Simply download it and move it to the Applications folder, replacing the old version. Your data and settings will be preserved.

Yes. The current version of ToDo X is a 64-bit application compatible with Intel and Apple Silicon-based Macs running macOS 10.9 (Mavericks) through 13 (Ventura). It is built with Apple’s Hardened Runtime, signed and notarized. An earlier version of ToDo X (2.7) remains available; it is a 32-bit application compatible with Intel and PowerPC-based Macs running macOS 10.4 through 10.13 (not tested in Mojave or later).

No, sorry.

In the ToDo menu, select Preferences and then click on the Fonts tab of the ToDo Preferences window. The font that is used for the Categories and Things To Do lists in the main window is the topmost of the eight you’ll see listed there (most of the others are used for printing). Click on the corresponding Set button, and a font selection panel should pop up. A movie illustrating this can be found here.

You can rearrange the category list by dragging. (The drag must start in a left or right direction; vertical drags are used to select multiple categories.) If you have chosen the option to keep your category names sorted automatically, you can influence their order by prepending spaces, digits or other prefixes.

There are lots of keyboard shortcuts. For example, you can use ⌘1 through ⌘9 to set the priority of a to-do item without opening an edit window. For a complete list of shortcuts, see the application’s Help menu.

There are two ways to move an item. First, you can simply drag it onto the target category in the Categories list. Second, you can select the item and cut it using Edit/Cut or ⌘X; then select the target category and paste the item using Edit/Paste or ⌘V.

There are two ways to copy an item. First, you can hold down the option (⌥) key while dragging the item onto the target category in the Categories list. Second, you can select the item and copy it using Edit/Copy or ⌘C; then select the target category and paste the item using Edit/Paste or ⌘V. Either technique creates a duplicate item in the target category.

Hold down the control key while dragging the item onto the target category in the Categories list. The single item instance is now a member of both categories. If you later delete it from one of its categories, it will still appear in the other. Only when it has been deleted from all of its categories will it finally vanish.

Select the category or categories that you want to search, then just start typing a search string. As you type, any to-do items that match the string (in the item name or in the notes) will be selected. A feedback sound will tell you when the search has been narrowed to a single item, or has failed to match anything.

If you pause for more than a second or two your search string is discarded and the next keystroke begins a new search. To terminate a search without delay hit the esc key; to repeat the previous search (or recall the search string for amendment) type ⌘G.

In macOS 10.9 (Mavericks) or later, you can turn on Enhanced Dictation and search by speaking.

You can keep it there (or bring it back) by typing ⌘G; but if you want to change the time delay you can do so as follows. Open a Terminal window and issue a shell command similar to “defaults write com.nomicro.ToDo SearchTime -float 1.5” with the desired time delay in seconds. To restore the default value use “defaults delete com.nomicro.ToDo SearchTime”. Changes such as this should not be made while ToDo X is running.

You can select some text in another application, then switch back to ToDo X and click-hold-drag the text to where you want it. As long as you avoid releasing the mouse button, ToDo X will remain in the foreground and not disappear. You can also just use cut & paste instead, or use the Preferences to tell ToDo X not to hide itself.

Yes. The default window-fade time is 0.0 seconds for immediate hiding, but you can increase this as much as you want. Open a Terminal window and issue a shell command similar to “defaults write com.nomicro.ToDo FadeTime -float 0.0” with the desired fade time in seconds. To restore the default value use “defaults delete com.nomicro.ToDo FadeTime”. Changes such as this should not be made while ToDo X is running.

Yes, just hold down the option (⌥) key while deleting. There is also a preference available to suppress most deletion warnings, but please be aware that deletion is (currently) not undoable.

Open an edit window by double-clicking on the to-do item you are interested in (or by whatever other method you prefer). In the bottom left corner of the window you will see the item’s creation date, and if the item has been edited since its creation you will also see the last modification date. When the cursor hovers over these dates a tooltip will appear that displays the dates in a more verbose and readable format.

Open an edit window by double-clicking on the to-do item you are interested in (or by whatever other method you prefer). In the bottom left corner of the window you will see a creation date and possibly a modification date. These actually constitute a button; clicking on it will append a timestamp to the notes. Typing ⌘/ will do the same thing.

Yes, using a hidden preference named StampFormat. A second preference, StampOption, is used if you option-click (or type ⌥⌘/). Open a Terminal window and issue a shell command similar to “defaults write com.nomicro.ToDo StampFormat -string '%Y-%m-%d %H:%M - '” with the desired date/time format string in quotes. To restore the default behavior use “defaults delete com.nomicro.ToDo StampFormat”. Changes such as this should not be made while ToDo X is running.

At appropriate times (such as when you switch from one category to another) some statistics will be displayed briefly next to the “Categories” and “Things To Do” list headings. These statistics are also available as tooltips on the headings themselves.

The complete history of priority changes is not preserved, but you can find an item’s initial, previous and final priority. Open an edit window by double-clicking on the to-do item you are interested in (or by whatever other method you prefer). Allow the cursor to hover over the priority radio-buttons; a tooltip will appear that tells you whatever is known about the item’s priority history.

