No to-do list app is perfect—at least, not one for everybody. OmniFocus clearly isn't for everyone. It doesn't support collaboration, offers dedicated apps only for Apple devices, and can sometimes feel overly complicated. But if you're a tech-savvy Apple user who follows David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, OmniFocus might, in fact, fit your personal productivity needs perfectly. It's exceptionally customizable and gives you every feature you could want. That said, Todoist remains our Editors' Choice winner, thanks to its greater elegance and simplicity. And if you need to work with others to complete tasks, the equally accessible and capable Asana is also an Editors' Choice winner.

Pricing: One-Time App Purchases and a Web Subscription

OmniFocus doesn't offer a free version, though you can try it out with a 14-day trial. If you want to track your tasks for free, look into Asana, Todoist, TickTick, or Toodledo instead.

The OmniFocus bundle, which includes apps for all your Apple devices, costs a one-time fee of $74.99 (Standard) or $149.99 (Pro). However, with either package, you can't access your account on the web. The Pro version offers advanced features, including custom Perspectives (views) and a focus mode, as well as AI plug-ins and other automations. If you use OmniFocus for at least three years, these prices aren't bad at all.

Alternatively, you can opt for a subscription to OmniFocus, which includes the Pro versions of all the apps, along with web access for $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. The last option is to pay only for web access, which costs $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year. Note that the web version isn't intended for mobile devices and is designed to supplement the apps for your Apple devices; it's not a standalone service. You can't even make an account if you don't have an Apple device with the OmniFocus app installed.

Todoist's paid plans cost less (starting at $5 per month, billed annually), and I'd bet that most people will find them more appealing to use. The service works on all major platforms and balances form and function exceptionally well. It also has collaboration options (such as shared to-do lists), which OmniFocus lacks. Todoist's prices have increased over the years, but it still offers a capable free version. Asana costs about the same as OmniFocus (starting at $10.99 per month, billed annually), but it's easier to use, is excellent for collaboration, and has a highly usable free version.

Things is another good GTD-focused app for the Apple ecosystem. As with OmniFocus, Things is available for a one-time fee. The catch is that you have to pay for each app separately: $9.99 for the iPhone and Apple Watch, $19.99 for the iPad, $29.99 for the Vision Pro, and $49.99 for the Mac. TickTick, meanwhile, charges $35.99 per year for its premium version.

(Credit: OmniFocus/PCMag)

Getting Started and Interface: Spend Time on the Tutorial

To get started, download OmniFocus 4 to your Apple device and create an account. You get a 14-day free trial right off the bat. That free trial applies to all three versions, meaning you can try out the Mac, iPhone, and iPad versions all at once. If you previously signed up for a free trial of OmniFocus 3, you get a fresh shot at trying out OmniFocus 4.

When you first open the app, OmniFocus creates an entire tutorial project for you. We recommend setting aside between 15 and 20 minutes to follow the instructions because it's the best way to learn how the app works, and a lot isn't intuitive. As mentioned, OmniFocus is specifically designed for the GTD productivity method, so if you don't follow this approach, it may take longer to understand how the app works.

The leftmost section of the app is your Perspectives panel, which allows you to review your tasks in various ways—by project, for example, or by tag. The middle panel shows a list relevant to the current Perspective, such as a list of projects if you're in the Projects view. To the right of that is the main panel, where you can view your tasks. An optional fourth panel, the Inspector, shows more details about the selected task.

Making To-Do Lists: Rethink Them as Projects

Like most GTD-focused apps, OmniFocus gives you an Inbox, which is the first Perspective in the left panel. It's where you put tasks when they occur to you. The idea is to write down your tasks quickly, return to what you were doing, and sort them later. You can also add tags and assign a due date to your task.

A Projects view is where you can create three kinds of projects: Parallel (for tasks that you can do in parallel), Sequential (for tasks that you must do in a specific order), and Single Action (for tasks that don't relate to any others). Each of these project types gets a dedicated icon.

The difference between these types might seem mostly aesthetic or semantic at first (different icons, different ways the tasks appear on the screen) until you try to add some detail and find you can't. For example, you can't make a recurring task in a Sequential project. The option doesn't exist. Sequential projects might be better suited for project or work management apps, which allow you to set up proper dependencies between tasks that take due dates into account. OmniFocus isn't that sophisticated. The app does gray out all tasks in a Sequential project if you aren't supposed to do them yet, however, which might help you focus on the right task at the right time. You can even hide all the tasks you aren't ready to tackle yet, though OmniFocus doesn't prevent you from checking off tasks out of order, which might not be ideal.

