todoist-shortcuts is a browser extension or greasemonkey script which adds a bunch of keyboard shortcuts to Todoist. Along with this repository, it is also available from the following places:

• Extension for Google Chrome

• Extension for Mozilla Firefox

These keyboard shortcuts are directly inspired by the shortcuts used for GMail, which, in turn were inspired by vim-like keyboard interaction. I highly recommend enabling the advanced keyboard shortcuts if you use GMail.

So, if the choices of keypresses seem strange, stick with it! Many of the keypresses used here can also be used in GMail or even vim (or, better yet, evil-mode ;) ).

Keyboard shortcuts guide sheet

See this printable shortcuts guide, created by kimaero (see #71). This guide can also be brought up while using Todoist by pressing ?.

Main shortcuts

These are the main shortcuts I use all the time:

keys	action
g	enter left-sidebar navigation mode
q	add task
j or down	move cursor down
k or up	move cursor up
x	select task at cursor
enter	edit task at cursor
d	done: mark task(s) as complete
e	archive task(s)
t	open scheduler (see scheduling section below)
t then c	schedule today
t then t	schedule tomorrow
t then w	schedule next week
shift+t	open scheduler with text input focused
/ or f	focus search input
u or z or ctrl+z	undo

Keyboard shortcut details

Add tasks

keys	action
q	add task
a	add new task at the bottom of the list
A	add new task at the top of the list

See the "Task Quick Add shortcuts" section of todoist's keyboard shortcuts documentation for information about shorthands to use when adding tasks. "Adding or editing tasks" is also a good section to read, which includes keyboard shortcuts not described in this document.

Navigation

keys	action
j or down	move cursor down
k or up	move cursor up
h or left	collapse nested at cursor
l or right	expand nested at cursor
^	move cursor to first task
$	move cursor to last task
{	move cursor up to first section task
}	move cursor down to next section
/ or f	focus search input
g	enter left-sidebar navigation mode
shift+g	navigate to task's project, or select in agenda if already on project
`	select the next left nav section
~	select the previous left nav section

In "section navigation mode", the different selections in the left pane are annotated with the keys to press to navigate to that section. Sometimes the sidebar can have more than a screenful of content. While in this mode, you can scroll the left pane down and up with space and shift+space. For smaller scrolling jumps, you can also use up arrow and down arrow.

When projects have sub-projects, they are automatically expanded when the project is selected from the list. To collapse the sub-projects, just use navigation mode to select the same project again.

Manipulation of tasks

keys	action
enter	edit task at cursor
o	add task after cursor
shift+o	add task before cursor
t	open scheduler (see scheduling section below)
shift+t	open scheduler with text input focused
i	open task side panel (see side panel section below)
c	open comments for task at cursor
shift+r	open reminders for task at cursor
+	open assign dialog for task at cursor
shift+j or shift+down	move task at cursor downwards
shift+k or shift+up	move task at cursor upwards
shift+l or shift+left	dedent task at cursor
shift+h or shift+right	indent task at cursor
shift+c	clicks toggl or clockify time tracking button
ctrl+c	copy title and url of task(s) in markdown format
ctrl+,	copy task title(s)
ctrl+shift+,	copy task url(s)

Note that there are some known bugs related to task motion - see #27 and #29.

shift+c clicking of time tracking buttons supports both the toggl-button extension and clockify extension.

Selection

keys	action
x	select task at cursor
* then a	select all tasks
* then n or escape	clear selection
* then s	add all tasks in current section to selection
* then o	add all tasks in overdue section to selection
* then 1	add all priority 1 tasks to selection
* then 2	add all priority 2 tasks to selection
* then 3	add all priority 3 tasks to selection
* then 4 or 0	add all priority 4 tasks to selection
* then h or left-arrow	collapses all tasks
* then l or right-arrow	expands all tasks

Manipulation of selected items

If none are selected, then these will apply to the cursor instead.

keys	action
t	schedule
T	schedule by editing text
alt+t	open time-of-day scheduler
d	done: mark task(s) as complete
e or #	delete
&	duplicate
v	move to project via search prompt
@ or y	open label dialog
1	set priority to 1
2	set priority to 2
3	set priority to 3
4 or 0	set priority to 4

Deleting a task via e or # is fairly similar to marking it complete via d. Here are the differences:

1. Deleting a child task (nested under another task), it will be removed from the list. Completing a child task will mark it complete, but it will stay in the list.

2. Deleting a Recurring Task (e.g. every day) will cause the task to no longer be scheduled.

Scheduling

When scheduling is opened via t, the following keybindings will apply:

keys	date
c or 0	today (mnemonic is "current day")
t	tomorrow
w	next week
n	next weekend
m	next month
p or s	postpone (recurring tasks)
r	remove
1 to 9	move x days into the future
shift+t	focus smart entry field
alt+t	open time of day scheduler
escape	exit scheduling

The "Smart Scheduler" is opened by pressing s when scheduling multiple items. Currently there are only two keybindings for the smart scheduler: enter to apply the choices, and escape to cancel.

