Microsoft to Shut Down Wunderlist in 2020

Microsoft revealed today that it will finally shut down the Wunderlist apps and service, on May 6, 2020.

“When we first announced Microsoft To-Do, we also announced that Wunderlist would eventually retire. We planned this so we could concentrate on building a more integrated and secure app that helps you get stuff done in a smarter way,” a new post to the Wunderlist blog reads. “It’s time to let you know that on May 6, 2020, we plan to shut down Wunderlist.”

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Starting today, Microsoft will no longer accept new Wunderlist sign-ups. And after May 6, Wunderlist will no longer sync to-dos, but it will support export to-dos and importing them into Microsoft To-Do for “a period of time.”

As you may recall, Microsoft announced that it would purchase the Berlin-based Wunderlist in June 2015. At the time, it said that it would “build on and apply Wunderlist’s innovations to Microsoft’s apps and services.” But Microsoft eventually announced that it would replace Wunderlist with a new Microsoft To-Do app, which has experienced some ups (in the form of new features) and downs (in the form of Microsoft simply ignoring it) over the years.

In the good news department, Microsoft To-Do has seen huge improvements in the past year especially, and in September it received a massive update that makes it look and work more like the Wunderlist app that inspired it.

Wunderlist users who would like to switch to Microsoft To-Do can do so fairly easily: Just download the app on the web, Windows, Android, or iOS, sign-in with your Microsoft account, and then use the Wunderlist importer to import your to-dos.

You can learn more about the end of Wunderlist support on the Wunderlist website.

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Conversation 17 comments

  • gregsedwards

    Premium Member
    09 December, 2019 - 1:15 pm

    <p>Finally. As an original Wunderlist user who converted to To-Do long ago, this feels long overdue (task puns!)… If I had to guess, I‘d bet they had some paid customers whose contracts they were just waiting to retire.</p><p>Oh, and your hero image is flipped (the To-Do icon isn’t symmetrical).</p>

    • Orin

      09 December, 2019 - 2:12 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#496851">In reply to gregsedwards:</a></em></blockquote><p>As a Microsoft ecosystem user, I couldn't be happier with Microsoft To Do. I feel it has matured well and that Microsoft has molded it into the task system that works well with my personality and workflow.</p><p><br></p><p>Hopefully those still using Wunderlist will feel the same way when they finally move over to Microsoft To Do (now that they're being forced to).</p>

      • Vladimir Carli

        Premium Member
        09 December, 2019 - 9:49 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#496868">In reply to Orin:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>sorry but I am not happy at all about this. The problem with microsoft apps is that they force eveyone to have a microsoft account and you can't mix business and personal accounts, that sucks. If you collaborate with many people in different environments it just doesn't cut it. I was holding on to wunderlist, which was working perfectly for me. I'll have to look somewhere else I guess. Basically each time Microsoft makes an acquisition, it fucks up a company and its products</p>

        • Orin

          10 December, 2019 - 8:31 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#497041">In reply to Vladimir:</a></em></blockquote><p>Vladimir, I definitely understand the annoyance of requiring a Microsoft account rather than just allowing registering for a specific app with an e-mail address.</p><p><br></p><p>However, I don't understand your statement that you can't mix business and personal accounts. Can you clarify? Maybe I just don't realize this limitation, but I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Thanks!</p>

          • Vladimir Carli

            Premium Member
            10 December, 2019 - 12:09 pm

            <blockquote><em><a href="#497126">In reply to Orin:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>I have many todo lists. Most of them are</p><p>work related and shared with coworkers through our office365 business accounts. I also have other lists that are not work related. I want to be able to see them all at the same time so I create them with the same business accounts. Some of these lists I would like to share with family and friends but it’s not possible to share them with consumer accounts. </p><p>It’s not even possible to share lists with members of another organization. These are absurd limitations that Wunderlist doesn’t have</p>

            • gregsedwards

              Premium Member
              10 December, 2019 - 1:10 pm

              <blockquote><em><a href="#497227">In reply to Vladimir:</a></em></blockquote><p>Wunderlist never had to worry about tenant-level security, because it was never fully integrated into the Office stack.</p><p>Perhaps it's not your ideal solution, but the To-Do app does support multiple accounts, so you could easily connect it to a separate personal Microsoft Account for friction-less sharing of tasks with family, friends, and colleagues. True that you have to switch back and forth to manage them, but it's arguably cleaner and more secure to keep your business and personal data separate. </p>

              • Vladimir Carli

                Premium Member
                10 December, 2019 - 1:37 pm

                <blockquote><em><a href="#497243">In reply to gregsedwards:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>are you sure it supports multiple accounts? I’m on the iOS app now and can’t find a way to add a second account. The only option seems to be to log out and log in again</p>

