Microsoft To Do vs. Any.do: Which Is the Best Task App in 2025?

Microsoft To Do vs. Any.do Summary

Who is Microsoft To Do for?

Microsoft To Do is a completely free task management apps with a decent number of features, but with the mention that Microsoft To Do wants to be used in a certain way. This can be a good or a bad thing, depending if your needs fit what Microsoft To Do can offer.

Microsoft To Do is also integrated with the Microsoft software ecosystem, but in our experience this integration isn’t as good as how Google Tasks is integrated into Google’s ecosystem.

Unfortunately, the interface isn’t as simple to use as other to-do apps. Because of this fact alone, we think only people and organizations that are deeply integrated into the Microsoft ecosystem should use this app.

Who is Any.do for?

Any.do is a powerful task management app with an intuitive user interface. The free version is primarily centered around managing a personal to-do list, so you won’t find features such as habit tracking, kanban boards etc.

The problems we’ve found with Any.do is that it tries so much to convert free users into paying users that the free version feels like a demo rather than a proper task management app.

The paid version of Any.do is great, but we think the free version might be too limited to compete with other popular task management apps.

Ease of use

Microsoft To Do ease of use

The biggest problem with Microsoft To Do is its user interface. Most task apps let you see or create a task from the first screen when opening the app.

Microsoft To Do does things differently, and the first screen you see in the app shows you various subdivisions such as My Day, Important, Planned etc.

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These subdivisions cause confusion whenever you open the app, since you spend a second or two each time trying to remember what each section does, or where a task is located.

Another problem with Microsoft To Do is that many common actions require extra clicks, taps or swipes compared to competing apps.

Over time, this creates frustration and makes using the app feel like work rather than as a tool to write stuff down quickly.  

For example, creating a task requires two clicks in Microsoft To Do instead of a single one in most other to-do apps.

This is because you first click on a task list, and then click on the add task button.

Any.do ease of use

Any.do has a UI that is visually pleasing and mostly intuitive. Adding tasks is simple and straightforward and so is editing existing tasks.

A big thing we like is that Any.do lets you choose what is your default home screen when opening the app.

This means you can set your home screen to be either All Tasks, Calendar or My Day.

We like this, since some people prefer to see their tasks as a list, others prefer a calendar view.

Another thing we like about Any.Do is the “My Day” feature. My Day shows tasks that are scheduled for the current day only. Tasks from previous days are not included, and neither are those scheduled for tomorrow or later.

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It’s a nice feature that removes clutter and lets you focus on what’s important today. 

What we don’t like about Any.do’s UI is that it uses lots of animations when moving between screens. This makes the app feel slow compared to other task management apps.

Organization

Microsoft To Do organization

Microsoft To Do has the following task organization options for tasks:

  1. Groups
  2. Lists
  3. My Day

Groups contain lists, and lists contains tasks. My Day is a pre-built filter that shows tasks that are due within 24-36 hours.

Microsoft To Do doesn’t have a tagging feature, which can be a valuable feature for some users since it helps them better organize and filter their tasks.

Another big missing feature is subtasks. In Microsoft To Do, you can break down a task into steps, but these steps mostly work as a simple checklist, instead of actual tasks that are subordinate to a main task.

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In other to-do apps, subtasks have the same features as regular tasks: reminders, labels, priority signs, descriptions, file attachments etc.

For finding tasks, Microsoft To Do has a built in search where you can quickly navigate to tasks or lists. We like this feature, it’s very handy and surprisingly rare among task management apps.

Each task list also has a sorting feature for organizing tasks based on the following criteria: importance, due date, tasks in My Day section, alphabetically or by task creation date.

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A minor criticism here is that Microsoft To Do doesn’t have a unified task list that contains all of your tasks from every group or list.

This would have been nice so you could see all your active tasks in one place, without constantly switching from one task list to another.

Any.do organization

The free version of Any.do lets you organize tasks in three ways:

  • Lists. Can be anything you want, such as Personal, Travel etc.
  • Tags. Just 1 tag in the free version, while paid one offers many more.
  • Subtasks, but a very limited version of subtasks.

Lists are the basic form of organization. You can create unlimited lists in the home section of Any.do, and navigate between lists from the same location.

