Microsoft To-Do and Cortana now work together to keep your tasks in sync

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
published

Cortana and To-Do are working hand-in-hand to sync your reminders and tasks between apps.

Microsoft To Do Windows 10
Microsoft To Do Windows 10 (Image credit: Windows Central)

Microsoft To-Do today is getting a big boost in terms of keeping your reminders organized in one place. Microsoft has announced the task app is now integrated with Cortana, which will let you keep tasks and reminders synced from Cortana to To-Do and vice versa.

All of the hard work that holds this together happens behind the scenes. According to Microsoft, lists and reminders will be synced across To-Do, Cortana, and Outlook, no matter which device you're working from. Add a task on To-Do from Android? It'll be synced to your Cortana lists as well. Sitting at your PC? You can ask Cortana to remind you to pick up milk at the store, and that will be added to your To-Do tasks.

For now, the integration requires a PC to be running Windows 10 Insider preview build 18267 or higher. It's also limited by language and region, only working in English throughout Australia, India, the US, and the UK.

Microsoft To-Do and Cortana now work together to keep your tasks in sync

To get started, you'll have to make sure you set up Outlook or Office 365 as a connected service through Cortana on your PC. To do so, you can head to your Cortana Notebook, select "Manage Skills, and then click "Connected services. From there, you can select Outlook for a personal Microsoft account, or Office 365 for an Enterprise account.

Simply make sure that you're signed into the To-Do app or Outlook with the same personal or enterprise account you've connected to Cortana, and you're good to go.

It's worth noting that there are some known issues to be aware of with the current implementation while it's in testing. Here's a rundown:

  • Works best when you disconnect Wunderlist from Cortana.
  • Location-based reminders can only be created in Cortana, while you can view them in your Microsoft To-Do app.
  • Attachments added with Cortana are only accessible in Cortana (won't sync to Microsoft To-Do)
  • A list shared between multiple people in the Microsoft To-Do app will only appear in Cortana for the person who shared it. All members of the list can still access the list in Microsoft To-Do.
  • You may see duplicate notifications for a single reminder — from Cortana, Microsoft To-Do, and Outlook apps on your Windows 10 PC or iOS phone. Learn how to change notification settings in Windows 10
  • You may get "Too many reminders" error while setting up reminders using Cortana on a Windows phone. Delete some of the completed reminders as a workaround. Go to Cortana > Notebook > Reminders > History > Completed either on PC or Windows phone.
Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

14 Comments
  • I know they say that this only works with preview build 18267 or higher, but both my wife and I have this feature, and neither of us are currently running an insider build.
  • Great - this is going to help a lot. Hopefully this will be rolling out with Microsoft Launcher support for To-Do around the same time.
  • I got the bug where you Can't add more reminders. Just a note, for me it didn't work just deleting some completed ítems from history, I had to deleted every one of them to the last one. Probably one of them got bugged or something.
  • Same issue here, though i gave up after deleting a sudden and used the calendar to set upcoming reminders that i needed
  • I got it back deleting everything. But for my phone it took a while to catch on.
  • I can't get Cortana to connect to outlook
  • To-Do doesn't work with on-premise Exchange accounts, that should be first on their list.
  • I honestly don't see that happening for awhile. Tasks had to be reworked on the backend to be compatible with ToDo. Exchange itself would have to be updated.
  • This doesn't surprise me. I doubt most companies would want Microsoft to have access to their Exchange Servers.
  • They still need to add the "email to list" feature that Wunderlist has. Can't move until they do
  • Works best when you disconnect Wunderlist from Cortana. What the ****?? Anticompetition again?
  • Not really. Wunderlist is owned by MS and To-Do is the new app that will eventually replace it. Wunderlist is living on borrowed time. My understanding is that all the developers who built Wunderlist have been moved to the To-Do team and it's in maintenance mode only.
  • I don't think this is a good development and that To-Do is so more dependent on Cortana. The biggest issue with To-Do dependency on syncing with Cortana is that Cortana is simply not supported for every region and language globally. This feature implementation will cause users to be left out of the end-user experience. Cortana has little value on the global arena if Cortana is not inclusive for all languages on the world stage, which is unfortunatley reality. And it has changed minimally in the last 7 years.
    What is a better solution. Continue syncing via the microsoft account or onedrive. Both of these has a far better global reach and support.
  • It's not dependent upon Cortana. To-Do will continue to sync with your MS account. The difference is now Cortana can interface with To-Do. There's no downside here - even to people outside the US and the handful of other regions where Cortana is supported.