Microsoft Lists Revealed, and No, It’s Not a New To-Do List App

Microsoft is launching a new Microsoft 365 app called Microsoft Lists. And before you get confused — no, it is not another to-do list app. Microsoft Lists is something completely different, even though it will result in the obvious confusion with Microsoft To-Do for a lot of people.

Microsoft Lists is actually a new smart information track app that builds on SharePoint Lists. It’s a new app for businesses that can be used to track issues, manage inventory, and much more.

Microsoft Lists can be accessed from the web, a new mobile app, or from within Microsoft Teams. Users can view their recent lists, favorites, and create new lists from the Lists Home.

Microsoft Lists is tightly integrated into Teams, which means you can directly access your Lists from within Teams. You can create new lists from within Teams, view existing ones, or chat about individual list items all without leaving Teams.

Microsoft Lists also comes with ready-made templates that you can use to create a list quickly. These pre-made lists can be used for broad and specific industry use cases, making it easier to kick things off. You can even import a table from Microsoft Excel to create a new list.

Lists can be viewed in three different ways: a grid view, a calendar view, and a simple lists view.

Microsoft Lists lets you automate things with rules as well. You can create a rule that emails someone when there is a new item on a list, for example. Using rules, you can also create reminders, etc.

And last but not least, you can share entire Lists with others (with edit or read-only permissions), and share individual list items with others. You can apply other constraints too, including setting expiration dates and requiring a password for accessing shared Lists.

“Millions of SharePoint users have benefitted from using lists over the years. Microsoft Lists builds on this trusted information platform – an evolution – bringing new user experiences and capabilities to the foundational innovation of SharePoint lists,” wrote Microsoft.

Microsoft’s new Lists app is actually quite similar to Airtable, a service that offers a very similar interface and capabilities. Microsoft has had SharePoint lists for years, but the experience isn’t as full-fledged as Microsoft Lists, though the latter seems to have been inspired by products like Airtable.

The story was updated to add comment from Airtable.