We have some big plans for Things and want to expand our team.
We’re currently looking for an iOS/macOS Developer and a Sync Engineer. If that sounds like you or someone you know, head over to our jobs page and learn more.
We’d love to hear from you!
Applications are open until September 16.
We’ve just released an amazing update for iPad. With full support for external keyboards, powerful shortcuts, Type Travel navigation, and much more – Things 3.6 takes our iPad app to the next level. Try it today!
For this update we had one goal: make our iPad app truly desktop-class. To achieve this, we had to substantially improve support for external keyboards – and by that we don’t just mean adding a few more shortcuts. In fact, adding more shortcuts was only possible because of one of the key features in this release: the ability to select items from the keyboard.
The lists you make in Things are constantly changing, so editing them has to be easy. Over the years, we’ve worked hard to make this feel as frictionless as possible on touch devices: insert items anywhere with the Magic Plus button, select items quickly with a left swipe, multi-select items by swiping down the circles on the right, and reorder items (even a multi-selection) via drag and drop.
The easy-ness of these list editing controls on iOS is something we’re proud of. But as soon as you attach a keyboard to your iPad, all that magic goes away. Almost every list editing action requires you to lift your hand off the keyboard and touch the screen, which gets exhausting.
This problem can’t be fixed by “just adding keyboard shortcuts”, because shortcuts require context: Where do you want to insert a new to-do? Which items do you want to move? And so on. Before you can use a shortcut, you need a persistent selection in the list that you can target. So that’s exactly what we’ve built for Things 3.6.
To see what we mean, just open the app and tap the down arrow; you’ll see the first to-do selected. Now you can move the selection around with the arrow keys, or hold down shift and use the arrows to select more to-dos. Yes, it works just like the Mac!
One of the beautiful things about the way it works on iPad is how keyboard and touch controls work together seamlessly. You can start selecting to-dos with your keyboard, then tap a few with your finger to add some more, and so on – it just feels natural.
Now that you have a selection in the list, there are all sorts of things you can do. Even with a small handful of shortcuts, you already have a lot of power:
These shortcuts are all very straightforward – chances are you already know most of them. And if you’re a shortcut-enthusiast we have good news! We’ve added over 70 shortcuts across the app. Press and hold the ⌘ Cmd key in any view to see what’s possible, or check out the full list on our website.
You’ll notice that popovers in Things are also fully accessible from the keyboard (When, Deadline, Tags, etc.). Open a popover, such as ⌘ Cmd S, then use the arrow keys to move your selection around. Better yet, just start typing in any of them to filter down the results!
Quick side note: Apple’s Smart Keyboard for iPad doesn’t have an Esc key 😱 So how do you get out of popovers? Well there’s a system-wide shortcut for this: ⌘ Cmd . – and it also works in Things.
There’s a really cool feature we built for the Mac, called Type Travel. It allows you to navigate Things with your keyboard. You don’t need a shortcut to use it – just start typing where in the app you want to go, and instantly you’re transported there. It’s magic. We’ve now brought this feature to iPad, and it really shines here. It’s amazing how quickly you can get around without even lifting a hand.
To polish it all off, we’ve built three long-standing feature requests into this release:
After taking this update for a spin, we think you’ll agree: using Things on iPad feels completely different now. That “I’ll just wait till I get back to my Mac to do serious work” feeling is replaced with a feeling of empowerment: almost anything you could do in Things on your Mac, you can now do on your iPad.
So grab your keyboard, head on down to the coffee shop, and see what you can do with Things 3.6 – we hope you’ll like it!
Today’s release packs 29 little features and improvements into one big update – it’s Things 3.5, our “Spit & Polish” release. Available now!
Things 3 has been out for a while now and we’ve received lots of fantastic feedback – thank you so much! For today’s release, we took a close look at all your suggestions and revisited many areas of the app to polish it up. Let’s take a look at what’s new…
Collapsable Areas
Collapsable areas has been one of our most requested features. If your project list is super long – or if you just don’t want to see work projects on the weekend – you can now collapse your areas to hide them.
Tagging Improvements
Applying Tags. The tag window on iOS is now searchable – just pull down and start typing. This makes it much faster to find the right tag in a long list.
Tag Searches. App-wide tag searches are now also broader. When you search for a tag, you won’t just see items with that tag, but also items with tags nested under it.
Tag Filtering. A feature from Things 2 has also made a much-requested comeback: you can once again filter by “No Tag”.
I/O Magic
It’s now much easier to get data into Things. Here are a few new tricks:
Copy & paste now also works great inside of Things. On your Mac, simply copy a project, heading, or some to-dos and paste them into another list. If you’re pasting into other apps, Things now nicely formats what you have in your clipboard as plain text.
