Google Tasks vs Microsoft To Do: an honest comparison
Two task apps that come attached to the software you already use all day. Here is where Microsoft To Do and Google Tasks actually differ, and what to do when a flat list stops being enough.
How they compare
What each one is
A checklist attached to Gmail and Google Calendar. Google Tasks is deliberately small: lists, tasks, dates. It has grown slowly and stayed narrow on purpose.
Wunderlist's successor, rebuilt inside Microsoft 365. To Do is a real to-do app with a daily ritual at its center, and it reaches into Outlook and Planner.
Structure
Lists and one level of subtasks. No labels and no tags, priority is a single star, much like To Do's importance star. The single-level limit sits in the Google Tasks API, so other clients cannot add depth on top.
Lists, list groups, and steps. A hashtag typed into a title works as an informal tag in search. Importance is a star. More structure than Google Tasks, still flat next to a project tool.
The daily view
A task with a date appears in Google Calendar beside your meetings. Anything without a date sits in the list and waits to be remembered.
My Day starts empty each morning and offers suggestions. A good ritual if you keep it, an empty screen if you do not.
Capture and integrations
Strongest inside Google. Turn a Gmail message into a task from the side panel, add tasks from Calendar, capture on mobile. Outside Google there is not much.
Flag an Outlook mail and it lands in To Do. Tasks assigned to you in Planner show up under Assigned to me. Desktop apps for Windows and Mac, plus web and mobile.
Working on one task
Nothing built in. A task is a line in a list, and no part of the app helps you sit with one or record how long it took.
Nothing in the app itself. On Windows 11, the Clock app's Focus Sessions can pull in a To Do task and run a timer next to it, which works well if you are on Windows.
Sharing
Lists cannot be shared. On Workspace accounts a single task can be assigned through a Google Chat space or a Google Doc, and it lands in the assignee's personal list. There is no shared list inside the app itself.
Shared lists work, with limits. Personal accounts share with personal accounts, work accounts share only inside the organization, and built-in lists like My Day cannot be shared at all.
Getting your data back out
Google Takeout exports Tasks as JSON. There is no CSV option, so moving the data into another app takes a conversion step.
No export in the app. The workarounds are the classic Outlook desktop client, where the same tasks appear as Outlook tasks, or a Power Automate flow that writes into Excel.
So which one should you pick?
If your day runs on Gmail and Google Calendar, Google Tasks is the shorter path. Nothing to install, nothing to set up, and a dated task shows up next to your meetings without you asking.
If your day runs on Outlook, Microsoft To Do wins on nearly every count: more structure, shared lists, a proper desktop app, and a daily view that gives the morning a shape.
Head to head, Microsoft To Do is the more capable app and Google Tasks is the more invisible one. Which matters more depends on which inbox you open first.
Either way, neither is built to hold much more than a few dozen items.
What if the list has outgrown both?
There is a point where a flat list stops working. Not because the app is poor, but because that list now holds four or five projects, a handful of things you are waiting on other people for, and a pile of ideas you are not ready to start. A checklist cannot tell those apart, so you end up doing the sorting in your head, every time you open it.
tingdo is built for that point. Each project carries an outcome and one next action, and the rest of it waits. The home screen shows what you can act on right now, grouped by where you are: at your computer, on the phone, out running errands.
A task gets a date when there is a real one, and stays out of your way when there is not. A calm weekly review keeps the whole thing honest. tingdo is a GTD task manager, so the Getting Things Done workflow is the default rather than something you build yourself.
#errands
- Buy oat milk
- Return package at post office
- Pick up prescription
#computer
- Draft project proposal for Q2
- Cancel that subscription you forgot about
- Reply to Marco's email
Built for people who think in next actions
One decision a week
Your next actions get decided in the weekly review and stay decided. Mornings become a look, not a fresh negotiation.
Contexts, not lists
Filter by where you are and what you have with you. Everything else stays out of sight until it can be done.
Nothing waits in silence
Waiting-for items and someday ideas have their own places, and the review brings them back to you on schedule.
Starting fresh is fine
Neither app exports cleanly, and that matters less than it sounds. Writing your open loops into tingdo's inbox is a mind sweep, which is where GTD starts anyway.
See what a week without re-picking feels like
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