6 Incredible Free Wunderlist Alternatives Compared

Ah, Wunderlist. I hardly knew ye.

Microsoft bought Wunderlist and shut it down on May 6, 2020. That’s when users stopped being able to update or edit lists or tasks.

This piece is, shall we say, personal for me. I’ve managed my to-do list with Wunderlist since 2014.

So, where are we going next, Wunderlist users? Microsoft wants us to migrate to their task manager, Microsoft To Do. Personally, I’ve disliked Microsoft since having to use Outlook in 2008 at my first desk job.

Six excellent contenders are vying to manage our precious to-do lists. I narrowed a list of ten or so free task management apps down to the top six. To be included, each app must be able to import your lists from Wunderlist. In addition, it must offer a free version and have up-to-date native apps for iOS and Android that have reviews of 4.0 or better in the stores. Each option also supports Apple Watch, iPad, and Android tablets.

Every app in this list also has the following task manager functionality:

• Assign tasks
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Automatic device sync
• Recurring tasks

One of the biggest problems with software comparison pieces is that knowing which features are available at the free level is tough. That’s why I’ve noted which features are behind an upgrade. Every other feature I mention in this piece is available to users of the free version of the app.

I’ve listed the six incredible free Wunderlist alternatives in descending order based on the average app store review score or alphabetically when the score is the same. (I’ll also let you know which I chose at the end.)

But before we further explore the best alternatives, let’s talk about Wunderlist—for comparison and old time’s sake.

Wunderlist

Pros

What a gem. Wunderlist is stupidly simple to use. The layout is attractive, and you can customize the backgrounds. You can view your tasks by week or see all your tasks on one screen. To assign a task, just @mention them.

You can also assign tasks a priority in a number of ways. There’s starring, of course. But then there are also tags, which can be literally anything. You could use #High, #Medium, #Low, or #A, #B, #C. Or get creative and prioritize by #Urgent or #Red, #Blue, #Green. Lastly, it’s nice that you can restore lists up to 30 days after deleting them.

Major integrations

• Zapier
• Slack
• Twitter

The Slack integration posts notifications to a Slack channel when you add, update, and complete to-dos. The Twitter integration saves all your most-loved tweets to Wunderlist.

Cons

The biggest con (and I mean that in both senses of the word) is that Wunderlist is shutting down. In addition, Wunderlist doesn’t support file uploads.

Support

Via email

Cost to upgrade

There’s no amount of money you can pay to continue to use Wunderlist :’(

Best Wunderlist alternatives 

Now let’s get into your other options since Wunderlist is sadly no longer.

1. Tick Tick

Pros

Tick Tick is the fullest-featured task manager on this list. It’s got a built-in Pomodoro timer and white noise to maximize focus. It offers natural language processing (NLP), which allows you to type words and have the software convert them into commands. For example, if you type “Call John every Thursday at noon” into the task name, Tick Tick can interpret the context and create a recurring task. With Tick Tick, you can even write, “remind me at 11:46.”

Tick Tick's NLP in action

While we’re on reminders, you can also set multiple reminders and choose an “annoying alert” that you can be sure you won’t miss. It’ll also track your location and remind you based on it. So you could set it to remind you to pick up lettuce when you’re near a grocery store.

Tick Tick offers Firefox and Chrome browser extensions to make it easy to add tasks from your browser without pulling up the page or app. Notifications and reminders ensure you never miss a task. Offline access means you can add or edit tasks anywhere. Tick Tick also supports subtasks. It also offers up to 10MB of file storage per attachment.

In addition to all that basic functionality, you can add tasks by voice. You can also set task durations, which Trello can’t do. Like Wunderlist, you can tag your to-dos or give your tasks priorities:

Tick Tick task prioritization functionality

There are six different sorting orders available for your tasks. You can sort tasks by time, title, tag, priority, assignee, or custom sorting.

Tick Tick task sorting functionality

To help keep you motivated, Tick Tick gives you an Achievement Score based on how many tasks you complete before the deadline. Moving back the deadline decreases your score.

You can also see when you created and completed each task.

Tick Tick offers a variety of keyboard shortcuts, and after Remember the Milk, it works across the widest variety of platforms.

Major integrations

Connect Tick Tick to Outlook, Google Assistant, Slack, Google Calendar, Gmail, and various other applications through Zapier.

Cons

You’d think the recurring tasks functionality would be more robust for a task manager with this many features. The pre-set options for recurring tasks are limited.

Tick Tick recurring task options

Tick Tick allows you to manage your tasks in calendar view, but it’s behind the paywall.

