Someone at Google finally realized how helpful it would be to add a to-do list to Gmail. It is called “Tasks” and is now available in Gmail Labs (click on the beaker icon next to “Settings” on the upper right hand corner of Gmail). When you enable Tasks, it appears as a link in the left-hand column under Contacts. Click on the link and a box pops up in the lower right-hand corner like it does with Gtalk. You can add tasks, reorder them, cross out completed tasks, switch to a new list, or pop out the box to keep on your desktop.
It’s a simple feature, but really useful for people who find that they keep Gmail open all the time. In general, I’m not a big user of to-do lists. Not because I don’t need them (I do), but because they require that I open a separate application or go to a dedicated Website like Remember The Milk. In effect, I already use Gmail as my to-do list. When I need to remind myself of more than five tasks that I need to do, I simply email myself the list. This is not an ideal solution, especially if I’m looking for the list a few days after I send it.
Having a dedicated task manager inside Gmail is much better. And now you can turn any email into a task by selecting it as an action. You can also add a due date for each task. But what’s missing—and I’m actually surprised at this oversight—is the ability to share or e-mail these lists. And when you add a due date, it doesn’t add the task to your Google Calendar or even give you that option. Maybe adding those features is something the Gmail team can put on its own to-do list.
(Hat tip to TechCrunch reader Roy Pessis, who spotted this for us and sent in a a tip. Update: Here’s the Gmail blog post Update 2: Per the comments below, Remember the Milk has it own Gmail add-on).
YES! Thank you Gmail team!
Is it just a coincidence that I can’t access my Gmail now?
With all the advantages of Gmails over hotmail, you got to wonder why people still use hotmail, yahoo and others over them! Recently, innovation seems to be coming more from the G than the M front… no wonder they are losing market share!
Jon
http://WoodMarvels.com – Create Unique Memories
Thanks for the hat tip
this is cool
Dude, i do the same email myself thing all the time. Label it, create a filter and put in a folder and you’re good. Ideas for years.
Accessible via iPhone I hope?
Finally. Now if they can just add a “merge duplicate contacts” feature!
Gosh…..
FYI – Remember the Milk has a tab for Gmail that works quite nicely.
http://www.reme...services/gmail/
agree with @thinkjose, but it would be cool if we didn’t have to install rtm and you could just have gmail’s task list sync with your rtm list or something
funny that Remember The Milk has been getting more and more attention lately. I wonder how much attention the big G pays to things like that, possibly anti-competitive but RTM has other features and a community to temper that angle.
agree with thinkjose. RTM’s gmail add-on is sublime.
Thanks, I added that link to the post.
+1
Remember The Milk’s integration with the Google products is fantastic: it shows up in my Google Calendar; the Gmail plugin gives me combined view. I was only waiting for an Android client.
I was so happy I could remove my rtm! I needed a ToDo-list following the KISS principle.
Task suits me well and I’m convinced that it will evolve soon.
Currently I prefer the RTM plugin since I don’t like the chat window and since it understands terms like “tomorrow” without the need to pick a date in the calendar. The Gmail team should just have linked to RTM in their blog than come along with their own inferior product (might get better of course).
This is great! Finally! I’ve been waiting this for a long time!
If only I could use it!!! Google has been painfully slow all day! You can see it on twitter.com. I am very surprised no one has covered this today. I have sent a comment to tips@techcrunch.com but I wonder if then even read those.
http://search.t...gle%2Bis%2Bslow
I think I will stick with RTM. I can sync to my crackberry and see everything in one place, plus add notes to my tasks. A must have since there is no CRM for the BB
I’m using gtdinbox.com for gmail. Finaly I have a zero inbox and a smile on my face
GTDINBOX is also using the exact same methodology you already use. It sends emails to itself and then helps simplifying admintistration of it.
It’s about time! A to-do list that I will actually be visiting on a constant basis.
Finally! Using the to-do list on my custom Google page or trying to use Google Calendar for the same job has sucked.
Why doesn’t Google just buy 37 Signals already? Their Tada List is awesome and you be just awesome with Gmail. I’ll check this out tho.
I dunno, there’s something in me that says 37S wouldn’t sell.
