Best Planner App Free in 2026: 8 Free Apps Compared

Todoist is the safest free planner for most people. Type a task in plain words with a date, and it schedules correctly, which makes capture fast enough that you actually use it. Projects, labels, and filters help you split work, home, and personal tasks without a complex setup.

The free plan has limits. Reminders are a paid feature, and you are capped on projects, so heavy users may need Pro. For daily planning with a moderate number of projects, the free plan covers the core job well, and it syncs across phone, desktop, and web.

TickTick packs more into one free app than most rivals. Tasks sit beside a calendar view, habit tracking, and a focus timer, so many people can drop two or three other apps. The free plan is generous for personal use, and the mobile widgets make checking the day quick.

The trade-off is clutter. With so many features on show, the interface can feel busy compared with Todoist or Microsoft To Do. If you want one app for tasks, habits, and time blocking, that breadth is a plus. If you want the simplest possible list, a leaner app will feel calmer.

Microsoft To Do is the obvious free planner if your work runs on Outlook or Microsoft 365. It is free with a Microsoft account, it syncs with Outlook tasks and flagged email, and its My Day view gives you a simple daily planning ritual: pick the tasks for today, then work through them.

It is thinner than Todoist or TickTick for complex projects, filters, and recurring rules. There is also no natural-language date entry. For straightforward daily lists inside the Microsoft world, though, it is hard to fault, because there is no paywall waiting behind the features you use most.

Google Calendar is a planner in a different sense: it plans by time, not by list. If your day is shaped by meetings, appointments, and deadlines, blocking time on a calendar often works better than a long task list. Sharing calendars, sending invites, and setting reminders are all free and simple.

On its own, Google Calendar is weak for task details, subtasks, and project tracking. Pair it with Google Tasks for lists, or with Todoist or TickTick for richer tasks. Used as the time layer of your system, with a task app underneath, it is one of the most useful free planning tools available.

Any.do is built around a daily habit: each morning, its Plan My Day view walks you through the tasks you want to do today. That nudge helps people who make lists and then forget them, and the built-in calendar keeps timed tasks visible beside untimed ones. Shared lists also suit households and small teams.

The free plan covers personal lists, but some sharing and premium features need a paid plan. If you already plan every morning, you may not need the routine. If you struggle to start the day with a plan, Any.do is designed to solve exactly that problem.

Notion suits planners who want tasks to live beside notes, documents, and project pages. You can build a daily planner, a habit tracker, or a project board from the same blocks, and views such as calendar, board, and timeline show the same tasks in different ways. The free personal plan is generous for one person.

The cost is setup time. Notion starts as a blank page, so you must build or copy a planner template before it feels useful. For a simple to-do list, that is too much work. For someone who already keeps notes and projects in Notion, adding tasks there keeps everything in one system.

Trello plans by board, not by list. Each task is a card you drag from To Do to Doing to Done, which suits visual planners and small teams tracking a project. Cards can hold checklists, dates, attachments, and comments, and the free plan covers the basics for personal and small-team use.

For a daily personal planner, Trello can feel indirect. Dated tasks, recurring rules, and reminders are less central than in Todoist or TickTick. If your work is project-shaped and you like seeing progress across columns, Trello is a strong free pick. If your day is a list to check off, choose a list app instead.

Google Tasks is the simplest planner in this list, and that is its appeal. It lives inside Gmail and Google Calendar, so tasks sit beside the email and events that create them. You can make lists, add subtasks, and set due dates, all for free with a Google account.

Its limits are clear. Lists cannot be shared, there is no built-in calendar view, and features stop at the basics. If you live in Gmail and Calendar and want a light task list without another app, Google Tasks is enough. If you need sharing, projects, or habits, pick TickTick, Todoist, or Notion instead.