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Any.do alternatives — free, private, no sign-up

Any.do's design is nice, but most of its useful features are behind a subscription, and even the free tier requires your email address. Here's what to use instead.

17 May 2026 · 3 min read

Any.do's actual cost

Any.do markets itself as free but the free tier is aggressively limited. You can add unlimited tasks, but most of the features that make a task manager useful for real work — recurring tasks, reminders, location triggers, calendar integration, color coding — require Any.do Premium at around $3/month (billed annually) or $5.99/month billed monthly.

For comparison, Todoist Premium is around $4/month. TickTick Premium is $2.79/month. Any.do's pricing is in the same range, but its free tier gives you less to work with than either.

The account requirement is non-negotiable. Creating an account means giving Any.do your email address, accepting their privacy policy, and agreeing to tasks being stored on their servers. For a personal task list, that's a trade-off worth being clear-eyed about.

No-account alternative: Easy Todo Note

Easy Todo Note is a Chrome side-panel extension with no account, no email, and no subscription. Install it, click the toolbar icon, and write tasks. Everything is stored locally in your browser's local storage.

What it does:

What it doesn't do:

For anyone who mainly used Any.do as a browser-based task list and rarely needed the mobile features or recurring reminders — Easy Todo Note covers the daily workflow with considerably less overhead.

For structured planning: DayViewer

If Any.do's calendar integration and daily planning view were the features you actually used, DayViewer offers a more robust version of that. It's a business planning and information management platform — calendars, scheduling, tasks, and dashboards in one place — designed for individuals and small businesses rather than a freemium consumer app.

DayViewer's planning tools go beyond Any.do: you can schedule tasks against actual calendar days, see your week at a glance, and manage projects from a dashboard. It's a step up from a task list — useful when you want to plan, not just track.

A practical combination: Easy Todo Note for the running daily task list in the browser, DayViewer for anything that needs calendar integration or project-level planning.

Free alternatives that require an account

TickTick free tier: Unlimited tasks, basic recurring tasks, simple calendar view. More generous free tier than Any.do. Requires an account.

Microsoft To Do: Completely free with a Microsoft account. Recurring tasks, cross-platform apps, integration with Outlook and Teams. Good for Microsoft 365 users.

Apple Reminders: Free on Apple devices with an Apple ID. Location reminders, recurring tasks, iCloud sync. Best if you're already in the Apple ecosystem.

Todoist free tier: 5 projects limit, but polished interface and natural language date input. Requires an account.

The privacy consideration

Any.do stores your task list on its servers and uses that data according to its privacy policy. For a task list that might include client names, personal commitments, health information, or business plans, that's worth considering.

Easy Todo Note stores nothing outside your browser. The only record of your tasks is in your browser's local storage. That's a meaningful difference for task lists with sensitive content.

Common mistakes

Assuming the pretty app is worth the subscription. Any.do's design is good, but good design is available in simpler tools too. If you're paying for an app you use as a basic task list, the visual polish isn't buying you anything.

Recreating Any.do's list structure in a new tool. The multiple list / category approach from Any.do doesn't need to be replicated. Most daily task management works better with a single prioritized list than with categories you have to navigate between.

Choosing based on the upsell features. Any.do's marketing for the premium plan makes features like AI planning, WhatsApp integration, and location reminders sound essential. If you weren't using those features before you saw the upgrade prompt, you probably don't need them in the replacement.

FAQ

What's wrong with Any.do's free tier?

The free tier is basically a preview. You get unlimited tasks and lists, but recurring tasks, color-coded lists, reminders, location-based reminders, WhatsApp integration, and the calendar views are all Any.do Premium (around $3/month). The app pushes you toward upgrading frequently. For a task manager you use daily, the free tier doesn't reflect the real product.

Is Easy Todo Note a full Any.do replacement?

For a simple daily task list in the browser, yes. ETN handles tasks, nested subtasks, countdown timers, and a scratch notepad locally in Chrome. It won't do recurring tasks, mobile reminders, or cross-device sync. If those were the features you relied on in Any.do, look at TickTick's free tier or Apple Reminders.

What about Any.do's "Plan My Day" feature?

Plan My Day is a daily planning mode where you review your tasks each morning and decide what to focus on that day. It's a genuinely useful feature. DayViewer covers similar ground — you can review tasks against your calendar and plan your day with a structured view. For a simpler version, Easy Todo Note's side-panel list functions as a daily working list by default.

Does Any.do have a local-only mode?

No. Any.do requires an account and syncs everything to its servers. There's no option to use it without creating an account or to store tasks locally.