Which task manager works on both iPhone and Windows?

Which task managers run on both iPhone and Windows?

Todoist and TickTick are the two obvious answers. Both ship apps for iOS, Android, macOS, Windows and Linux as well as a web app, so your phone and your computer can come from different companies without that being your problem. Microsoft To Do covers the same ground more simply and at no cost, and is a reasonable fit if your needs are modest and you are already inside a Microsoft account.

That is the short version, and it is worth saying plainly because a lot of writing on this topic implies the problem is harder than it is. If all you need is one list on an iPhone and a Windows laptop, this is a solved problem with several good answers.

Why doesn’t Things run on Windows or Android?

Because Cultured Code builds Things exclusively on Apple’s native frameworks for macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS. That is a deliberate product decision rather than a gap waiting to be filled: building against one platform’s own toolkit is a large part of why the app feels as good as it does on a Mac, and it is also exactly what makes it impractical to port. There is no Windows or Android version and none has been announced.

So if Things is the app you keep being recommended and half your hardware is not Apple, the recommendation is simply not applicable to you. It is a good app for people entirely inside one ecosystem.

If the big apps are already cross-platform, what is actually missing?

Weight, in one specific direction. Todoist and TickTick are broad products that also serve teams, so they carry shared projects, assignees, collaborator seats and permissions. If you are one person managing your own life, that is surface area you navigate past every day to reach the small part you use — and it shapes defaults, onboarding and the vocabulary of the interface.

This is a genuine trade rather than a flaw. Serving teams is why those apps are sustainable enough to maintain six platform builds, which is the thing you wanted in the first place. But it does mean the specific combination of *every platform* and *nothing but single-user* is less well served than either property alone.

Does a web app count as cross-platform?

Partly, and the difference shows up in the places that matter most for a task manager. A web app covers any device with a browser, which solves Linux and unusual hardware at a stroke. What it handles less well is everything around the edges: whether it works with no connection, whether notifications arrive reliably when the browser is closed, whether you can capture a task in two seconds from a locked phone, and whether you can share a link into it from another app.

Those edges are where a task manager is won or lost, because the app you do not reach for in four seconds is the app you stop trusting. If you are considering a web-first option, test exactly those four things before moving your lists, rather than testing the feature list.

What should you check before committing to a task manager?

Moving task lists between apps is tedious enough that most people only do it once. Five checks, in the order they are most often skipped:

1. Export your data on day one and open the file. If the export is unreadable or incomplete, you are not a customer so much as a resident.
2. Turn off the network and use it for a day. Offline behaviour is the single most common disappointment, and it is never in the marketing.
3. Time yourself capturing a task from a locked phone. Anything over a few seconds and you will start keeping tasks in your head again.
4. Find out what happens when a subscription lapses — read-only access, export-only, or locked out. Policies differ sharply and it is rarely prominent.
5. Edit the same task on two devices while one is offline, then reconnect, and see what the app does. How it resolves that tells you how much to trust it.

What is Carry, and where does it fit?

Carry is a personal task and calendar app built by Percuno — the company that publishes this article, so treat the rest of this paragraph accordingly. It is the narrow bet described above: built for one person managing their own work rather than for a team, with tasks and calendar in one view. Carry is in private beta — built and working, not publicly released — and its own site is carry.today.

Two things it is not. It is not a native app on anything — there is no App Store listing, no Google Play listing and no released desktop installer, so it is a browser app on an iPhone and on a Windows laptop alike. And it is not something Percuno is offering you today: it is in private beta, built by one developer, unannounced and unpromoted. If you want a task manager this week, a native iOS app, offline behaviour proven over years, or a company that will still be there in five years, Todoist and TickTick are the better answer and this article has already named them twice.

Which makes the honest conclusion of this article the same as its beginning: pick one of those two now. The reason Carry is described here at all is that the question this page answers is a real one and Percuno is building a narrow answer to it — one person, no team machinery, tasks and calendar in one view. When Carry is ready to use, its page says so and there is one email you can ask for. Until then, run the five checks in the previous section against whatever you do choose; the export one matters most.