Learn how to quickly create to-dos with content from other apps and services.
You’ll often find it necessary to create to-dos that contain content from outside of Things, such as a website you want to remember, an email you need to reply to, snippets of text, and so on. Things supports a variety of input methods to make it easy to capture this kind of information.
If you’re looking to migrate an entire database from another app, read this.
Methods for adding content to Things:
Share Sheet
The Share Sheet is a feature made by Apple and is available in various places across the OS. It allows you to quickly create new to-dos that include links and text from other apps. Here’s how to enable it for Things:
Mac
- Open Safari.
- In the toolbar at the top of the app, click to reveal the Share Sheet.
- Click Edit Extensions...
- macOS 13: Click Done → Added extensions. Find Things and enable Sharing.
- macOS 12 or earlier: Enable Add to Things.
- In Safari, click again. Add to Things will now appear in the list of sharing options.
On Mac, a more powerful alternative to the Share Sheet is Things’ own Quick Entry feature.
If you share a file from Finder to Things, the file itself won’t be attached to the to-do. Instead, Things creates a link to where that file lives on your Mac. To access a file from another device, store it in a cloud-based service like Dropbox, then add the file’s URL to the notes of your to-do.
iPad & iPhone
- Open Safari.
- Tap to reveal the Share Sheet.
- In the row of colorful icons, swipe left and tap More.
- In the top right corner, tap Edit.
- Scroll down until you see Things.
- Tap + to add Things to your favorites.
- Tap Done → Done. Things will now appear in the row of sharing options.
Note that Things can only accept plain text as input. If you try to share content that’s not supported (photos, PDF documents, etc.), the OS will intelligently omit Things from the Share menu.
Drag & Drop
You can add content from other apps by simply dragging and dropping it into Things. It can be dropped into the notes of an existing to-do, or into a list to create a new to-do.
Mac
Not all apps support dragging content into Things, but some that do are Apple’s Mail, Safari, or Finder. If you want to see if it works for another app, just try it out!
If you drop a file from Finder to Things, the file itself won’t be attached to the to-do. Instead, Things creates a link to where that file lives on your Mac. To access a file from another device, store it in a cloud-based service like Dropbox, then add the file’s URL to the notes of your to-do.
iPad & iPhone
Not all apps support dragging content into Things, but some that do are Apple’s Mail, Safari, Messages, or Maps. If you want to see if it works for another app, just try it out!
If dropping content into Things doesn’t work, it might be because the content you’re trying to add is not supported. Things can only accept plain text as input, so dragging in files (photos, PDFs, etc.) won’t work.
Learn more about drag & drop in Apple’s documentation.
Mail to Things
Things allows you to convert your emails into to-dos. Simply send (or forward) an email to Things Cloud; a new to-do will appear in your Things Inbox with a link back to the original email.
To learn more about Mail to Things, see this page.
Quick Entry (Mac only)
On Mac, you can create to-dos while working in other apps by using Quick Entry. Additionally, you can enable Quick Entry’s Autofill option, which is capable of grabbing a link to a website, email, or file that you want to get back to later.
To learn more about Quick Entry and Autofill, see this page.
Live Text
Apple’s Live Text feature lets you capture text simply by pointing your device’s camera at it. This makes it easy to turn real-world text from books, letters, or even scribbles on a whiteboard into a new to-do.
To import text, tap into a to-do’s notes field, tap again to bring up the menu, then tap AutoFill → Scan Text.
To learn more about Live Text, see Apple’s documentation.
Note that the Live Text feature is only available inside the Notes field of a to-do or project, not in a Title or Checklist field.
Copy & Paste
You can paste raw text from your clipboard directly into Things and the app will convert it into to-dos for you. If the text is prefixed with bullets, Things will automatically remove them to keep everything tidy.
Mac
Copy multiple rows of text to your clipboard from another app, then inside Things:
- Open any list and hit ⌘ Cmd V to paste. Each row of text from your clipboard will be converted into a separate to-do.
- Create a new to-do and hit ⌘ Cmd V inside its
Titlefield. The first row of text from your clipboard will become the to-do’s title, and the rest will cascade down into the notes. - Create a new to-do and hit ⌘ Cmd V inside its
Checklistfield. Each row of text from your clipboard will be converted into a checklist item.
iPad & iPhone
Copy multiple rows of text to your clipboard from another app, then inside Things:
- Open any list. In the top right corner of the screen, tap → Paste. Each row of text from your clipboard will be converted into a separate to-do.
- Create a new to-do. Tap inside its
Titlefield to reveal the tools popover, then tap Paste. The first row of text from your clipboard will become the to-do’s title, and the rest will cascade down into the notes. - Create a new to-do. Tap inside its
Checklistfield to reveal the tools popover, then tap Paste. Each row of text from your clipboard will be converted into a checklist item.
Import to Inbox
You can configure Things to display items from other apps in your Inbox; you can then import them as to-dos. These apps are currently supported:
Apple Shortcuts
You can use Apple’s Shortcuts app to quickly get content from other sources and save it into Things.
Data Migration
If you’re moving to Things from another to-do app and want to migrate your entire database, see this page.