This all sounds complicated because it is. The benefit of the complexity, however, is that you can customize everything to work the way you want. You just have to learn the GTD way of thinking first.

(Credit: OmniFocus/PCMag)

Organizing Tasks: GTD to the Hilt

If you aren't a strict GTD adherent, some of OmniFocus's rules might get in the way of rather than support your productivity. For example, a task's due date must include a specific time. By default, it's 4 p.m. Deleting that hour and trying to save the task without a time is fruitless. It doesn't work. So, fine, we all must buy milk before 4:00 p.m.

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The idea of the due date is that it's a fixed time and date by which you must absolutely complete something. An alternative is to have a planned date, which can be set in tandem with a due date. The planned date is when you intend to complete your task, even if it's before the due date. The concept is helpful, although once again, you must associate a time with it. By default, it's 9 a.m.

Sometimes the app seems a little too keyed into its methodology at the expense of clarity. A calendar view, for example, shows two numbers on every date square. One represents the day of the month, and the other indicates the number of tasks due on that date. Which one is bigger? The number of tasks. And the current day doesn't have a date number; instead, it says "Today." In the image below, you can see that "today" initially appears to be the fifth day of the month. You become accustomed to these quirks over time, but they do contribute to the learning curve.

(Credit: OmniFocus/PCMag)

Icons in OmniFocus can be equally annoying or confusing. The icon for "today" is a sun on a horizon line with an arrow above it pointing down. A setting sun is hardly the universal sign for today. A task's status can be a play button, a pause button, a check mark in a circle, or a circle with a horizontal line. When you press the last two buttons, a pop-up confirms whether you want to mark the task as completed or drop the task. If words are necessary to describe what these statuses are, maybe they should be there from the start.

Tags and Perspectives: More GTD

As mentioned, you can add tags to any task. The Tags Perspective allows you to view all tasks with a given tag, regardless of the project they're in.

For the purposes of GTD, tags can indicate context. You may have tasks that require you to work in front of a computer, others that can be done on the phone, and still others that need to be completed at the office. When you add tags for all those contexts, you can quickly pull up a list of all your phone-related tasks, for example, when you're able to make calls.

Another Perspective is Forecast, which organizes tasks by their due date. You see today's tasks to start, and a calendar at the top lets you browse days in the future. A Flagged Perspective shows only tasks you've flagged. The Nearby Perspective uses your current location to display tasks you plan to do at a specific location. You can toggle any of these Perspectives and even create custom ones using filters.

(Credit: OmniFocus/PCMag)

User Experience: Fast and Flowy

Since version 4, OmniFocus has had exceptional keyboard shortcuts. Granted, you could always create and manage tasks without touching the mouse, but even advanced shortcuts are highly intuitive. We were able to breeze through various fields in tasks without giving it a thought.

Command-N creates a new task. From there, you can type the task name, then tab around to add details, like the project and due date, search for tags, use up and down arrow keys to navigate, and so forth. The due date field supports some natural language processing, so you can type "tom" for tomorrow or "on Monday," and the app will add it. All the best to-do list apps have natural language input now, although Todoist does it best because you can use it right in the task name field.

Although OmniFocus can be overwhelming at times, it its remarkably flexible and capable. For example, if you copy and paste a list from a text editor into OmniFocus, the app figures out that you want multiple tasks based on the line breaks. Automations and some early AI features made available through plug-ins are also promising, although they are primarily intended for power users.

Mobile Apps: A Mixed Experience

OmniFocus's user interface packs a lot of information, so it doesn't transfer well to a mobile device. It shouldn't surprise you to learn that the iPhone version of OmniFocus can sometimes feel crowded. The app attempts to overcome the limitations of the smaller screen by utilizing gestures and other design elements, although not always intuitively. For example, swiping a task left or right never brings up an option to defer it, which is arguably a common function.

The iPad version, on the other hand, works very well. It's practically identical to the Mac version, and that's a compliment. Both mobile versions come with excellent widgets for your various Perspectives. We have not tested OmniFocus on the Apple Watch or Vision Pro.

Sharing Lists: Not Supported

One big feature missing is collaboration. The company that makes OmniFocus has a different app, called OmniPlan. OmniPlan is more akin to a collaborative task management app or a lightweight project management app, rather than a to-do list app.

Still, the very best to-do apps let you invite other people to join your lists or projects or whatever you call them. It's nice to be able to share a grocery or household chore list with your family members. We expect paid apps to have this capability.

Asana and Todoist are wonderful for collaboration. Both free and paid users can share lists and assign tasks to others.