Free To-Do List Online

To-Do List: Track Tasks with Checkboxes That Actually Stick Around

A to-do list tool takes the oldest productivity trick there is — writing down what needs doing and crossing it off — and gives it a checkbox, a running count of what's left, and a memory that survives closing the tab. Type a task, press Enter or tap the plus button, and it joins a list with its own checkbox; tick that box when the task is finished and the item gets a strikethrough instead of disappearing, so you can still see what you accomplished today, not just what's left to do.

What separates this from a scrap of paper is the bookkeeping it does for free: a live count of how many tasks are still pending versus how many are done, and a one-click way to clear out everything you've already finished once the list starts feeling cluttered. None of it requires an account or a setup screen — you land on the page, type a task, and you're using it. It's deliberately narrower than a full project-management board: there are no due dates, no priority flags, and no subtasks, because the entire point is to remove every decision between having a task in your head and having it captured on the page.

How to Build and Manage Your List

1. Click into the input field at the top and type the task you want to track — anything from "call the dentist" to a single step in a bigger project.
2. Press Enter, or click the + button next to the field, to add the task to the list below. The input clears automatically so you can keep typing the next item without an extra click.
3. Each task appears with a checkbox on the left, the task text in the middle, and a small × button on the right for removing it entirely.
4. Click the checkbox to mark a task as done. The text switches to a muted color with a line through it, and the pending/done counts at the top of the list update immediately to reflect the change.
5. Click a checked box again if you need to reopen a task — nothing about marking something done is permanent until you actually remove it.
6. Once you've got a run of completed tasks cluttering the view, click Clear done to remove every checked item in one action, leaving only what's still pending.
7. Click the × next to any individual task to delete it outright, whether it's done or still pending — useful for a task you added by mistake or one that's no longer relevant.

The pending and done counts shown above the list only appear once you've added at least one task, so a brand-new, empty list starts with just the input field and nothing else competing for attention.

Why a Checkbox List Beats a Plain Note for Tasks

Writing tasks into an ordinary paragraph of text works, but a dedicated checklist format solves problems a plain note doesn't:

• Visual separation of done from pending. A strikethrough and a color change tell you at a glance what's finished without rereading the whole list, which a wall of plain text can't offer without manually deleting lines as you go.
• A count you don't have to calculate. Knowing you have four tasks left rather than eleven changes how you plan the rest of your day, and having that number appear automatically saves you from recounting a growing list by eye.
• Low friction for capturing a task the moment it comes up. Pressing Enter after typing a thought is faster than finding the right line in a longer note and adding a new bullet, especially when a task occurs to you mid-conversation or mid-task.
• A satisfying record of what got done. Seeing a run of struck-through tasks at the end of a day is a small but real form of feedback that a note you keep editing and deleting from doesn't preserve in the same way.
• Cleanup that doesn't cost you the list. Clearing completed tasks in one click keeps the list from growing indefinitely, without the risk of accidentally deleting something you still needed, since only checked items are affected.

Handling a List That's Growing Faster Than You Can Clear It

Because there's no priority field or due date, ordering matters more here than it would in a fuller task manager, and the tool handles that in the simplest way possible: new tasks are added to the bottom of the list, in the order you typed them. That means the top of the list naturally becomes your oldest, longest-standing items, while anything you just thought of lands at the bottom — worth knowing if you tend to work top-down, since older tasks will keep surfacing first even if something more urgent just got added underneath them. A practical habit for longer lists is to scan the whole thing briefly before starting work, rather than assuming position equals priority, and to delete anything that's gone stale rather than letting it sit unchecked indefinitely. If a task keeps getting skipped day after day, that's usually a sign it either needs to be broken into a smaller, more specific action, or it isn't actually a priority and can be removed rather than carried forward out of habit. Because the list has no limit on how many tasks it will hold, it's easy for a list that isn't tended to grow into something long enough that scanning it stops being quick — regular use of Clear done and the occasional deletion of tasks that no longer matter keeps the list doing its job as a fast daily reference rather than becoming an archive you avoid looking at.