Sync with my Blackberry and I’ll start using it 100%… otherwise, I’ll keep using the RTM Plugin for GMail and sync RTM to my Blackberry.
FINALLY. I’m sick of creating draft emails and using them as pseudo to-do lists. This will most undoubtedly come in handy in organising my life!
testing, sorry
I like it. Can I get my todo lists via a nice iPhone UI? That would be awesome.
Hopefully they will sync the interface into the layout similar to remember the milk… it’s a bit wonky right now in that it doesn’t quite fit in with the rest of the page and covers up parts of the page intead of being an integrated part of the page….
If you’re going to go this route, using the RememberTheMilk add-on is a great alternative. U can just use it in gmail if you’d like… or with the dozen or so other UIs they provide for the web, desktop, or mobile devices.
Repeating thinkjose’s link for emphasis:
http://www.reme...services/gmail/
Another test… sorry
Woohoo no more relying on notepad!
I just tried it out. It’s a pretty neat new little feature. Why didn’t the GMail team launched it before?
For people having trouble finding the beaker, just go into Settings and then Labs and enable “Tasks”. I’m guessing the beaker only shows up when you have a labs add-on enabled.
Thanks, I actually couldn’t find it and I’m not really a complete moron.
Yeah, I’m having trouble finding it. I am using GMail in German, and I saw that it only allows Labs in English, so I changed to English but I still didn’t get a Labs tab in settings. Damn English people. (I’m a native English speaker, Australian, not being racist!).
Finally!! Now they just need to add it to their iphone app
Peter
http://www.thewebwar.com
They have a better one on iGoogle which is what I use most of the day. I will be impressed when they:
1. Easily integrate with Mobile contacts/to-do lists
2. Give me the ability to put my signature ABOVE the reply in my reply and forwarded messages.
Not sure what you are referring to with #1 (mobile phones? MobileMe? – and what do you mean by easily integrate?) but as far as #2 goes, they already do. Go to settings>labs and scroll down till you see “Signature tweaks”.
I just started using Highrise from 37Signals, and I really like it. However, this will be great for reminding me to add reminders to Highrise.
Looks neat, but I’m sticking with RememberTheMilk. Until Google makes this more than an experimental feature and makes it available on mobile platforms RTM has got it beat. They beat Google to the Task list inside Google’s own app.
I wish they enable all these new features for Google Apps accounts as well and not just Gmail accounts. I think a lot of these are super useful for Google Apps customers.
I administrate three different companies with Google Apps and all three have all labs features available.
I have read that Google Apps accounts are getting Labs activated slowly, you will probably get it soon.
You or your App administrator has to activate labs in the domain settings. It might take up to 2 weks till it’ll be activated but than you can use all lab features (love “canned response”).
I’ve tried to get into Evernote and such multiple times, but I’ve never had the incentive to keep it open all the time, like I do for Gmail. This will be very useful.
No way this can/will replace the Remember the Milk sidebar. With RTM I can sync my tasks to my Windows Mobile phone which then syncs with Outlook hence RTM and Outlook are always in sync. I don’t need yet another isolated and detached task manager…we have plenty of those all over the web already.
just to emphasize what everyone else is saying: stick with the RTM Gmail sidebar plugin…it’s MUCH better.
http://www.reme.../services/gmail
Completely agree!
RTM is awesome… but the one flaw is that if I want to access it on my iPhone, it is NOT FREE.
As for the RTM add-on for Gmail… it’s nice and all, but just not integrated enough. Right now, if I read an e-mail and I want to add a task, I would need to visit the RTM add-on. With Gmail’s new feature, I just hit {shift}-T and I’m good to go. Also, in general, Google’s version is faster than the RTM plug-in and doesn’t need an occasional secondary login.
If RTM’s iPhone app was FREE, I’d definitely stick with it.
Your comment is a hint that their business plan is sound. You have a $400 cellphone – $25 a year for a great application isn’t bad!
another thing they really need to steal from RTM would be the plain English syntax to create a new task. For example: “task 1 tomorrow @3PM” would fill in all the appropriate information automatically. Gmail’s task manager does not do this, RTM does this VERY well.
Just a few corrections to your comment StareClips…
- When you have the RTM Add-on for Firefox installed, you can create a task right from the email. There is a “Create Task” option in the “More Actions” dropdown.
