Batch Editing

Tasks rarely need editing one at a time. Push a dozen to tomorrow, tag them all @waiting, move them to another list, or clear them out: batch editing turns a long sequence of taps into a single action.

Entering Batch Editing

Three ways in:

• Tap Batch Editing at the trailing end of the bar above your tasks.
• Touch and hold a task's checkmark and drag down the column. 2Do enters batch editing and selects every task you pass, which is the quickest way to grab a run of tasks that sit together.
• With a hardware keyboard, press ⌘B.

Every checkmark becomes selectable. Tap a task to add it to the selection, and tap it again to take it out. The drawer at the bottom of the screen names how many tasks you have chosen and holds the commands. The sort bar swaps its usual controls for a single Select All command, which becomes Deselect All once everything is chosen.

The Commands

The drawer carries seven commands:

• Dates: Set Due Date, Set Start Date, Set Duration, Defer... for a relative shift, and Schedule... for a future start date. For what start dates, due dates, and durations do, see Dates and Durations.
• Tag: opens the tag picker over the whole selection. See below for Append and Replace.
• Priority: Auto-Prioritize at the top, then No Priority, Low, Medium, High, Unstarred, and Starred.
• Location: opens the location picker over the whole selection, with the same Append and Replace choice.
• Share: More options hands the selection to the iOS share sheet, and Email as attachments sends the tasks as files.
• Move: opens Move to..., a searchable picker listing Today, Starred, and Done first, then your lists, projects, and checklists. Create New List... makes a destination on the spot. Pick a destination and tap Done to apply it.
• Delete: removes the selection, after a confirmation.

A batch edit can be undone; see Undo and Redo.

tip

Use Dates > Defer... at the end of a busy day to push everything still hanging around into tomorrow in one move. Paired with the Today Focus List, it is a low-effort end-of-day reset.

tip

Batch-tag during your weekly review. Select everything you are waiting on someone else for, tag it @waiting, then pause that tag; those tasks disappear from view until you choose to resume it. See Tags.

Auto-Prioritize

Auto-Prioritize sits at the top of the Priority menu, and first in the priority picker when you press ⇧⌘P on a hardware keyboard. Instead of applying one level you pick, it works out a priority of None, Low, Medium, or High for each task in the selection, reading each task's title, notes, dates, list, and tags on the device with Apple Intelligence. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Only the priority changes, and the whole run is a single change, so one undo puts every priority back. It needs an iPhone or iPad running iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 with Apple Intelligence turned on; on a device that cannot run Apple Intelligence the command is not shown.

For what it looks at, how it treats priorities you set yourself, and when it is worth running, see Auto-Prioritize.

Append or Replace

The Tag and Location pickers each offer two modes at the top of the card:

• Append adds what you pick to whatever each task already carries. This is the default.
• Replace discards each task's current tags or locations and leaves only what you picked. Committing an empty selection in Replace mode clears them entirely.

Each picker also carries an outright Remove all Tags or Remove all Locations command when that is what you actually mean.

Dragging a Selection

With a selection made, touch and hold any of the selected tasks and drag. The whole stack lifts together, and the same drop targets apply as for a single task:

• Drop on a list to move every selected task there.
• Drop on Today to make them all due today.
• Drop on Starred to star them.
• Drop on Done to complete them.
• Drop on Scheduled to pick one future start date for all of them.
• Drop on a tag in the Tags panel to tag them.
• Drop between tasks in the same list to reorder them. This works only while the list is sorted Manually. See Sorting Manually.

note

All, Smart Lists, and list group headings are not drop targets. Drop on the real list when you want to move tasks.

See Drag and Drop for the full set of targets.

Deferring onto the Mini Calendar

The mini calendar doubles as a deferral surface.

1. Open the calendar. On iPhone, tap the calendar row at the bottom of the lists panel; on iPad it is always part of the editor pane.
2. Tap Batch Editing. On iPhone the calendar stays in place while the selection controls appear above it.
3. Select the tasks you want to move.
4. Touch and hold one of them, drag onto the destination date, and drop.

Every selected task takes that date as its due date.

With a Hardware Keyboard

While batch editing is on, the arrow keys move the highlight and Return adds or removes the highlighted task from the selection. Every bare key that acts on a task acts on the whole selection instead, so you can select ten tasks and press T once to make them all due today. The drawer's commands also have their own chords:

Shortcut	Command
⌘B	Enter or leave batch editing
Return	Add or remove the highlighted task
⇧⌘S	Start Date
⇧⌘D	Due Date
⇧⌘T	Tag
⇧⌘P	Priority
⇧⌘L	Location
⇧⌘C	Share
⇧⌘M	Move

See Keyboard Shortcuts.

Leaving Batch Editing

Tap Batch Editing again, tap the close cross at the leading edge of the drawer, or press ⌘B. Leaving does nothing to your tasks; it just puts the list back to normal.