Support

Via email and through the forum

Cost to upgrade

$35.99/year as of September 2023

Final thoughts

For Pomodoro fans or anyone who needs help with focus, Tick Tick is the best option on the list. It’s got tons of great key features, even on the free plan. And the only cons are pretty minor.

2. Todoist

Pros

Todoist is extremely simple to use and offers most of the features you’d want from your task manager, including NLP, a Firefox and Chrome extension, offline access, subtasks, and 100MB of storage for comment attachments and 25MB for email attachments.

The recurring task functionality is more flexible than Wunderlist’s, which allows you to set a task to recur daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. With Todoist, you can have two tasks that recur multiple times per week but not daily. Todoist lets you set one task to recur every Monday and Wednesday and another to repeat every Tuesday and Thursday.

Free users can use Todoist to manage five projects and add up to five people per project. You can assign a task a priority level between one and four in Todoist.

Task prioritization in Todoist

Todoist offers keyboard shortcuts as well.

One feature people enjoy is Todoist Karma.

Todoist Karma Medium

“Todoist Karma is an amazing feature,” Utkarsh Chhiber wrote while explaining why he chose Todoist over Tick Tick. “It is somehow motivating.”

And there’s a nifty add-on for Todoist called Ganttify, which allows you to view multiple projects in a single Gantt chart to view dependencies between important tasks. 

Major integrations

Outlook, Gmail, Google Calendar, PomoDone, Flat Tomato, Toggl

Cons

Features that Tick Tick makes available for free users, such as reminders, comments, file uploads, labels, filters, and completed tasks, Todoist keeps behind their paywall.

Support

Via email

Cost to upgrade

$4/mo billed annually for Pro or $6/member/mo billed annually for Business as of September 2023

Final thoughts

I said Tick Tick is the option for Pomo fans. But while Tick Tick’s Pomodoro functionality is built-in, Todoist does integrate with Pomo apps. Todoist is a great option for anyone who wants a simple user interface, tons of storage, highly rated apps, and can live without notifications and reminders. On the other hand, if you’re willing to upgrade, you can have it all.

3. Remember the Milk

Pros

Remember the Milk lets you add tasks via email, Alexa, Siri, and Twitter. It works across the greatest variety of platforms, with all the usual suspects and some weird ones too, like Linux, Fire, Blackberry, Apple Watch, and Microsoft Edge. It offers NLP and very flexible recurring tasks functionality.

Free users can see seven days' worth of their completed tasks. RTM offers keyboard shortcuts as well. It’s got tagging functionality (though you can’t sort by tags) and allows you to create “smart lists” based on nearly any criteria.

Major integrations

Gmail, Google Calendar, and Evernote

Cons

RTM hides some pretty basic features, like subtasks, mobile reminders, sharing, offline access, and file uploads behind a paywall. Upgrading also gets you priority support. And when you upgrade, you get attachments only limited by your Dropbox or Google Drive account storage limits.

Keep in mind that their Chrome extension hasn’t been updated since 2016.

But the biggest drawback to RTM, in my opinion, is the UX. For example, unlike Wunderlist or Todoist, the UX doesn’t clarify which parts of your task they’re interpreting through NLP until you hit “enter.” And I expected clicking the check box next to a task to mark it complete. Instead, it opens up the details view of the task.

Remember the Milk task details view

Support

Twitter, email, forum, business hours

Cost to upgrade

$39.99/year as of September 2023 

Final thoughts

Remember the Milk is your choice if you need a good task manager that runs on the widest variety of platforms and allows you to add tasks via the greatest variety of other apps. But remember that you’re giving up some pretty basic functionality, like subtasks and attachments, for that flexibility.

4. Microsoft To Do

Pros

Microsoft To Do’s big differentiators are the tight integration with other Microsoft products and the My Day feature. Microsoft automatically brings emails you’ve flagged in Outlook into My Day as tasks. To assign a task from Outlook a higher priority, mark the email as high-priority, and To Do will star it.

My Day also reads your lists and suggests tasks to add to your day based on which tasks are recently added and are due today. The Cortana integration allows her to read your tasks in My Day and other lists.

Like Wunderlist, To Do lets you choose a custom background for each list. It also offers dark mode across Android, Windows, Mac, and iOS. It’s got keyboard shortcuts, subtasks (called “Steps”), and recurring tasks. It also offers offline access, NLP on iOS, and social support.