The application has several different built-in sets of colors that you can choose among, and they can all be customized. First open the Preferences window. On the right-hand side, next to the color wells, you’ll see a small control that will let you cycle through the various color sets. To change the color assigned to a particular priority just click on the associated color well.

All of your Category and Things To Do information is stored in the application’s preference file, in your ~/Library/Preferences folder. It is named “com.nomicro.ToDo.plist” and is in XML or binary plist format. As an alternative to backing up the preference file, automatic and manual data backups can be performed using the application itself. Further information on this topic is available from the application’s Help menu.

The application normally retains only the most recent 10 of the automatic and manual data backups that it creates in ~/Application Support/ToDo X/Backup. To change this, open a Terminal window and issue a shell command similar to “defaults write com.nomicro.ToDo MaxBackups -integer 10” with the desired limit. (Values less than 1 are treated as infinite.) To restore the default value use “defaults delete com.nomicro.ToDo MaxBackups”. Changes such as this should not be made while ToDo X is running.

You can import data from Calendar, or any other application that generates an industry-standard .ics file; from the Stickies application; from the classic Mac OS desk accessory ToDo!; from a plain text file; from a text clipping or web location file; or from a native plist file (such as another user’s to-do list or a backup copy of your own). Refer to the application’s Help menu for further information.

An approximation can be achieved by choosing the Metal window appearance as described below.

The pointing hand (☞), or manicule, is an arbitrary symbol used to indicate which categories and to-do items have notes associated with them. This symbol was chosen for the purpose in homage to the classic Mac OS desk accessory ToDo!, which inspired the development of ToDo X. The same symbol is used on the buttons that you click to edit the notes, and perhaps (✍) would have been more appropriate.

Each category and to-do item has a pointing-hand (☞) character beside it, drawn either fully or partially opaque to indicate whether or not there are any associated notes. The default opacity value used when notes are absent is 0.33, but you can change this to 0 for full transparency or 1 for full opacity (any value between 0 and 1 behaves like 0.33). Open a Terminal window and issue a shell command similar to “defaults write com.nomicro.ToDo HandAlpha -float 0.33” with the desired opacity value. To restore the default value use “defaults delete com.nomicro.ToDo HandAlpha”. Changes such as this should not be made while ToDo X is running.

When you hold down the option (⌥) key the category or categories to which the currently-selected items belong will be highlighted. Also, when you open for editing an item that belongs to multiple categories, those categories will be highlighted.

There are a number of different window textures available to be chosen from the Window/Texture menu. These can be overridden by adding appropriately-named image files to ~/Application Support/ToDo X; for example, a file named WindowTextureMetal will replace the original Metal texture (when the application is next launched). The usual image file formats are supported. Note that it is not possible to change existing names or add more to the menu.

For the full benefit of Dark Mode in Mojave or later, use the original Aqua texture.

Although you can change them in the Preferences, the usual fonts are Lucida Grande Regular (for display) and Helvetica Regular/Bold/Oblique (for printing). Some special characters used by ToDo X, such as circled numbers (➊) and checkmarks (✔), aren’t present in those fonts and will be obtained via font substitution. They’ll typically be drawn from Zapf Dingbats or AppleGothic Regular. If you think you might have a font problem, check the font sample here.

Row spacing is based on font metrics, but can be changed by means of a hidden preference named RowDelta. Open a Terminal window and issue a shell command similar to “defaults write com.nomicro.ToDo RowDelta -integer 0” with the desired delta measured in points. Positive numbers increase row spacing and negative numbers decrease it. To restore the default value use “defaults delete com.nomicro.ToDo RowDelta”. Changes such as this should not be made while ToDo X is running.

In order for the Services menu item to show up, you must install ToDo X into /Applications or ~/Applications, then log out and log in again. If that doesn’t do the trick, double-check that you have the latest version of ToDo X installed and that you have no other copies of the application lurking about.

In recent versions of macOS you can do this in the Keyboard (or Keyboard & Mouse) pane of System Preferences. You can either create a new application keyboard shortcut for all applications, with menu title Make New ToDo Item; or create a keyboard shortcut for the Services menu item of that name. To confirm your work, launch (or quit and re-launch) TextEdit. The shortcut will not appear in an application that already uses it for some other menu item.

If you hold down the option (⌥) key while invoking the Make New ToDo Item service, the new item will be created in the currently-selected category, which will become the default target for future invocations. Of course, you must have one (and only one) category selected.

For those technically proficient, it was once possible to do so by modifying the relevant portion of the application’s Info.plist file. This would allow you to create multiple Services menu entries with different target categories and keyboard shortcuts. However, now that ToDo X is code-signed and Apple-notarized, such tinkering is unsupported.

ToDo X was inspired by the classic Mac OS desk accessory ToDo!, by Andrew Welch of Ambrosia Software. It was designed to provide an upgrade path to the modern macOS for users of that desk accessory. However, it was written completely from scratch as a native macOS Cocoa application, and does not share any source code with ToDo!. There is no relationship between Omicron and Ambrosia.