Best Offline To-Do List for iOS?

August 27, 2014 7:15 AM

I've been trying to Google this but coming up short - what's the best to-do list for iOS with offline access?

I've been using Asana for a few months now, and generally digging it, but it drives me crazy that whenever I'm on the subway or on an airplane it's totally useless. Not only that, but even the boot up time when I want to jot down a thought or an idea immediately make me wish I had a pencil and a notebook. Hm - maybe that's my answer right there.

Anyway - would love to hear suggestions for something with the general functionality of Asana or Reminders that has an offline mode and syncs itself back up when it goes online again.

Thanks!

posted by Bobby Bittman to Computers & Internet (17 answers total)

I use Things. It is great on or offline and syncs pretty quickly once it does get back online. It is a little slow to start up on my iphone but I suspect that is more to do with the fact it is a 4S (it is noticeably slow these days generally) than the app being the issue. If there is no internet connection it just ... doesn't sync rather than pop up all kinds of "ZOMG HAS THE INTERNET DISAPPEARED?????!!!!!" messages.

I find it essential to keep track of the stuff I do - hundreds of tasks across many projects.
posted by Brockles at 7:19 AM on August 27, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Wunderlist is good, and there are alternatives.
posted by Sophont at 7:21 AM on August 27, 2014

Best answer: https://www.wunderlist.com/
posted by sandmanwv at 7:21 AM on August 27, 2014

I'm using Things for my personal life and Todoist for my professional stuff these days, just to keep some separation; I actually prefer Todoist for many-projects management but I don't like having my own life lumped in with my job.
posted by Tomorrowful at 7:23 AM on August 27, 2014

Response by poster: Wunderlist has an offline mode? I did some research on it but couldn't find a specific mention that it works offline.
posted by Bobby Bittman at 7:24 AM on August 27, 2014

Best answer: From Wunderlist

The central function of Wunderlist product is task management. You will be able to use this product both online and offline.

Where Wunderlist is used solely offline, the data you enter will be stored de-centrally on your storage medium. In such a case, we will not be able to access these data.
posted by firetruckred at 7:38 AM on August 27, 2014

OmniFocus is the best, but it's $20.
posted by michaelh at 7:38 AM on August 27, 2014

Best answer: I'm a Wunderlist kind of guy, in that I like typing in the browser and taking the list to go with me on my phone. It works just as well solo or offline.
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 7:54 AM on August 27, 2014

I have tried them all and I swear by Todoist.
posted by ninjakins at 7:55 AM on August 27, 2014

Lots of people in the forums are complaining about the lack of a 'true' offline version for Todoist - many considering it a deal breaker (as it would be for me and presumably the OP).

That and the lack of any simple export/import function (also complained about strongly in their forums) just stopped me trying it out as the premium version has some of the stuff I wish Things had (location based and 'alarm' style reminders).
posted by Brockles at 8:11 AM on August 27, 2014

Reminders has a pretty good offline mode. What are you looking for that it doesn't have?
posted by bonaldi at 8:25 AM on August 27, 2014

I use Things for work, and I've recently switched to the rather nice Timeful for personal stuff. It's very, very clever and only the lack of a decent rapid capture tool on desktop (there's a limited web app in Beta) is keeping me from switching to it completely.

But Things basically rules my professional life because it has Quick Entry on the desktop.
posted by Happy Dave at 8:45 AM on August 27, 2014

Carbon Fin Outliner has been working well for me.
posted by doctord at 9:33 AM on August 27, 2014

Seconding CarbonFin Outliner. From time to time I check out other iOS outliners, just out of curiosity, and I have not yet found any that beat CarbonFin.
posted by merejane at 10:43 AM on August 27, 2014

I've used appigo Todo for years. It's local-first instead of a client for a web service.

It syncs to iCloud, Dropbox or toodledo and their todo-cloud. You can edit items on a big screen with toodledo, todo-cloud or the Mac app. There's also a collaboration-enabled todo-cloud app and a premium version of the service, but I only use sync as a backup. Todo is $5 and Todo-cloud non-premium, is free, so it might be worth investigating that.

They call it "Todo 7" on the website, but on the app store, it's just "Todo". There's also Todo 6 if you can't run iOS 7.
posted by morganw at 2:55 PM on August 27, 2014

Response by poster: @bonaldi - I just played around with Reminders, and yeah, you're right - the latest version (I haven't used it in a couple of years) does have the offline functionality I've been looking for. But...it lacks a lot of the other cool stuff that Asana has, like grouping to-do lists into Today, Upcoming, Later, etc. If Asana had the same offline capability as Reminders, or if Reminders has some of the bells and whistles of Asana...perfect.

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone else. Hopefully one of these has that combo I'm looking for.
posted by Bobby Bittman at 7:49 AM on August 28, 2014

Carrot? Definitely works offline (I turn off data away from wifi and it just pops up a OK/Settings box but still works). I don't know if it ticks your other boxes. And it's a pretty fun app if you like things sort of gamified for you. And it does live up to it's "sadistic" AI persona, but all in good fun. (I'm trying to cure the bloody cat and I can't seem to rack up points fast enough).
posted by kathrynm at 8:22 AM on August 28, 2014 [1 favorite]