TickTick for GTD
TickTick is a capable task app with a free plan, and a calendar, a habit tracker and a Pomodoro timer built in. TickTick also publishes its own guide to running Getting Things Done in it.
This page covers how far GTD goes in TickTick, where it runs out, and who is better off staying. We make Relay, an app built around GTD, so we have tried to be fair rather than flattering. Relay does not connect to TickTick, so this is about choosing one or the other.
How far GTD goes in TickTick
TickTick's guide builds GTD out of parts the app already has. Set up that way, it covers more of the method than a plain list app does.
| GTD needs | In TickTick |
|---|---|
| Inbox | A built-in Inbox for anything you have not sorted yet. |
| The GTD lists | Next Actions, Waiting For and Someday are lists you create. The guide names them as the core of the system, with the Inbox and Projects. |
| Projects | A list per project, kept in a Projects folder, as the guide recommends. Subtasks break a single task into steps. |
| Clarifying | The guide gives the questions for emptying the Inbox: do it now if it takes two minutes or less, move it to Waiting For if someone else is doing it, and otherwise file it under Next Actions or Someday. |
| Contexts | Tags. A task can have several, and TickTick's help says tags are often used for a category, a status or a location. A saved filter on one tag gives you a context list. |
| Custom views | Saved filters by list, tag, date, priority and keyword, which can be combined with AND and OR. Premium only. |
| Today | Today, Tomorrow and Next 7 Days lists, and a calendar with year, month, week and agenda views. The free plan has a basic calendar view. Premium adds more, including events from Google and Outlook calendars. |
| Priorities | High, medium and low priority, and an Eisenhower Matrix that places each task in an urgent and important quadrant by the priority you set. |
| Focus and habits | A Pomodoro timer and a habit tracker, in the same app as your tasks. |
| Review | A daily reminder to review your tasks and plan the day. The guide suggests looking over your lists each morning and evening. |
That is a workable GTD setup, and for a light system it may be all you need.
One limit to plan for: the free plan allows 9 lists of up to 99 tasks each. Next Actions, Waiting For and Someday take three of them, so with one list per project, as the guide suggests, there is room for about six projects. Premium raises the limit to 299 lists.
At a glance
| TickTick | Relay | |
|---|---|---|
| Runs on | ||
| iPhone and iPad | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| Mac | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| Web browser | Yes | Yes |
| Built for GTD | ||
| Inbox, Next Actions, Waiting For and Someday built inPartly: some are, the rest you set up yourself | Partly | Yes |
| Contexts | Yes | Yes |
| Agenda lists for people | No | Yes |
| Sequential projects | No | Yes |
| Sub-projects | Yes | YesOne level |
| Areas, goals, vision and purpose | No | Yes |
| Reference material kept with its project | Yes | Yes |
| Trigger lists you can edit, for the mind sweep | No | Yes |
| Reviews and planning | ||
| Guided weekly reviewPartly: a review list, checklist or reminder, without guided steps | Partly | Yes |
| Guided daily reviewPartly: a daily list or reminder, without guided steps | Partly | Yes |
| Guided reviews in the phone appPartly: a review list, reminder or template, without guided steps | Partly | Yes |
| Next Actions cut to the time you have | No | YesHours, calendar and daily review |
| Actions | ||
| Repeating actions | Yes | Yes |
| Checklists inside an action | Yes | Yes |
| Snooze an Inbox itemPartly: a later date, but not one that returns it to the Inbox | Partly | Yes |
| AI help clarifying the next actionPartly: one narrow place, a beta, or a paid add-on | PartlyPremium only | Yes |
| Around the lists | ||
| Google or Outlook calendar in the app | YesPremium only | Yes |
| Two-way sync with other task apps | YesNotion only, Premium | YesItems brought in from them |
| Home-screen widgets with your lists | Yes | YesNot on Windows or web |
| Workspaces that filter your lists | No | Yes |
| Saved custom views | YesPremium only | NoEach list keeps its own sort and grouping |
| Shared projects | Yes | No |
| Look | ||
| Dark theme | Yes | Yes |
| Choose your own colours | YesMost themes Premium | Yes |
| Price | ||
| Free plan | YesUp to 9 lists | No |
| Buy once, no subscription | No | No |
Sources, checked 10 October 2026
Every cell was checked against TickTick's own site, help pages, release notes or store listing.
TickTick: TickTick downloads, TickTick Premium, TickTick filters, TickTick calendar subscriptions, TickTick shared lists, TickTick notes, TickTick and Notion, TickTick AI assistant, TickTick widgets, TickTick features.
Also in Relay
- Pin an item for today, tomorrow or this week, and it shows in Engage and the daily review.
- Your own sections in Someday/Maybe.
- Choose which sections each task, project and reference item shows, for one item or as the default.
- A default workspace for new items on each device.
