Tasks and to-do managers are essential tool to keep your task organized as well as daily routine tasks. They are tools for everyone, professionals, students, designers, and software developers.
Task management app is designed to streamline the process of creating, and managing tasks and task lists. It lets you plan, organize and prioritize all your tasks so that you can finish them within in the most efficient and productive manner.
In this article, we offer you a list of the best open-source and free task management app for macOS, that you can download, install, and use totally free of charge.
1- Focalboard
Focalboard is an amazing kanban task manager for desktop and server. Imagine Trello for your desktop. It allows you to manage and organize your tasks and projects without having to deal with so much configuration or hidden settings.
Focalboard is available for macOS as well as Linux and Windows.
You can install it as a standalone desktop app, or self-host the web edition on your server or local machine.
I have been using Focalboard on macOS and Linux for some time, and it is proven reliable and productive.
2- Sleek
Sleek is a simple multi-platform task manager that works with macOS, Linux, and Windows. It uses the portable todo.txt data format, but within a fancy super productive interface.
Sleek offers many handy shortcuts that eases your creation, checking and managing tasks and projects.
You can also export your task files and use it in any other todo.txt supported programs.
3- Zim
Zim is a remarkable desktop wiki system and note-taking software. It allows you to create many notebooks, pages and sub-pages, and connect them together. It also has many useful plugins that extend its functionalities.
You can use Zim to write books, manage projects, tasks, or create your personal local knowledge base.
I used it over the years to manage my tasks and take notes, and I still use it to write reports, and documents, as it has several exporting options.
4- Joplin
Joplin is a multipurpose note-taking app that can be used as a task and project management tool for the web, mobile and desktop. Unlike other note-taking apps, Joplin supports videos, PDFs, audio files, and to-do lists.
Joplin also allows you to sync your notes to the cloud and take regular backups and keep them save.
For the task management, Joplin supports nested sub-tasks, which you can check and uncheck in a snap.
5- TiddlyWiki and Projectify
TiddlyWiki is an amazing one-file wiki, and a personal organizer that can be used to manage tasks, notes, projects, and many more.
You can customize TiddlyWiki as task/ to-do manager app, with simple hacks. However, you can also choose to use Projectify which is a custom theme/ system that convert your simple TiddlyWiki into a complex task manager and project management system.
6- Do it
The Do it app is a native macOS to-do management app that you can install and use it for free. It features a clean clutter-free interface that allows you quick access to all task lists, search, filter, and sort tasks, and more.
The app is available to download for free from the App Store.
7- Elisi
If you want something compact to manage more than your tasks, we recommend Elisi.
Elisi is a stunning app to manage task lists, habits, goals, expanses, notes, and user journals. It is basically, a personal organizer app.
Elisi also allows you to create many workspaces per project or activity, track your goal, and more.
Recommended as a personal organizer and a habit tracker.
8- Taskwarrior
Taskwarrior is a terminal task and project management app for people who like old school terminal type-focused apps.
With Taskwarrior you can add, edit, archive, check tasks, add them to lists, set task priority, tag, and due date.
It is a highly customizable and configurable app, and comes with many useful commands that are easy to memorize.
9- Taskline (Taskbook)
Taskline is a simple to-do management app that you can use from your terminal. Despite its minimal file size, it comes with a rich feature set, that include different views, search, task note, statistics, time tracking, and data export.
10- Pomtaez
Pomtaez is a mix of to-do and task management app packed with a pomodoro timer that helps you stay focus and productive.
Beside macOS, Pomtaez is available for Linux, and Windows systems.
11- mdSilo
mdSilo is yet another free knowledge-base app with super task management features. You can create unlimited task list files, and open folder files directly.
You can organize your data simply by using tags. You can also browse your notes using several available views that include: graph, task, chronicle, and normal note view.
12- Task Coach
Task Coach is a feature-rich task management app that allows better organizing and managing of your daily routine, and project tasks. The app is straightforward to use has different ports for Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android.
If you know of any other open-source and free task manager for macOS that we did not mention here, let us know.