Any.do also lets you add tags to your tasks so you can better view and filter them. The problem is that the free version of Any.do offers a single type of tag: “Priority”.

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However, even in the paid versions, you cannot create your own custom tags. Instead, you can only choose between pre-defined tags.

Finally, Any.do allows you to create subtasks, but the subtask feature works more as a checklist rather than as true subtasks.

This is because Any.do subtasks don’t allow you to add reminders, descriptions, attachments, tags, labels etc.

Scheduling and reminders

Microsoft To Do scheduling and reminders

In Microsoft To Do, tasks can have both a reminder and a due date. The Due Date feature is mostly used to organize tasks based on urgency and when they must be completed.

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The reminder feature lets you create single use or repeat tasks.

Reminders for tasks that repeat daily or weekly work great. However, repeating reminders for monthly and yearly tasks is a bit more limited.  

Here are some of the configurations you can schedule a task in Microsoft To Do:

  • Repeat every week, but only on certain days such as Wednesday or Tuesday.
  • Repeat every 5 weeks, but only on certain days.
  • Repeat every month, but only on a certain calendar day (the 3rd for example).
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Monthly reminders could be better. For example, Google Tasks or Todoist lets you customize a monthly reminder to receive a notification on the first Monday of the month, or the last Tuesday of the month, or a certain day of the month, etc.

Finally, it would have been nice if Microsoft To Do let you attach multiple reminders to a single task, like 3 hours before, 2 hours before, on time of task etc.

Any.do scheduling and reminders

Any.do lets you schedule task reminders for one-time tasks, or for repeating tasks.

The problem is the repeating tasks feature is quite limited in the free version of Any.do.

For example, Any.do lets you create repeating tasks only in the following configurations:

  • Daily, but only at a certain hour.
  • Weekly, but it only repeats a fixed time (such as Friday at 4PM). You can’t choose for the task to repeat on individual days, or exclude certain days.
  • Monthly, but only on a certain date and time (for example, Monday at 2 PM).
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The paid version gives you access to better scheduling features for repeating tasks, such as:

  • Have the reminder trigger every X number of days, weeks or months. 
  • Have weekly reminders trigger on certain days of the week, such as Saturdays and Sundays etc.

Problem is that other free task management apps such Todoist or Google Tasks give you full flexibility to configure reminders on very specific days of the week or month.

Calendar and other integrations

Microsoft To Do calendar and other integrations

One reason to use Microsoft To Do is its integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, in particular with Outlook and Microsoft Teams.

Problem is that this integration isn’t automatic. Creating a task in Microsoft To Do and adding a due date and reminder to it doesn’t automatically add it to Outlook Calendar.

We’ve investigated this a bit more and it turns out that you must manually copy/paste tasks from the Microsoft To Do app to the Outlook Calendar as if it’s the year 2000.

Integrating with other calendars such as Google Calendar or iCal also isn’t possible directly, but requires complex workarounds.

Overall, we’ve found Microsoft To Do to poorly integrate with calendars, including Microsoft’s own Outlook Calendar.

Any.do calendar and other integrations

Any.do has very basic calendar integration features. In essence, Any.do only displays events that currently exist on your Google, Outlook or Apple calendar, but it cannot create events on either of those calendars.

This isn’t necessarily a problem if you use decide to use Any.do as your main calendar or task list app.

However, using both Any.do and Google Calendar at the same time, for example, isn’t very pleasant, since tasks you add to Any.do don’t show up in Google Calendar.

In this case, you would have to add tasks into Google Calendar so they appear in Any.do as well. At that point however, you’re just using 2 apps to do the same thing.

The paid version of Any.do also offers integrations with Zapier for a variety of tasks, as well as Slack and WhatsApp plugins.

AI Features and Integrations

Microsoft To Do AI Features and Integrations

Microsoft To Do doesn’t have any AI features built into the app.

However, Microsoft does offer some basic natural language processing features on the Windows and iOS versions of the app, but is only available in English.

This natural language feature recognizes certain words such as “tomorrow”, “Friday” or “11 PM” and automatically transforms them into reminders. 

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Any.do AI features and integrations

The AI features of Any.do are not available on the free version of the app, and instead requires a paid subscription.

