Microsoft To-Do app for MacOS – A Review and Comparison with Reminders App

Microsoft, finally, published Application to do for macOS and iOS. In a world where there are many to-do applications to do, what does it mean to install and use Microsoft To-Do for MacOS? macOS (up to Mojave) has its own Reminders app that works pretty well like the Microsoft To-Do application for macOS. We will talk about the App reminders in a moment. The question now is: will users go from macOS reminders to the Microsoft To-Do application? It's too early to give a verdict, but here are some of the good and bad features of the Microsoft To-Do application for macOS.

Microsoft To-Do App for macOS

The installation of the Microsoft To-Do application is relatively fluid. There is no need to manually move the DMG application to Applications. The application automatically writes into Applications during installation.

Once you open the Microsoft To-Do application from Launchpad or Dock, you may be surprised. The application already contains some tasks that you have not yet created in the To-Do application. This is because you have already entered these tasks in your Outlook.com tasks, in Outlook Desktop or in the macOS Reminders application. They are now visible on the Microsoft To-Do application.

Microsoft's To-Do application automatically synchronizes information from your macOS reminders, Outlook.com tasks, and Outlook desktop tasks as soon as it's installed. This helps you to use the application directly from the point where it is installed on your macOS. You do not need to copy-and-paste or enter previous entries from the Reminders application or Outlook Desktop tasks.

To enable synchronization with macOS reminders and Outlook tasks, the Tasks application continues to check for iCloud-based reminders and Web-based Outlook tasks. In other words, the Tasks application constantly checks the iCloud, Outlook.com and Outlook Desktop tasks.

This is not a one way sync. If you update the Tasks app by adding some tasks, these new tasks will automatically be available in MacOS Reminders, Outlook.com, and Desktop Outlook. See the image above. In the image above, the "Automatic Reverse Synchronization" task has been added to the Reminders application, but it also appears on the Microsoft To Do List.

Once you have clicked on a task, the window adds another column to the interface. This column contains options for setting due dates, repetitions, reminders, and so on. Thus, two columns (panels) are visible in the default view of the Tasks application. The third appears when you tap or click on a task. To return to the default view is not clear there. The only solution is to click on the>"Character down the Tasks column.

The options for creating a new task are self explanatory. You simply click "Add Task" at the bottom of the task list to create new entries.

However, I did not find any option to color-code the tasks in the Microsoft To-Do application for macOS. A star appears near the end of each task display. If you click on this star, the associated task will be added to Important in the left pane.

A pop-up menu appears when you right-click one of the To-Do added tasks. It also contains options for setting a due date, repetitions and delete the task.

By clicking My day This option tells you your schedule for the day. This is a convenient option that you can change based on your time: sort priorities, delete or reschedule tasks, and so on.

Microsoft To-Do vs. App macOS Reminders

The Microsoft To-Do application and the macOS Reminders application are almost identical. They work the same way and, to some extent, the interface of the two is the same. except that the application Tasks does not have a dark mode, unlike the application Reminders (when you switch to dark mode in macOS Mojave)

The sub-menu that appears when you right-click a task in the Reminders application gives you options to create or delete tasks, schedule tasks, add reminders, etc., as with Microsoft To-Do for MacOS. You can get the same information and options to customize by clicking the information symbol next to each task, which appears when you hover the mouse over the tasks.

The above review of the Microsoft To-Do application concludes that the To-Do application is almost similar to the existing macOS Reminders application. That's why I think that few MacOS users will replace reminders by the To-Do application. But if you plan to make the change, you will find it easy to use.

What are your points of view?