Under New Leadership, Microsoft To-Do is Getting new Features in June

For some time, it looked like Microsoft’s To-Do was an idle duck in the productivity pond. But a few months back, there was renewed signs of hope as the application slowly started receiving new features.

Based on an update on the Office Support site (thanks Tero) list sharing will be arriving for To-Do in early June; the company says that by mid-June the feature should have rolled out to nearly everyone on all supported platforms.

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Microsoft says that this feature will “make it easy to coordinate and collaborate in small teams and one-on-one” and as the name suggests, all you do is send a link to another user and you will instantly start sharing your list with that user. And as you would expect, once you are done sharing the list, you can simply turn off the sharing feature to remain in control of the list.

So what’s changed with To-Do? I believe that it has a new leader and it’s a name you might recognize, Marcus Ash. After talking with a few folks at Build, I was told that he is now heading up that team and based on his limited tweet activity, it looks like this is, in fact, true. I haven’t personally confirmed it with Marcus but hopefully, he will fill us in soon on this change. Marcus confirmed on Twitter that this is true and that he is also working with Laura Butler on the application as well.

I currently use Todoist for my personal task-management needs but if Microsoft gets serious about To-Do and brings all the features of Wunderlist to the platform, I’ll likely switch over to the app. One hope that I have is that it will natively integrate better into the Microsoft stack and allow me to link tasks to files so that when I get a reminder, with one deep-link I can open the document/email/webpage related to that item.

For now, if you are using To-Do, look for an update in the near future to bump the version number to 1.32.

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Conversation 19 comments

  • StephenCWLL

    28 May, 2018 - 2:03 pm

    <p>Sharing arrived today on the beta channel.</p>

  • Stephen Kagansky-Young

    28 May, 2018 - 2:43 pm

    <p>I love Ms to-do and keep using it. Why? The my day function is AMAZING. I love skimming in the morning and moving things to my day. Gives me a manageable list for the day. </p>

    • mtalinm

      28 May, 2018 - 3:08 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#279055"><em>In reply to Stephen_Kagansky-Young:</em></a></blockquote><p>agreed. whoever thought up this feature should be sainted, or at least knighted.</p>

      • Wojciech Halicki-Piszko

        29 May, 2018 - 12:59 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#279056"><em>In reply to mtalinm:</em></a></blockquote><p>Probably someone from GTD community several years ago. Or maybe even earlier. It's kinda common sense practice – to look at your day's tasks to plan. </p>

        • Stephen Kagansky-Young

          29 May, 2018 - 1:55 pm

          <blockquote><a href="#279213"><em>In reply to Warjan:</em></a></blockquote><p>Nope. Just an average person. Most of my to dos do not have dates attached. It's just how I work. I don't use it in an Enterprise or business environment. So a today filter doesn't work for me. What my day allows me to so is pick what I'm working on that day from all my lists so my widget displays only what I am working on that day or just added. I considered switching to Google tasks when it was spruced up recently but the my day keeps me coming back here. </p>

  • brisonharvey

    Premium Member
    28 May, 2018 - 3:13 pm

    <p>I am likewise looking for a more integrated Microsoft Todo application. But this also seems to overlap with Planner. Be interested to see how this works in comparison.</p>

  • rainking430

    28 May, 2018 - 4:31 pm

    <p>I have looked at Todoist before, but much of what I use for free in Wunderlist is behind a paywall (file uploads, reminders, etc). If MS continues that trend and ends up adding all those Wunderlist features to To-Do for free (at least for Office 365 subscribers like myself), I'll gladly switch to it. I fully expect to be waiting a while for those features though.</p>

  • pbruynzeel

    Premium Member
    28 May, 2018 - 4:38 pm

    <p>Would be great if they would integrate it with One Note, so you can create a task in a One Note page have it appear in To-Do</p>

  • Bart

    Premium Member
    28 May, 2018 - 4:49 pm

    <p>Aren't we dealing here with a 'Steve Ballers'-situation? Meaning: the ground work for new features has been done under previous leadership?</p><p>Anyway, hopefully this will be the start of many more features to come </p>

  • Alastair Cooper

    28 May, 2018 - 5:01 pm

    <p>It's somewhat ironic that Microsoft has struggled to get anything 'done' in the the development of their Todo app.</p>

  • will

    Premium Member
    28 May, 2018 - 7:56 pm

    <p>What about the promised Mac version? </p>

    • webdev511

      Premium Member
      29 May, 2018 - 10:55 am

      <blockquote><a href="#279096"><em>In reply to will:</em></a></blockquote><p>If they go full PWA, then it won't really matter will it? Oh wait, does Mac OS have PWA support? I mean I have a Mac with High Sierra on it, but no clue about PWA support. </p>

  • James Wilson

    29 May, 2018 - 3:12 am

    <p>It would be a good application to have but Microsoft don't have a great reputation in the consumer space at the moment so I won't be holding my breath. It used to be that when Microsoft kept quiet about something, you knew there was something special coming along. Now, when they keep quiet, it means they've dropped / stopped investing in the product in question.</p>

  • Igor Engelen

    29 May, 2018 - 5:14 am

    <p>About time, they started the development of sharing in January.</p>

  • Jules Wombat

    29 May, 2018 - 8:14 am

    <p>I thought Cortana was supposed to sort all this</p>

  • hometoy

    29 May, 2018 - 9:24 am

    <p>This is good news. Its taking steps to almost be usable. 🙂 (for me at least) Until then, will be sticking to Wunderlist but I like seeing improvements going on.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • djncanada

    Premium Member
    29 May, 2018 - 3:06 pm

    <p>Brad, I hope Marcus can get this team to be more proactive.</p><p><br></p><p>If they could deliver sharing, better comments section like Wunderlist and authentication services that do not ask user to log in multiple times/day, Oh and train their O365 support team how to resolve To Do issues.</p><p><br></p><p>It would also be nice if/when they allow MS Planner tasks to be managed by To Do.</p><p><br></p><p>Do you have any insight they can improve Outlook integration and To Do, be nice for comments to be included in Outlook tasks synced with To Do.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

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