However, if you do have a paid subscription, you can use these AI features both on the desktop and mobile versions of the app.

This is a great, because other popular task management apps such as Todoist, Microsoft To Do or TickTick don’t have AI integrations within the mobile apps.

Even Google Tasks doesn’t have a button or feature where Gemini can directly create or analyze tasks. Instead, you’ll have to go into the Gemini app and ask it there to interact with your Google Tasks app.

Finally, Any.do also has some basic natural language processing. This feature lets you create reminders by simply writing them instead of pressing buttons.

For example, if you write “Call Monica tomorrow at 7 PM”, it will automatically create a reminder for tomorrow at 7 PM.

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This feature is only available for English, French, German, Spanish, Hebrew, Portuguese, Chinese, Italian, Korean and Arabic. 

Special or unique features

Microsoft To Do special or unique features

Microsoft To Do feels distinct in comparison to its competitors, with a very particular philosophy on how tasks should be done.

Below are the features that make it stand out:

  • The “My Day” list. We like this feature, it automatically lets you view tasks that are due today or a bit later than that. It’s simple and clean.
  • Integration with the Microsoft ecosystem. We wish the integration with Outlook Calendar would have been better, but overall this is a big advantage of Microsoft To Do.
  • Flagged email. If you use Outlook as your main email client, this feature allows you to flag an email and it automatically appears in Microsoft To Do as a task. It’s a great feature that helps organize your tasks and declutters your emails.
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Any.do special or unique features

Any.do has many little interesting features built within the app, even in the free version. Our favorites are:

  • The “My Day” section. This section is great since it immediately focuses your attention on tasks that need to be completed today, without the clutter of yesterday or tomorrow.
  • The design and simplicity. Overall, we like Any.do’s design and visual appeal. Some features and settings can be a bit confusing, but overall, it’s easy to use and pleasant to look at.
  • The Moment feature. This is a simple screen that shows you, one by one, all the tasks you have scheduled for today. You can then choose what to do for each of these tasks: Mark as done, delete, reschedule for later (tomorrow, in 2 days, next week) or add reminders to it for today. We like it, it helps your mind focus on what’s important for today.
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Cross-platform compatibility

Microsoft To Do cross-platform compatibility

Microsoft To Do can be downloaded on the following platforms:

  • Desktop/laptops: Windows and macOS.
  • Mobile: Android and iOS.

Microsoft To Do also has web versions for both mobile and desktop.

Any.do cross-platform compatibility

Any.do is available to download on all major operating systems: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS. It’s also available for Android and Apple smartwatches.

You can also use Any.do directly from the web browser.

Collaboration and sharing

Microsoft To Do collaboration and sharing

Microsoft To Do lets you collaborate with others by sharing task lists, but only to other users who have a Microsoft account.

The feature is also quite limited however since you cannot leave comments or assign tasks to different people.

We’ve found the feature to mostly be useful for families, or small projects with 2-3 people.

Microsoft To Do is only worth using for collaboration if your organization or company uses Microsoft for day-to-day operations. Apps such as Planner, Teams, Sharepoint or Outlook work well with Microsoft To Do, and allow users to send, assign or share tasks directly to the users todo app.

Any.do collaboration and sharing

Unfortunately, the free version of Any.do doesn’t have any collaboration features.

You’ll need to subscribe to the $10 a month Family plan to gain access to collaboration features for up to 4 people.

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For businesses, you’ll need the Teams plan, which is $8 per month, per user.

Pricing

Microsoft To Do pricing

Microsoft To Do is completely free.

Any.do pricing

Any.do has 3 different paid subscription plans:

  • Personal: $8 per month / $60 yearly ($5 per month).
  • Family: $10 per month / $100 yearly ($8.3 per month).
  • Teams (per user): $8 per month / $60 yearly ($5 per month).

There’s also a big difference in what features each plan unlocks:

Personal unlocks the following:

  • AI features.
  • Color tags and labels.
  • Improved recurring reminders.
  • Access to integrations.
  • Better customization.

Family and Teams unlocks the following:

  • Everything in the Personal plan.
  • Shared projects
  • Shared grocery lists.
  • Task assignments.
  • Due dates & reminders.
  • Kanban views.
  • Permissions.
  • Etc.