaking the very feature baked into the daily habit slowly erodes trust even among loyalists.
Can you please, PLEASE stop breaking the widget. It breaks on basically every single update. I otherwise really like Todoist
the recent update removed the add task button from the widget, making this app a much less usable product for me
One recent issue I've had is the widget just breaking and having to be deleted and readded. Worked fine for months but now it happens constantly
Two-way Google Calendar sync is a promise that reliably works only one direction
Calendar integration is the stated reason many install, but the sync is often one-way: events flow from the app into Google Calendar yet almost never come back, no matter how often you refresh. Users with two calendars (Outlook + Google) can only connect one. The feature people come for falls short in exactly the scenario where it promises to unify everything in one place.
from thos app to Google calendar, it syncs, but from Google calendar to this app it very rarely happens, whatever number of times you refresh, it doesn't happen
I have two calendars, one Outlook, one Google, and I cannot sync one to the other. In the app I can only sync one
After the last update my calendar items are no longer added to my to do list
Relentless "helpful" emails turn engagement into spam and burn trust
Daily "create/check your list" emails are meant as a retention mechanic but backfire: unsubscribe works one category at a time or not at all, and people keep getting mail even after uninstalling. The "retain at any cost" strategy converts users from indifferent to actively hostile — they block the sender and mark it as spam.
absolute trash...continuously sends you emails about your to do list to "keep you engaged"
I have unsubscribed from their emails three or four times now and I am STILL getting emails. The latest one says I have to go to their website to unsubscribe
it is very annoying that they send email reminders with no straightforward way to turn all emails off at once
Password policy and broken OAuth block account creation — churn before the first screen
Google login regularly fails with an exception, and the password validator rejects even 25- and 128-character strings full of special characters as "too weak." Combined with forced sign-up, this means the user physically can't get in and deletes the app before seeing the product. The most expensive churn happens at the stage that needs no feature at all — just a working login form.
put 128 characters for password, "password is too easy"
Tried another 9 times and created a password 25 character long full of caps, special characters and signs.... "password not secure enough" would not let me go any further. App deleted. Pointless
Cant authenticate sign in with Google account and cannot create a new account because no password is accepted. completely unusable
Locking calendar view and deadlines behind Pro turns the calendar into a bait-and-wall
The product's own name promises a calendar, and many install precisely for the calendar view — but it's locked behind the paid plan, as are task deadlines, which users rightly consider a core function of any to-do app. The bait sits on the storefront (the name, the ads), and the key mechanic turns out to be walled off the moment the user arrives to use it — so they leave feeling deceived, not overcharged.
As soon as I learned you have to PAY to use a calendar view, this app because as good as useless to me. Deleted my account
But why would you move the ability to set deadlines on tasks—arguably one of THE core functions of a to-do list app—to the pro plan?!
quite helpful, but really? we're charging to add deadlines to tasks?