Things opens very slowly

If you notice that Things is very slow to open when you launch it for the first time in the day, there could be a number of reasons. This page explains how to narrow down the cause.

We strongly recommend to test one solution at a time, and for a few days, before you try something else. If you try all of them at the same time, you might not be able to tell which change helped resolve the problem.

Check calendar integration

Things is the passive recipient of calendar events, and when Apple Calendar is slow to transmit large amounts of data, it can cause Things to “hang”.

The solution is to determine which one of your calendars is causing the problem, and to disable it to allow Things to launch faster.

1. Go to Things → Settings → Calendar Events.
2. Turn off calendar integration and test if Things launches faster.
3. If that’s the case, turn calendar integration back on but disable all but one calendar and repeat the test.
4. Continue doing this until Things starts launching slowly again.

You have now identified which calendar causes the problem. Leave it off to allow Things to launch faster.

Things does not handle your events – we are dependent on Apple Calendar to provide this data to us. We hope that Apple will improve the interface that handles this data transfer so that performance will improve in the future.

Disable badge

A less common cause for slow launching times can be the badge that is shown on the Things icon in the Dock on the Mac, or the Home Screen on your mobile device. This usually only affects users with hundreds of to-dos in their Today list, or with a very large number of scheduled to-dos per day.

To test if the badge is impacting performance for you, disable it for a few days and see if Things launches faster.

Disable Reminders integration

If you use Apple Reminders heavily, and the Reminders list that you integrate with contains a lot of to-dos each day, you could disable it for a few days to see if the launch time improves.