Finding a to-do app that's right for you is as much about finding an app you like as one that has the right features for the way you work.
TickTick is a cross-platform and collaborative to-do app that has a few neat features suited to the Getting Things Done method of working.
You can create custom task views, for example, and there's an inbox for jotting down anything that pops into your head.
Overall, TickTick is a good app, but its free version has too many restrictions to be worth using long term.
There's more room for improvement beyond beefing up the free app, as some features didn't work as expected or were hard to find.
If TickTick doesn't quite meet your needs, try one of our two Editors' Choices: Todoist Premium or Asana.
TickTick Pricing and Plans
TickTick offers a free account, as well as a paid Premium plan that costs $2.79 per month or $27.99 per year.
The Mac app lists the price as $2.99 per month, but I can confirm I was billed $2.79 via the web app.
TickTick is available on a variety of platforms.
There's a web app you can access from any browser, mobile apps for iOS and Android, and compatibility with Apple Watch and Android Wear.
TickTick has a Chrome app, browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox, as well as a Mac app, though nothing for Windows.
The free account has tighter restrictions and fewer features than the paid account.
Oddly, the paid account has restrictions, too, such as the number of tasks and lists you can create.
While the free account is adequate, some of TickTick's limitations could be deal breakers.
You can only make 19 lists, with 99 tasks per list, and 19 subtasks in any task.
That last restriction can prevent you from using TickTick for pretty ordinary chores, such as using subtasks to make a grocery shopping list.
In terms of collaborating, free account holders can only invite one person per list.
You also can't combine plain text and checklist in the subtasks field with a free account, nor do you get multiple reminders on tasks, reminders for subtasks, a calendar view, or custom smart lists.
Free account holders have fewer options when customizing the app's look, too.
Paying members see an increase in the number of lists (299), tasks (999), and subtasks (199) they get, although I'm a bit puzzled why they're not unlimited.
Premium subscribers can share each list they create with up to 29 people and attach up to 99 files per day across their account.
How does TickTick's price compare with other to-do apps? Todoist costs $36 per year for its Premium account for individuals, and $60 per person per year for Business accounts.
Asana charges more—$119.88 per person per year for Premium and even more for a Business account—though it's a full fledged work-management app and not merely a to-do list.
Plus, Asana's free plan is way more generous than TickTick's.
So is Todoist's.
Getting Started With TickTick
You can create a TickTick account with an email address and password, or by authenticating using Google, Facebook, or Twitter.
The first time you get inside the app, you see a few prompts that explain what's what, and a few sample tasks that tell you a little more about TickTick and how to use it.
The interface is a standard three-panel setup, similar to Slack, Asana, or any other number of productivity apps.
On the far left is a navigation pane where you choose which task list or filtered set of tasks you want to see.
In the center are the task themselves.
The rightmost pane shows additional details of any task you select.
The left navigation pane is where you create your lists, which some people call projects.
You can nest projects together into folders.
For example, I set up a folder called Home and inside I created lists called Personal, Household, Weekend Projects, and Someday.
That said, TickTick's lists have a major user-interface niggle.
I had to write to the support team to learn how to edit a list's name.
If you're having the same trouble, swipe left on any list name when looking at the collapsable menu to get an edit button.
It's hardly intuitive.
TickTick's Task-Management Features
TickTick does have a long list of features for managing tasks.
Every task can have a due date, assignee, tags, and priority rating.
You can duplicate a single task, and you can set any task to be recurring.
The app can parse natural language dates, so if you type "today," "tomorrow," or some day of the week into the task field, TickTick will figure out what day you mean and add it as a due date.
Put a # symbol before any tag, and you can type them into your task field as well, and TickTick will add them as appropriate.
There are no keystroke shortcuts for adding an assignee, however, which is something Todoist can do.
Tags are a helpful feature if you follow the Getting Things Done (GTD) method of productivity, the one created and trademarked by David Allen, who wrote a book by the same name.
In GTD lingo, tags allow you to add context, such as "at home" or "at computer." In TickTick, tags can be whatever you want.
A Smart List feature also taps into ideas from GTD by letting you create custom views of tasks based on filters.
Say you want to see all your high priority tasks due today that you need to get done in front of a computer.
You can set up a Smart List view that meets those search criteria.
Whenever you click on that Smart View, you'll see only the tasks you want to see, which may help you focus.
TickTick comes with an Inbox, and if you use it the way GTD intended (which I believe is the point of it here), it's the default place where you write down new tasks when they pop into your head.
Later, you can sort through everything collected in the Inbox and add detail or file them into the correct task list.
In terms of collaboration, you can share lists with others, and when you do, you can assign tasks to the person or have them assign tasks to you.
