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Lists and List Groups

Lists are the basic organizational unit in 2Do. They live in the lists panel, which is the leftmost of 2Do's panels on both iPhone and iPad.

What Is in the Panel​

The panel holds three kinds of entry, in order:

  • Focus Lists: All, Today, Starred, Scheduled, and Done. They are not containers; they are built-in perspectives across every list you have. Tap one to jump to it, or press ⌘1 to ⌘5.
  • Your lists, gathered into groups. Lists you do not put in a group of your own sit together under the standard Lists group.
  • Smart Lists, saved searches that behave like real lists.

Inbox appears above the Focus Lists once Getting Things Done® Inbox is turned on under Settings > Tasks > New Tasks. It is a real list where captures land for triage, not a Focus List. Press ⌘0 to reach it.

For what each Focus List shows and how to keep a list out of one, see Focus Lists.

Creating a List​

  • iPad: tap the Add chip at the bottom of the panel and choose New List or New List Group.
  • iPhone: tap the Add row at the bottom of the panel.

The list editor opens with everything a list carries.

The List Editor​

Touch and hold a list and tap Edit to reopen it later. The editor holds:

  • Name.
  • Color, chosen from the swatches or from Custom for anything else. A list's color runs through every task in it, which is how you tell at a glance where a task belongs in All or Today.
  • Group, the list group this list belongs to.
  • Exclude From, with switches for All, Today, and Done. See Focus Lists.
  • Exclude From Sync. This list and its tasks stay on this device only and stop syncing. If it was already syncing, 2Do deletes it from the server and from your other devices.
  • Archive and Delete at the bottom.

A list that is shared, published over Wi-Fi, or subscribed from another device is labeled as such beneath its name.

tip

Color-code by domain (Work, Home, Personal), use tags for contexts that cut across lists such as @phone or @errands, and save the combinations you keep repeating as Smart Lists.

Touch and Hold a List​

Touching and holding a list opens its quick actions. Exactly which appear depends on the kind of list:

  • Lock or Unlock for a password-protected list. See Password Protection.
  • Edit opens the list editor described above.
  • Change Statuses offers Mark all as Done and Mark all as Undone across the whole list, which is handy for a shopping list you have finished or a routine you are about to reuse.
  • Manage Lists opens the reorder and visibility screen.
  • Manage Groups opens the list-group screen.
  • Publish to LAN shares the list with other 2Do users on your network, and reads Published on LAN once it is live. See Share Lists over Wi-Fi.
  • Duplicate appears on Smart Lists, so you can copy a saved search and adjust the copy.
  • Archive puts the list away without deleting it.
  • Delete removes the list and everything in it.

Managing and Reordering Lists​

Manage Lists shows every list with a switch beside it, and lets you reorder your lists or turn off the ones you would rather not see in the panel. At least one list has to stay visible. Create New List... at the top of the same screen adds a new one.

Manage Groups does the same for list groups: create a group, rename one, reorder them, or delete one. To move a list into a group, open the list editor and change its Group.

Tap a group's header in the panel to collapse or expand it. Collapsing is the quickest way to put a chunk of the panel out of sight without changing anything.

tip

If your panel is getting long, group related lists and collapse the groups you are not working in. It costs one tap to open a group again and it keeps the panel readable.

Excluding a List from Focus Lists​

Some lists should not feed All or Today: a Someday list, an archive of reference material, recurring chores you only want surfaced by their alerts. Touch and hold the list, tap Edit, and turn on the matching switch under Exclude From. The list and its tasks stay exactly where they are and remain reachable; they simply stop appearing in the Focus List you excluded them from.

Archiving a List​

Archiving is the tidy way to put a list away without losing what is inside it.

  • To archive: touch and hold the list and tap Archive. It leaves the panel straight away.
  • What happens: the list is hidden from the panel and its tasks step out of your working views. Nothing is deleted.
  • To bring it back: open Settings > Security > Archived, find the list under Archived Lists, and tap Unarchive.

Archive is right for lists you are genuinely finished with, such as a completed project or a packing list you will not need until next year.

Archive, Exclude, and Hide​

Three different things, worth keeping straight:

  • Exclude From All / Today / Done keeps the list in the panel and only holds it back from the Focus Lists you chose.
  • List Visibility, under Settings > Security > Privacy, turns a list off so it does not appear in the panel at all. Hidden lists and their tasks still sync.
  • Archive removes the list from the panel and steps its tasks out of your working views until you unarchive it.

Use exclusion for lists you still consult, visibility for lists you never want to see, and archive for lists you are putting away.

Shared and Subscribed Lists​

A list you publish over Wi-Fi, a list you subscribe to from another device, and a shared calendar list each carry their own mark on the list's color band, so you can tell which role this device plays for that list. A subscribed list published as read-only refuses changes: its tasks can be read but not edited. See Share Lists over Wi-Fi.

Indicators on List Names​

Each row can carry:

  • Counts: overdue on the left in red, and tasks not yet done on the right. What appears is set by Counts on lists under Settings > Today & Lists: None, Overdue items, or Overdue + Undone. Sub-tasks are not counted here; their counts sit on the project or checklist itself.
  • A small glowing dot: white when the list holds a task due today, red when it holds an overdue task. It never appears on All, Done, or Scheduled.
  • A color band that changes to mark a Smart List, a list excluded from All, a published or subscribed Wi-Fi list, a shared calendar, or a locked list.

The Default Capture List​

Two related settings sit under Settings > Tasks > New Tasks:

  • Getting Things Done® Inbox turns on the Inbox, a real list where new captures land for triage.
  • Default list picks which list new tasks go to, and Always Use Default List sends every new task there regardless of which list you were looking at. Always Use in Quick Add applies the same rule to Quick Add only.

To send one new task somewhere else as you write it, type a slash and the start of the list name in the title, as in Buy milk /errands or Clear out the loft /homeproj for Home Projects. Capitals and spaces are ignored, the list banner in the editor or the list capsule in Quick Add follows along as you type, and a closing slash is optional, so /Health/ works too. If nothing matches, the words stay in the title and the task keeps its current list. If two lists share a name, 2Do picks the one shown first in the list picker. Web addresses and file paths are left alone. A list whose name ends in a slash is matched by typing the start of its name. See Natural Language Input.

Dragging Tasks onto Lists​

The lists panel is a drop target. Touch and hold a task, drag it onto a list, and it moves there. The Focus Lists accept drops too, applying a state change instead of a move: Today sets the due date to today, Starred stars the task, Done completes it, and Scheduled asks for a start date. See Drag and Drop.

Smart Lists​

Smart Lists live in the panel alongside your real lists. They are saved searches, so their contents change as your tasks do, and they hold nothing of their own. See Smart Lists.

Projects and Checklists Are Task Types​

Projects and checklists are not lists. They are kinds of task, created from the type picker while you are composing, or by converting an existing task. See Projects and Checklists.

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