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Lists and List Groups

Lists are the basic organizational unit in 2Do. They live in the Lists Panel (left sidebar) and group your tasks by area of responsibility, project, or any system you choose.

Three Kinds of Lists​

There are three kinds of lists shown in the Lists Panel:

  • Focus Lists — built-in saved perspectives across all your tasks: All, Today, Starred, Scheduled, Done, Inbox. Always pinned to the top of the panel. See Focus Lists for the full reference.
  • Lists — your own lists, holding tasks, projects, and checklists. Color-coded, optionally grouped, optionally locked.
  • Smart Lists — saved searches that behave like real lists. See Smart Lists, Smart Filters, and Search.

Focus Lists​

The top of the panel always shows your Focus Lists. These are not real lists — they're saved perspectives that pull tasks from across your real lists:

  • All — every task, across every list, that isn't hidden by a paused tag or scheduled to start in the future.
  • Today — tasks due today, plus tasks whose duration window covers today. Depending on your Appearance settings, Today can also include overdue tasks, starred tasks, and tasks you're still working on.
  • Starred — tasks you've starred.
  • Scheduled — tasks with a future start date that are still hidden by Smart Scheduling.
  • Done — completed tasks.
  • Inbox — your GTD inbox: tasks not yet sorted into a list. New tasks captured via Quick Entry (when the global option is set), or those that flow in from the iOS Email-to-2Do add-on via sync, land here by default unless the email subject sends them to another existing list. Use the keyboard shortcuts ⌘0–⌘5 to jump between Focus Lists.

Excluding a List from Focus Lists​

Some lists shouldn't contribute to All or Today — for example, a "Someday/Maybe" list, recurring chores you only want surfaced by their alarms, or a list staged for future work. Right-click the list and choose the matching Exclude from... or Include in... command. You can independently exclude a list from:

  • All
  • Today
  • Done Sync exclusion is separate and lives under 2Do > Settings > Sync > Exclusions. A small indicator appears next to the list name once any global-visibility option is customised. The list and its tasks are still visible when you click into the list directly — they just don't show up in the Focus Lists you've excluded them from.
Right-clicking a list to include or exclude it from Focus Lists

Creating a List​

  • File > New List — opens a sheet to choose a name and color.

  • [+] button at the bottom of the Lists Panel. Each list has:

  • Name — what shows in the sidebar.

  • Color — color-codes every task that belongs to the list. Useful for at-a-glance scanning when several lists' tasks appear together in All or Today.

  • Sort order — Start Date, Due Date, Priority, Tag, or Manual.

  • Focus rule — whether tasks contribute to Focus Lists.

  • Lock — see Password Protection. You can edit any of these later from Task > Edit List with the list selected, or by right-clicking the list.

List Groups​

A growing system needs a way to keep the sidebar calm. List Groups are folders for lists. Create one with File > New List Group, drag lists into it, and collapse the group when you don't need to see what's inside.

  • Expand all List Groups / Collapse all List Groups — see the View menu.
  • List groups can be color-coded too.

Disclosure Triangle — Jump to a Project or Checklist​

If a list contains one or more projects or checklists, a small disclosure triangle appears next to the list icon in the Lists Panel. Click it and the panel reveals every project and checklist inside that list. Click any of them to highlight it directly in the task list — without scrolling or expanding everything inline.

This is the fastest way to navigate to a specific project hidden inside a busy list.

Reordering and Drag-and-Drop​

Lists are fully drag-and-droppable:

  • Drag a list up or down to reorder.
  • Drag a list onto a List Group to move it inside.
  • Drag tasks onto a list in the sidebar to move them into that list.
  • Hold ⌥ (Option) while dropping to copy instead of move.

Smart Lists​

Smart Lists also live in the Lists Panel — they're saved searches that behave like real lists. See Smart Lists.

Locking a List​

Right-click a list and choose Lock List... to require a password before its contents are shown. Locked lists can be excluded from Focus Lists too, so a lock can hide the list completely. For details, see Password Protection.

Archiving a List​

To get a list out of your active workspace without deleting it, right-click and choose Archive List. Archived lists are accessed from 2Do > Settings > Security > Archived and can be restored at any time.

Archived lists and their tasks stay out of active views, except Smart Lists and the Done Focus List. They still sync unless you also exclude the list under 2Do > Settings > Sync > Exclusions.

GTD Inbox and Default Capture List​

Two related settings under 2Do > Settings > General shape where new tasks land by default:

  • GTD Inbox — when on, the Inbox Focus List is your true inbox: tasks captured from Quick Entry, the share extension, the menu bar, and iOS Email-to-2Do captures that sync in without a subject-selected list land here for triage. The Inbox lives in a special Collect list group that can't be renamed or moved.
  • Always Use Default List — when on, every new task goes to the chosen default list, regardless of which list you were viewing when you created it. New tasks created while a Focus List like Today or Starred is selected still inherit that focus list's nature (they're due today or starred), but their home list is the default.

The combination makes capture predictable: hit ⌘N from anywhere, capture, triage during the daily review.

Indicators on List Names​

  • Undone count — to the right of a list name, the number of dated or undated tasks, projects, and checklists that haven't been completed. Sub-task counts appear on the project / checklist icon, not the list.
  • Overdue count — to the left of the list name, in red, when a list has tasks past their due date. Always shown alongside the Undone count.
  • A faint white glowing dot indicates a task due today is hiding inside that list. A red glowing dot indicates an overdue task is hiding inside.
  • Visibility indicator — one or more of the list's Focus List visibility options have been changed.
  • A lock icon indicates a locked list.
  • A down-arrow indicates a collapsed group or project.

Tips​

tip

Color-code lists by domain, not by priority. Use Tags for cross-list contexts and the Focus Filter for what's important right now.

tip

Keep your Inbox truly empty by reviewing it daily — anything in the Inbox is something you haven't yet decided what to do with.

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