Recurring tasks in Microsoft To Do

Microsoft To Do reminders/notifications

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Major integrations

Outlook, Office365, Cortana

Cons

Using My Day isn’t super intuitive, nor is it obvious how it differs from a list of tasks due today. Also, MTD does not offer a Google Chrome Extension. And subtasks don’t have their own notes, reminders, attachments, or due dates.

Support

Email, forum, business hours

Cost to upgrade

N/A

Final thoughts

If you’re a committed Outlook or Office365 user, Microsoft To Do might be the highest-feature, lowest-friction-free task manager for you. Hopefully, Microsoft will keep adding features.

5. Any.do

Pros

Any.do is a to-do list app with a calendar and to-do widgets, keeping tasks and events top of mind at all times. It integrates with Google Calendar, iCloud, and Outlook, so you can connect all of your favorite apps. You can color-tag your to-dos, set priorities, and add notes, subtasks, and attachments to your task lists. 

Overall, it’s clean and relatively easy to use. It’s available on Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac, web, Windows, Chrome, Apple Watch, and will be available on Firefox soon. 

Recurring tasks in Any.do 

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You can set one-time, recurring, and location-based reminders in Any.do. Location-based reminders help provide you with the task information you need at the right time. 

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Set recurring reminders daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.

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Major integrations

Gmail, Zapier, WhatsApp, Siri

Cons

Recurring tasks, and color tags are only available with a paid account. Overall, the features seem relatively limited compared to Todoist or Trello. The free version may not offer enough functionality depending on your preferences and what you’re looking for. 

Support 

Help center

Cost to upgrade 

$3/mo billed annually (Premium plan) or $5/user/mo billed annually (Teams) as of September 2023.

Final thoughts

Any.do is a nice option for a simple task manager. It’s easy to use and supports project management, but it certainly isn’t the best option on the market. Pricing for the Premium plan is fairly cheap, so if you’re looking for a budget-friendly option, Any.do is a good choice. 

6. Trello

Pros

If we’re being honest, Trello is more of a project management tool than a task manager. It’s technically Kanban software for team collaboration. But it meets all the requirements for inclusion on this list, and people certainly enjoy using it as a task management tool. Plus, it’s super simple to drag and drop cards (tasks) from column to column. 

Like Todoist, Trello power-ups are available to reflect tasks and projects in a Gantt chart. It’s a great way for multiple team members to distribute and delegate tasks, view deadlines and assignees, and more. 

It’s got a lot going for it, including tons of great browser extensions that make it pretty robust in terms of functionality. The recurring task functionality is pretty flexible (though not as flexible as Todoist’s).

Trello recurring task functionality Trello

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Trello doesn’t have subtasks in the traditional sense, but you can store a task's dependencies as items in a checklist on the card.

Trello will notify you when a due date arrives. You’ll also get a notification when a user mentions you, comments on a card, adds or changes an upcoming due date, moves or archives a card, closes a board, or uploads an attachment to a card. Desktop notifications are available in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox.

Email notification options are limited to "Never," "Periodically," and "Instantly," so you can decide how you want to implement notifications into your workflow. 

Major integrations

Gmail, Confluence, Asana, Newton Mail, Telegram

Cons

Basic functionality like calendar view and making a task recurring are paywalled behind “power-ups.” And the best integrations, including Jira and Slack, are available only with power-ups. And when it comes to repeating tasks, Trello is the most limited of the options. You can only set tasks/cards to repeat once per month or year. Plus, there’s no NLP. While the integrations are many, they all cost money. 

Support

Email, business hours

Cost to upgrade

$5/user/mo billed annually (small teams), $10/user/mo billed annually (teams tracking multiple projects), or $17.50/user/mo billed annually (for organizations and enterprises) as of September 2023

Final thoughts

Trello is a great fit if you can benefit from Kanban functionality and don’t need some of the bells and whistles other task managers offer. Remember, at its core, it’s project management software, so that’s what it’s built for. And if you do need the bells and whistles and are willing to upgrade, Trello can do both.

Going forward

Okay, now for the big reveal. I use Todoist. I chose it before writing this article, and while my second choice after writing this article is Tick Tick, I find Todoist’s interface just a little more attractive and intuitive. These are all great choices, depending on your needs. 

Tick Tick is the choice if you need robust features at the free level and super robust features if you upgrade. If you need an easy-to-use free solution but don’t need notifications or reminders, Todoist is excellent. Remember the Milk is great if you’re committed to managing your tasks on platforms outside Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android and don’t need subtasks and attachments. For a Kanban board with some task management functionality, Trello has a ton of Chrome extensions that make it extremely flexible.

And while we’re talking about getting stuff done, check out Clockwise.