      • IanYates82

        Premium Member
        11 December, 2019 - 4:54 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#496868">In reply to Orin:</a></em></blockquote><p>ToDo has become useful in recent months. With new features that let it reach in to other places where you might store "tasks" – like the Planner in Office 365 – it's suddenly become quite compelling.</p>

  • lwetzel

    Premium Member
    09 December, 2019 - 5:28 pm

    <p>I'm disappointed in that isn't more powerful. I used to use ToDoist and stopped to use To-Do. Got frustrated and went back to ToDoist. I will keep an eye on To-Do there is always hope.</p><p><br></p>

    • Orin

      10 December, 2019 - 8:34 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#496987">In reply to lwetzel:</a></em></blockquote><p>Just to give a different perspective, ToDoist is almost too powerful.</p><p><br></p><p>For the way I process information, ToDoist allows so much granularity and is so feature rich, that I would spend all of my time managing my to dos and not getting anything done.</p><p><br></p><p>Granted that has to do with self control and not the application. But the simplicity of Microsoft To Do allows me to focus on my to dos and doesn't need a higher level of self control since the features just aren't there.</p><p><br></p><p>This is also how I felt about Wunderlist compared to ToDoist. Hope that makes sense!</p>

    • ErichK

      Premium Member
      10 December, 2019 - 8:39 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#496987">In reply to lwetzel:</a></em></blockquote><p>Similar situation with me. I used to use ToDoist and liked it, but there were a couple of bugs that were really annoying me. I switched to MS ToDo, and I think I'm going to stick with it.</p>

  • orbsitron

    09 December, 2019 - 5:47 pm

    <p>As a former Wunderlist user, and as of a few months ago, a To-Do user, I can vouch that To-Do is in great shape these days. </p><p><br></p><p>I have shared lists with my wife (a grocery list, a Costco list, a ski trip packing list…) and we can each add/remove items from those lists and everything stays in sync, across both users (different Microsoft Accounts) and across our To-Do apps on our PCs and phones (cross-platform/ecosystem).</p><p><br></p><p>I can even add things to any of my lists with my voice via Cortana and that works from my PC or from my Echo devices, which we do frequently. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I'd prefer a native Alexa skill for To-Do though… it's a bit cumbersome to ask Alexa to ask Cortana to add something to my lists, but at least this works and works reliably for our family.</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">To-Do has come a long way recently! </span></p>

    • Vladimir Carli

      Premium Member
      09 December, 2019 - 9:53 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#497002">In reply to orbsitron:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>do you and your wife have business or consumer accounts? Last time I tried, if I was logged in with my business account, I could not share lists with consumer accounts. This is a major problem for me which makes Microsoft to-do useless. Obviously I cannot force my wife and friends to make microsoft business accounts, nor I wish to use different accounts. Did they fix this?</p>

      • Pierre Masse

        10 December, 2019 - 8:42 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#497053">In reply to Vladimir:</a></em></blockquote><p>For what purpose one would want to share a business list with a consumer account? I don't see this happening very often.</p>

        • Vladimir Carli

          Premium Member
          10 December, 2019 - 12:26 pm

          <blockquote><em><a href="#497143">In reply to Pierre Masse:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>I don’t know others but I have a mixture of work related lists and personal lists. The work related lists I want to share with coworkers. Here I already have a problem because one can share only within an organization. What if I want to share a list with a freelancer? Then I have personal lists that I want to share with my wife, kids and friends. That is impossible. The only way to do it would be to log out from my business account and login with a personal account. But that’s absurd and I would not even be able to see all the lists at the same time. With Wunderlist I have none of these problems. Migrating to Microsoft todo is simply impossible</p>

          • Pierre Masse

            10 December, 2019 - 12:52 pm

            <blockquote><em><a href="#497233">In reply to Vladimir:</a></em></blockquote><p>Now I understand. Let's hope they will address this soon.</p>

  • joanditsch

    17 January, 2020 - 11:13 am

    <p>Thanks for mentioning that there are ups and downs about this. But I think many people feel as disappointed as the creator of Wunderlist (<span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34);">Christian Reber) </span>about Microsoft's decision… I can see many will take it as a good chance switching to other alternatives due to the disappointment.</p><p><br></p><p>It might sound a bit biased cause I work for this company, but I've been using Zenkit everyday (at work and in private) for almost 2 years. So I can really say that Zenkit is a great alternative to Wunderlist. </p><p><br></p><p>For sure it would be easy to switch to Microsoft To-Do, but no one can tell when they will shut it down again… I would love to know how you think about this.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

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