Where Your Tasks Are Actually Stored

Every task you add lives in your browser's local storage on the device you're currently using — nothing is sent anywhere, and there's no account tying your list to you.

Question	What actually happens
Where the list is saved	In your browser's local storage on this specific device — not on a remote server
Does it require a login?	No. There's no account system, so anyone with access to this browser sees this list
Does it sync across devices?	No. A phone, a work laptop, and a home computer each keep a completely separate list
What happens on a browser update or restart?	The list is unaffected — local storage persists across normal browsing sessions and restarts
What wipes the list?	Manually clearing your browser's site data, or using a private/incognito window that discards storage when closed

This trade-off is deliberate: skipping accounts and servers means the list opens instantly and nobody's tasks are sitting on a company's database somewhere, but it also means the list is tied to one browser rather than to you personally. If you regularly switch between a phone and a computer, treat each as its own separate list rather than expecting one to reflect the other.

Getting More Out of a Simple Checklist

A few habits make a plain checklist like this one noticeably more useful day to day. Keep individual tasks short and specific — "email Sam the report" reads and gets checked off faster than a paragraph describing the whole project it belongs to, and a list of short, concrete lines is easier to scan in the few seconds you glance at it between other things. Add tasks the moment they occur to you rather than trying to remember them until later, since the whole value of a fast-entry list evaporates if you're still holding half your tasks in your head instead of on the page. Run Clear done regularly rather than letting checked items pile up indefinitely — a list that's mostly strikethrough text is harder to scan for what's actually still open, even though the pending count technically still tells you the truth. And because nothing here syncs to another device, pick one browser as your "real" list if you use the tool seriously, rather than splitting tasks across a phone list and a desktop list that never talk to each other.

To-Do List vs. a Dedicated Task Management App

A full task manager — the kind with due dates, priority levels, recurring tasks, subtasks, and reminders that sync across every device you own — is the right call for managing an actual project with deadlines and multiple moving pieces. This tool intentionally doesn't try to be that. It's built for the simpler, more common case: a short list of things you want to get through today or this week, where the overhead of setting due dates and priorities on each item would slow you down more than it would help. If your task list is starting to need dependencies between tasks, shared visibility with other people, or reminders that fire on their own, that's the signal to move to dedicated project software — this list is for the day-to-day tasks that don't need any of that structure.

Do I need to create an account to use the to-do list?

No. There's no sign-up or login anywhere in the tool — you open the page and start adding tasks immediately, and everything you add is tied to your browser rather than to an account.

Will my list still be there tomorrow, or does it reset?

It stays exactly as you left it, provided you reopen it in that same browser, on that same device, without having wiped your site data in the meantime. Nothing about the list resets automatically, whether you check off every item or leave several pending.

Can I see the same to-do list on my phone and my computer?

No, not automatically. Each browser on each device keeps its own separate list in its own local storage, so a task added on a desktop browser won't show up when you open the same page on your phone. If you need the same tasks in both places, you'll need to add them separately on each device.

Is there an API for adding or checking off tasks programmatically?

No. Every add, check, and delete action updates your browser's local storage directly, without a request ever leaving your device — there's no remote endpoint doing the work behind the scenes, so this checklist falls outside the site's metered API.

What happens if I accidentally delete a task I still needed?

There's no undo for the × button, so a deleted task is gone and needs to be retyped. Marking a task done rather than deleting it is safer if you're unsure — a checked task can be reopened by clicking its box again, but a removed task can't be recovered.

Can I reorder tasks or set which one is highest priority?

Not directly — there's no drag-to-reorder or priority marker built into the list, so tasks stay in the order you added them. If a task needs to jump to the top of your attention, the simplest workaround is to delete it and re-add it, or simply keep the true priority in mind separately, since the list is intentionally a capture-and-check tool rather than a full planner.

Related Everyday Tools

For a shopping-specific list that groups items by category instead of a flat checklist, the grocery list is built for exactly that. If what you need is a free-form scratchpad rather than discrete checkable items, the online notepad handles longer notes and drafts. And when a task involves timing focused work rather than just tracking that it happened, the pomodoro timer structures the work itself into intervals.