The other person can also add new tasks to the shared list.
I'm a huge fan of shared to-do lists among my household.
When a collaborator joins or has other activity on the shared list, TickTick notifies you with a notification.
If you're looking for a to-do app specifically for GTD, I would encourage you to also look at Things 3 and Omnifocus.
As of this writing, they're both for Mac and iOS, and neither has a working web app, although Omnifocus has one due out soon.
Things charges a one-time fee, rather than a subscription, though you have to pay for each app separately ($49.99 for Mac, $9.99 for iPhone and Apple Watch, $19.99 for iPad).
Likewise, Omnifocus only charges a one-time fee of $49.99 for its Mac app, or $99.99 for the Pro version.
TickTick's Additional Features
A notable feature in TickTick that doesn't strictly pertain to task-management is a built-in Pomodoro Technique timer.
The Pomodoro Technique (also from a book of the same name, this one by Francesco Cirillo) is a method of working in which you focus on a task for a set period of time, usually 20-25 minutes, then take a short break, which is also timed.
After a few of these work-break cycles, you take a slightly longer break.
The Pomodoro Technique is named after a kitchen timer shaped like a tomato originally used to time the intervals (pomodoro is Italian for tomato).
In TickTick, it's just called "Pomo timer," perhaps to discourage a lawsuit.
You choose how long you want the intervals to be, and you can optionally turn on white noise while working.
Where you find the timer depends on the version of the app you're using.
It's all over the place.
In the web app, it's in the lower left corner.
In the mobile app, you reach it by tapping an icon of a circle with a star.
In the Mac app, it shows up as a circle icon in your Mac menu bar.
Another unique feature in TickTick is the ability to add habits, although it's only available in the mobile apps.
To use the habits feature, you either choose a habit you want to adopt from a list or write your own., such as Exercise or Meditate.
In the mobile app, you can see all the habits you've added on their own page, and they appear in a list of tasks due today under their own header.
You check off your habits on the days that you do them, just as if they were tasks.
The fact that habits are restricted to the mobile apps is super frustrating.
It's not just that you have to add them from the mobile app.
They don't even sync to or appear in the desktop or web apps afterward.
In any to-do app, whatever's on your agenda for "today" should be exactly the same no matter what version of the app you're using.
Another neat feature is an optional Daily Alert, or a briefing of all the tasks that are due today and overdue.
You choose the time of day that the app pushes this briefing, although, frustratingly, you can only set it up in the web app.
When I enabled it and set the time trigger to be a few minutes from the present, nothing happened.
I quit and reloaded the app, but still the Daily Alert didn't happen.
The idea of the Daily Alert reminds me of a similar feature called the Any.do Moment in the to-do list app Any.do.
Any.do's version uses audio cues and animations that set the tone for your day.
Any.do also prompts you to commit to each task by picking a time of day to complete it or rescheduling it.
More importantly, it works.
TickTick tracks how often you complete your tasks by their due dates and tosses them into a page of statistics.
You can see how your productivity measures up in terms of how often you use your Pomo timer, how many focus sessions you complete, and what time of day you tend to be the most focused.
The statistics page lays it all out for you with charts and graphs, and it's reasonably helpful, or at the very least, a little interesting.
A different batch of statistics reserved for Premium members, called Summary in the web app, was perhaps the most disappointing feature in TickTick.
It's supposed to show all the tasks you've completed recently.
In reality, it's nothing more than a text file of tasks you've checked off.
They aren't even stylized in anyway, just listed as plain text.
Meanwhile in the Mac app, the same feature is called Completed, and it works and looks as you'd expect, showing a list of recently completed tasks grayed out and crossed off so it's clear they have already been marked done.
How confusing.
Get Things Done
In testing TickTick, I experienced moments of joy (Pomo timer!), as well as disappointment (habits limited to mobile apps, Summary).
The app certainly has room to improve.
I experienced little moments of frustration, too, like not being able to figure out how to edit the name of a list in the mobile app.
Compared with other to-do apps, TickTick is still a fine choice because it does have a good array of features that you won't find in lesser to-do apps, such as Google Tasks or Microsoft Todo.
Still, it's frustrating that the some elements of the app don't quite live up to expectations, and you have to pay for a Premium account for TickTick to be worthwhile.
Moreover, if you're willing to pay, you might be more satisfied putting that same money (plus a few extra dollars per year) toward a Premium Todoist membership instead.
If you're in need of a team task-management app, the Editors' Choice award-winning Asana is the better app, and it can double as your personal to-do list, too.
The Bottom Line
The feature-rich TickTick is a good to-do app with some neat features that will appeal to GTD adherents.
The free version has tight restrictions, so be prepared to pay for the premium upgrade.