Update Items via Things URLs
We were very pleased with the recent launch of Things URLs, which allow you to create to-dos in Things from outside the app. It’s amazing to see all the workflows you’ve been creating!
One of the main features requested is a way to make changes to items that already exist. This is now possible, thanks to our new update commands. Check our documentation for the latest information.
Today Widget Improvements
The Today Widget now shows icons for checklists & reminders, a moon for items in This Evening, and progress pies for your projects.
Performance Improvements
Large Projects. Some users have projects which are far bigger than the average – to the tune of 7,000+ to-dos! These projects load much faster now, and working inside them is much snappier, especially on iOS.
Repeating Tasks. The first time the app runs each day, it generates new repeating to-dos and projects. This is now much faster.
Links Everywhere
The app now handles links consistently in all places: inside the title, inside notes, and (finally!) inside checklist items. On both Mac and iOS.
Better Settings
Redesign. The Settings screen on iOS is redesigned for more clarity.
Grouping in Today. Just like the Mac, iOS now allows you to change the layout of your Today list. You can sort your to-dos manually, or group them automatically by area or project.
Touch Bar. On the MacBook Pro, the Touch Bar is now customizable. You can move the buttons around, or remove buttons you don’t want to see.
Improved Date Handling
Completion Dates. Up to now, the Logbook showed abbreviated dates for items far in the past. We’ve changed this so you can always determine the exact date of completion.
Calendar Events. In the Upcoming list, we’ve also improved how we handle events that span across multiple days – it will now show as an all-day item on each day of the event, rather than only on the day the event started.
Zapier Workflows
After we shipped our Mail to Things feature, the team over at Zapier started building a range of workflows that let you create to-dos from business tools like Slack, Trello, Basecamp, and more. These workflows are now available.
These are just some of the additions in Things 3.5. We’ve also tweaked the layout in full screen mode (Mac), added a Duplicate option for headings, and fixed numerous bugs.
Things 3.5 is available for download in the App Store now. We hope you enjoy these latest improvements!
Things 3.4 has just hit the store with three fantastic new features: Linking to Things, Powerful Automation, and Handover from other apps – all made possible by our brand new Things URLs.
Things now supports a special kind of link (or URL) that starts with “things:”. These links are just
like the ones you use every day on the web, except they allow you to send a variety of commands to Things.
Here’s an example: things:///show?id=today. Tapping this link will open Things and
tell it to show your Today list. Try it now if you already have Things 3.4 installed.
These Things URLs enable three great new features. Let’s take a look at what each can do!
You’ve already seen how to link to your Today list, but you can link to any list in Things: Upcoming, Logbook, one of your projects or areas, and so on. You can even link to a specific to-do buried deep inside a list. Some examples:
things:///show?id=upcoming
things:///show?id=logbook
things:///show?query=Vacation%20in%20Rome
things:///show?id=591C7D2F-2004-41BF-A72F-36F341B32F1C
Getting a link is really easy:
You can now paste the links anywhere you like. Manage a project in Things, but keep your writing or brainstorming in another app? No problem: paste your project’s link into the other app and quickly jump back to it in Things. Of course, you can also link related to-dos and lists inside of Things itself.
Beyond using these links for simple navigation, they can also be used to execute a broad range of powerful commands from outside of the app – to create to-dos, show tag filters, perform searches, and so on.
Here are a few examples (if you’ve already updated to 3.4, you can tap to execute them):
Creating these commands yourself is a bit technical, but if you’re adventurous and willing to experiment a little, they allow you to automate many of the things you frequently do. We’ve built a little tool to help you get started:
Once you’ve built your custom links, you can paste them into apps like Launch Center Pro or Launcher for easy access. Or you can use apps like Workflow to chain multiple commands and apps together into clever workflows.
Tech journalist Federico Viticci has been playing with this feature for several weeks already, and you can read about what he got up to over on MacStories. Also be sure to check out the workflows from the guys over at The Sweet Setup.
The final feature made possible by Things URLs is to create entire projects from other apps – complete with notes, headings, and to-dos.
The fantastic mind-mapping tool MindNode, for example, now allows you to brainstorm new ideas on an empty canvas and then “hand it over” to Things as a project when the time is right.
We’re happy that Drafts has also built this feature into their upcoming version, and hope to see more apps with integration soon. Any other developers wanting to export data to Things can easily do so with our open source Swift library. Just have a look at our documentation.
Things 3.4 is available now as a free update for all our users. We hope you find some creative and useful ways to wield your new linking power! 🤓