- There is other options for integration like instantly creating a task when you’ve added a Star to an email; creating a task when you add a label; autocompletion based on GCalendar/GContacts when entering a task. The integration with Gmail and GCalendar are very impressive.
- There are two versions available for the iphone. There is the iPhone App available from the App store that only works with Pro accounts of RTM. And there is a free web version optimized for the iPhone (mobile Safari) that works great. Incidentally the web version was the Apple Design Award “Best iPhone Web Application” 2008 Winner.
Interesting. I see a lot of RTM users! While I love that, as someone who completely lives in gmail for work purposes, being able to track tasks that land via my inbox (which is 90% of them) is essential.
I get what you’re saying about RTM and mobile, however. That’s something that will hopefully be coming along soon.
I’ve been wanting this for a LONG time (ever since I discovered G-Notebook wouldn’t work within an email, duh).
Now if they would officially add labeling macros and stop users (particularly those of us on laptops who are getting RSI) from having to use a drop-down menu to label items, I’d be the happiest boy on the planet.
This looks good for light use. Power users will want more functionality, I’m sure.
I would recommend http://www.vitalist.com for those looking for a GTD approach.
I have waited for ages to see a todo list from google. I can finally die peacefully!
TIP:
If you have keyboard shorcuts on (which I highly recommend — go to Settings to turn it on)….
Hit Shift+T when an email is open or selected to add that email to your task list.
Gmail wasn’t working today and I was going bezerker
THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE AND IM NOT EVEN KIDDING!!! YAH!!!!
Seriously, I’ve been waiting for this forever.
Can we get an iphone app now please. Using GApps in the browser on the iphone sux. Gmail is my central productivity tool, then GCal. If they can integrate the todo and make it easy to use on the iphone, I’ll have all my core bases covered.
If you don’t use the RTM Firefox add-on you can also add RTM as a GMail gadget. RTM totally rocks
This just made my day! Amazing how such a small simple thing can make a big difference. Nice to have finally.
Great – now if only I could somehow share/assign tasks to other gmail users in my team ……
(Ok… one more comment on RTM…)
RTM has sharing options, public options, RSS feed options, and even Location options (with a GMaps integration… it’s pretty cool if you need it).
It has a significant number of powerful features but has a very very simple interface… especially the RTM FF Add-on.
I’ve tried RTM, but ended up with Toodledo. It has a Gmail plug-in…but I keep it open all the time so not needed. I see a dedicated task list a must.
Awesome, I was just thikning yesterday how Gmail needed this.
It does need to eventually be shared/attached to calendar.
It is very painful to see rtm and other task managers desperately trying glorify their service in the comments. Unfortunately, they must accept the truth: Google has entered their market. Game over.
I shouldn’t respond to this clear trolling – but this statement is so wrong. Google entered the browser market with Chrome. Game over for Firefox? (Largely Google funded). Game over for Internet Explorer?
Google entered the translation market. Game over for Babylon?
Google entered the RSS reader market. Game over for Bloglines, Rojo or Newsgator?
I think not. Competition is as healthy as it has ever been despite your whacked outlook.
Honestly, I am a user of RTM, and who cares if the comment is a plug or not, I didn’t know either that there are “sharing” options for RTM, so stop being a bitch and stifling information, and saying things like “Game over.” Obviously, the game has already begun. And I admit I’m biased, I want to see RTM thrive after the extraordinary and impressive amount of effort they’ve put into making the app so seamlessly adaptable to other apps and devices, but the game, yes, just got interesting, with competition from inside the monster that is Google entering the ring. But is it really “painful” for you to follow along with a discussion? Is it that hard? No, I didn’t think so either.
Google domination is everywhere. On the on hand the appearance of tasks is a great event for all googlers on the other hand it may turn out a catastrophy for all online task managers out there.
The presented functionality is very poor though. I prefer making up lists of tasks organizing them in hierarchy (that is possible in http://task2gather.com) and share with my friends and coworkers. Task2Gather is also available at AppStore so all iPhone users can enjoy using this great software.
nice and simple addition
What a great feature! Gmail is finally becoming the tool I need it to be!! Lovin’ it!!!
It’s about time! Awesome…
It’s great! I’ve been waiting this for a long time!