Tasks

Tasks gathers every to-do in your notes into one list. Your to-dos stay in the notes where you wrote them: Tasks finds them there, on your Mac, and when you check one off here, its note changes too. Tasks sends nothing anywhere, and it's free on every plan.

Open Tasks#

Tasks is near the top of the sidebar, under the Inbox. You can also choose Go › Tasks, or run Open Tasks in ⌘K. It opens in a pane like a note, so back and forward work.

On a first launch with a big vault, Tasks says "Still reading … notes on this Mac. More to-dos may show up." until it has read them all.

Add a to-do#

A to-do is a line in a to-do list in any note. Make one in any of these ways:

• Type [ ] and a space at the start of a line.
• Choose / › To-do list.
• Press ⇧⌘9.
• In Quick capture, start a line with [ ]. It becomes a to-do when the capture is filed or added to today's note.
• Run the Extract tasks action on a note: it adds the note's action items at the end as to-dos, for you to review like any edit. See Actions and styles.

Meeting notes list their action items as to-dos too, with who and when ("You · Friday").

Give a to-do a date#

In a to-do, type @. A menu offers Today, Tomorrow, the days of the coming week by name, and Pick a date… for any other day. Keep typing to narrow it ("@fr" for Friday) or to name a day ("@23 oct", "@next friday", "@in 3 days"). Words that name no day, like "@Ana", stay words.

Outside a to-do, / › Date opens the same menu.

The date becomes a small chip in the line, read against today: "Today", "Tomorrow" or "Fri 23 Oct", marked when it's due today or overdue. A to-do in a daily note is due on that note's day unless it has a date of its own.

In a Markdown export, a date is written as 📅 2026-10-23, and importing Markdown reads it back as a date.

The list#

The bar at the top chooses what the list shows:

By note groups to-dos under their note, newest edit first, with the note's folder and when it was edited. A daily note reads as "Today's note", "Yesterday's note" or its day, and a meeting has a microphone mark. A row says where its to-do sits ("in Lodging").

By date groups them as Overdue, Today, This week, Later and No date, earliest first. Each row names its note.

Search tasks finds to-dos by their words and by their note's title. / or ⌘F jumps to it, and Esc clears it.

Click a to-do and the inspector previews its note, with the to-do marked and in view, and Open at task and Open beside. Its Info tab says which folder the note is in, how many of its to-dos are open and done, the heading the to-do is under, and when the note was created and last edited.

Check off a to-do#

Press Space, or click its box. The to-do stays where it is, struck through, with Undo, until you leave Tasks. Press Space again on a done to-do to uncheck it.

Checking off from Tasks changes the note itself:

• Canto saves a version of the note first, so version history has it as it was.
• If the note is open, the change is made in it as its own undo step, so ⌘Z in the note takes it back too.
• Canto finds the to-do by its place and its words. If it can't be sure which one you meant (two to-dos in the note say the same thing, or the to-do is gone), it says so and changes nothing: "Open the note to check it off."

Keys#

Right-click a to-do for the same choices, and for snoozing.

Snooze a to-do#

To put a to-do off without changing its note, right-click it and choose Until tomorrow (E), For a week, For a month, or, for a to-do dated later, Until it's due. It leaves Open and comes back on its day. A toast says when, with Undo.

Snoozed lists what you put off, each with the day it comes back. Bring back now (E) returns one to Open.

Snoozing is kept on this Mac only. It doesn't sync, and your other Macs show the to-do as open.

Carry to today#

A past daily note's open to-dos can follow you to today. In By note, its group has Carry to today:

• Move open to-dos to today's note takes them out of the old note and adds them to the end of today's, under a line that links back to the day they came from.
• Copy open to-dos to today's note leaves the old note as it is.

To-dos nested under a carried one go with it, and done to-dos stay where they were. Today's note is made from your daily note template if it doesn't exist yet. One Undo puts both notes back, as long as nobody changed them since.

The sidebar count#

The Tasks row in the sidebar counts your open to-dos. Choose what it shows in Settings › General › Tasks › Sidebar count:

• Open (the default): every open to-do.
• Due: a badge for the ones overdue or due today, and nothing when none are.
• Off: no number.

Snoozed to-dos aren't counted.

Ask and your to-dos#

Ask can read your to-dos and check them off. Ask it what's still open ("what's left for the trip?") and it lists them with their notes and dates, inside what the chat reads: a chat that reads only some folders or notes sees only their to-dos.

When Ask wants to check to-dos off, it asks first, naming each one and its note: "Check off 3 to-dos?" Canto saves a version of each note before it changes it.

• In one note, this is free.
• In several notes at once, it's part of Pro (Edits across many notes), with three free tries on each Mac, and a try is spent only once you approve. Without Pro or a try, check them off one note at a time, or here in Tasks.

See Ask about your notes and Free and Pro.

Other apps (MCP)#

Apps you connect over MCP get two tools for your to-dos: list_tasks lists open or done to-dos with their notes, free on every plan, and set_task_checked checks one off or back on, which needs Pro or a free try, like every change from another app. See Other apps (MCP).

What stays on this Mac#

Tasks reads your notes on your Mac and sends nothing about your to-dos anywhere. Your to-dos are part of their notes, so with iCloud sync they reach your other Macs with the notes; snoozes stay on the Mac where you set them. When you ask a cloud model about your to-dos, the ones it lists go to that model with the rest of the chat, as anything a cloud chat reads does; see What leaves this Mac.