Smart Lists

The four pinned lists at the top of the sidebar gather tasks from every project according to fixed rules. Knowing the rules is the difference between trusting Today and second-guessing it.

#Inbox

A task is in the Inbox when it is in no project and has no date (no due date and no start date). It's the capture bucket: tasks from Siri, the widget's +, the share sheet, the Action Button, and New Task in the sidebar's + menu land here unless you point them somewhere else.

• Giving an Inbox task a date moves it out of the Inbox and into Today or Upcoming. It stays outside any project, but it no longer counts as unsorted.
• Moving an Inbox task to a column takes it out of the Inbox too.
• Completed Inbox tasks stay listed, crossed out, under Keep on Board, and disappear under Move to Archive.
• The Inbox sorts newest-created first by default.

To file Inbox tasks, drag them onto a project in the sidebar, use Move to, or select several and move them together. See Moving and Multi-Select.

#Today

Today shows every task whose start date or due date is today or earlier. That means:

• Tasks due today
• Tasks that are overdue
• Tasks that have started and aren't yet due, every day from the start date through the due date

Only a passed due date makes a task overdue. Two sections keep this clear: Past Due (in red) and Today.

#Day Ends At

By default the day rolls over at midnight: at 12:01 AM, today's unfinished tasks become overdue and tomorrow's arrive. If you work late, Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Day Ends At moves that moment to any hour up to 6 AM. Set it to 4 AM and a task due today stays in Today, not overdue, until 4 in the morning. Today, Upcoming, the smart-list date filters, the sidebar counts, the widgets, and the Today and Tomorrow choices in menus and typed dates all follow the same boundary. It is a per-device setting.

With Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Calendar Events turned on, today's events from the Calendar app sit in a Calendar section at the top of Today, above the tasks. They're read-only; see Calendar.

Dated subtasks appear here on their own, matched on their own due date, as long as their task is still open; completing the task takes them out with it.

#Group by Time

Today's Sort and Filter menu has a Group by Time toggle. It splits the list into Overdue, Morning, Afternoon, Tonight, and Any Time (due today with no time), like Reminders. It's off by default and remembered per device. Each section keeps its own manual order.

#Board Layout

The same menu has a Board Layout toggle that shows Today as a board instead of a list: one column per project, the Inbox first, with the day's tasks as full cards, and, with Calendar Events on, the day's events in a Calendar column of their own. Only projects with something in Today get a column. Tap a card to open it, tap its circle to complete it, and press and hold (or right-click) for the usual task menu. Sort By and Filter by Tag still decide which cards appear and in what order. Dragging between columns isn't available here; that would move a task between projects, which the board on the project itself does. Off by default and remembered per device.

#Upcoming

Upcoming shows tasks scheduled tomorrow or later: anything that has neither started nor come due yet. Once a task's start date arrives it moves to Today.

#Flagged

Every incomplete task with the flag set, from any project or the Inbox.

#Calendar

The fifth pinned list is the Calendar, a week or month grid. It has its own page: Calendar.

#Sorting and filtering a list

Each list's toolbar has a Sort and Filter menu:

• Sort By: Manual, Due Date, Creation Date, Completion Date, Priority, or Title, plus a Direction.
• Filter by Tag: one tag or All Tags. A parent tag matches its nested tags.

Both are remembered per list, per device. In Manual order, drag tasks to reorder them (press and hold first on iPhone and iPad), and the order sticks, including inside Today's Past Due and Today sections and its time groups. A reorder made on one device syncs to the others. A task added by clicking empty space under a Manual-sorted list (Mac) lands at the bottom.

#Adding tasks inside a list

Add Task in the toolbar, the + button, or (on the Mac) clicking under the last row creates a task that already matches the list:

Close the task without typing anything and it's removed again.

#Multi-select

Tap Select (or Shift-click and ⌘-click on the Mac) to pick several tasks, then use Complete, Edit Tags, or Delete, or right-click for Move to, Priority, Due Date, Add Tag, and more.

#Hiding lists you don't use

Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Sidebar Smart Lists has a toggle for each of Inbox, Today, Upcoming, Flagged, and Calendar, plus the Smart Lists and Tags sections. Hiding a list doesn't affect your tasks. Hide Counts in Library removes the numbers next to each list.

#Renaming and recoloring the built-in lists

Inbox, Today, Upcoming, Flagged, and Calendar can look however you like. Right-click or press and hold a list in the sidebar and choose Customize…, or go to Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Built-in Lists and tap the list. Change the name, pick any icon, and choose a color; Reset to Default in the editor restores that list's stock look, and Reset All to Default in Settings restores every list. What the list contains never changes, only how it looks. The look syncs to your other devices and the widgets follow it.

Copy Link in the same menu copies a kando://list/… link to the list.

#Smart lists in widgets

The Tasks widget can show Today, Upcoming, Flagged, the Inbox, any custom smart list, or a project, using the same rules as the sidebar. See Widgets.

#Opening a list at launch

Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Open at Launch can open any of these lists every time the app starts.