- On a phone, choose the screens in the bottom bar.
- Reminders to process your Inbox at the times you choose. In the web app they show as a banner while Relay is open.
Where it runs out
Each gap below can be worked around. The workaround is yours to build and to keep up.
- The weekly review is yours to run
- TickTick's guide suggests looking over your lists each morning and evening, and names no feature for a weekly review. Its Summary feature reports how your tasks went over a period, which helps you look back. Emptying the Inbox, checking every project and reading through Someday is a checklist you keep yourself.
- A project is a list
- In the guide, each project becomes a list inside a Projects folder. It does not cover writing down what done looks like, or spotting a project with no next action left. You check both by eye.
- Contexts are a tagging scheme you maintain
- The guide does not mention contexts. Tags and filters can carry them, but what each tag means, which filters exist and keeping them tidy is up to you. Energy and time available are not in the guide either, so if you want to pick work by them, they become more tags.
- The higher horizons are not there
- Areas of focus, goals, vision and purpose do not appear in TickTick's guide. Folders, lists or tags can stand in for them, the same way tags stand in for contexts.
Who should stay with TickTick
- You want one app for tasks, a calendar, habits and focus sessions. Relay has no habit tracker or focus timer, and it shows your Google or Outlook calendar, or Apple Calendar on iPhone, iPad and Mac, beside your actions rather than being a calendar itself.
- Price matters most. TickTick has a free plan, and Premium is $49.99 a year. Relay has no free plan: it is €8 a month, or €5 a month billed yearly.
- You share lists with other people. TickTick lets you invite others into a list you created. Relay is a system for one person.
- You decide what to do by urgency and importance more than by context. The Eisenhower Matrix is built for that.
- You want a Linux app. TickTick has one. On Linux, Relay is the web app.
- Your GTD is light: an Inbox, a few lists and a look each day. TickTick's guide covers that well.
When Relay is the better fit
Relay is built around the method, so the parts you would keep up by hand in TickTick are part of the app.
- You keep skipping the weekly review
- Relay's weekly review is a guided sequence of twelve steps, from clearing your head to the final sweep, with a five-minute daily review beside it. The steps, explained.
- You run a lot of projects
- A project records the outcome you are after, can run in parallel or in sequence, and can link up to the area or goal it serves. A project with no next action left is listed as Stalled.
- You want contexts that filter
- Every action can carry a context, an energy level and a time estimate. Engage narrows your list to what fits where you are, the time you have and the energy you have left. How contexts work.
- You want help clarifying
- Clarify takes each Inbox item through the GTD questions one at a time: whether it is actionable, whether it takes two minutes, whether it is a next action or a project, whether someone else should do it, or whether it belongs in Someday, in Reference, or nowhere.
- You hand a lot of work on
- Waiting For records who has it and the day you handed it over, and Agenda keeps a list per person of what to raise next time you talk.
- You want the higher horizons
- Areas, goals, vision and purpose are levels of their own, and any project can link up to what it serves. The weekly review points out the ones that do not. Horizons, explained.
Relay is a young app, released in 2026.
Moving from TickTick
Relay imports TickTick's backup file. Everything lands in your Inbox to be processed: TickTick's lists and tags are not Relay's projects and contexts, so nothing is filed for you, and what TickTick knew about each task comes along in its note.
- Make a backup in TickTick On ticktick.com, click your avatar, then Settings, then Backup, and choose Generate Backup. TickTick saves a CSV file.
- Choose it in Relay In Relay, open Settings, then Integrations, and under Import choose Import from TickTick. Choose the backup file.
- Choose the lists to bring Every list with open tasks starts ticked. Untick any you are leaving behind. Completed and abandoned tasks stay behind.
- Check, then add them to your Inbox Relay shows a sample of what will arrive. Due dates and checklists come across as they are, and the list, tags, start date, priority, repeat and parent task go into the note. Undo that import, on the same screen, takes it all back out.
- Process the Inbox Clarify takes each item in turn. A former TickTick list becomes a project, a context or nothing at all, as you decide.
If you forward emails into TickTick, forward them to your private Relay address instead. Each one lands in the Relay Inbox to be clarified like anything else.
Sources, checked 8 October 2026: TickTick pricing and plan limits, TickTick features, TickTick downloads, TickTick's GTD guide, Manage tasks with lists, Manage tasks with tags, Filters, Task details, How to use the Eisenhower Matrix, Notes and Summary, How to share a list, Add tasks, including by email, Data backup and import, Relay pricing. TickTick is a trademark of its owner, which is not affiliated with Relay.
Try Relay for a month
Bring one live project across from TickTick and run one weekly review in Relay. That will tell you whether the change is worth making.
Relay runs on iPhone and iPad, Mac, Android and Windows, and in any browser. Other apps are compared on Compare GTD apps.
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