Sorting

When viewing the inbox or a project, the following keybindings can be used to sort the tasks:

keys	sorted by
s	Sort by date
p	Sort by priority
r	Sort by assignee
n	Sort by name

Task view

NOTE: Some shortcuts may only work in the english translation, as the DOM structure chosen by Todoist for this part of the UI has obfuscated IDs.

The task side panel can be opened for the task under the cursor by pressing i. Once the side panel is visible, you can use the following shortcuts:

keys	action
enter	edit the text of the task
i or escape	close the task side panel
h	navigate to parent task
j	navigate to next task
k	navigate to previous task

The rest of the bindings match the shortcuts used in other contexts. Listed here for completeness:

keys	action
d	done: mark task as complete
q or a or A	add a subtask
t	schedule
v	move to project via search prompt
y or @	open label dialog
1	set priority to 1
2	set priority to 2
3	set priority to 3
4 or 0	set priority to 4
shift+r	open reminders
+	open assignee dialog
e	archive
#	delete
shift+c	clicks [toggl-button (time tracking integration extension)][toggl-button]

Menus

keys	action
w	open 'more actions' menu for current view
shift+p	open left nav menu for current project

Once a menu is open, the following shortcuts can be used to interact with it:

keys	action
j or down or tab	focus next menu item
k or up or shift+tab	focus previous menu item
enter or space	select current menu item

Other

keys	action
u or z or ctrl+z	undo
f or /	open search
shift+enter	clicks first link in the task the cursor is on
ctrl+s	manually synchronize state with server
?	display keyboard shortcuts guide sheet
!	open notifications
ctrl+k	open Todoist command pallette
ctrl+shift+/	open random task from current view

Note that undo only works when the "UNDO" button is visible at the bottom of the screen. Some actions are not undo-able, such as deletion or archiving multiple tasks

How to customize keyboard shortcuts

Ideally, there would be a UI for customizing keyboard shortcuts. However, it seems like this would take a substantial amount of development effort (PR contributions appreciated!). For now, you can do the following to customize the keyboard shortcuts in Chrome:

1. Clone this repository (run git clone https://github.com/mgsloan/todoist-shortcuts)

2. Go to chrome://extensions in the url bar, and switch from the official version of todoist-shortcuts to a local version.

   • Disable the official version of todoist-shortcuts by unchecking "Enabled".

   • Click the "Developer mode" box in the top right if it is not yet checked.

   • Click the "Load unpacked extension..." button. In the directory selecter navigate to the folder you cloned todoist-shortcuts to, and point it at the src sub-directory.

3. Edit src/todoist-shortcuts.js in a text editor.

   • You will probably just want to edit the definition of KEY_BINDINGS near the top.

   • To disable a keybinding, put // in front of it.

   • The functions in the section marked Actions are intended to be bound directly to keys. You can also combine multiple actions via use of the sequence and ifThenElse action combiners.

   • Multiple key sequences can be bound to the same action by using a list of key sequences (like ['j', 'down']) instead of a single string for it. The docs for mousetrap may be helpful in figuring out how to express key sequences.

4. Use ctrl+r on chrome://extensions. This causes the extension to be reloaded from your local files.

5. If you reload Todoist, you will now be using your modified version of the extension.

I'm sure there is a similar mechanism for Firefox, but I do not use it for developing the extension, so not sure of the details.

One thing to note is that you will no longer receive automated updates. To update your locally modified extension, do the following:

1. git stash to store your changes.

2. git pull to fetch the most recent changes in this repository.

3. git stash apply to bring back your changes. This may cause merge conflicts.

See the git documentation. A miscellaneous aside is that I highly recommend git from the bottom up as a guide to understanding git's data model.

Extra functionality only available via manual editing

There are some extra functions that can be used to define your own keybindings:

• navigateToLeftMenuItem selects a specific section from the left menu. See #239.

• moveToProjectNamed moves the current selected tasks to a specific project. See #237.

todoist-shortcuts in electron application

This repository provides browser extentions for both Chrome and Firefox, and therefore augments the browser's web client of Todoist. If you wanted the todoist-shortcuts in the standalone Todoist desktop application it is not as easy/straight-forward. The following article and associated repository outline how you can achieve such a solution:

• https://kevinjalbert.com/todoist-with-keyboard-navigation-via-nativefier/
• https://github.com/kevinjalbert/todoist-shortcuts-nativefier

An alternative approach, suggested here, is to use google chrome's "open as window" functionality.

Development

Contributions are appreciated. See development.md for more information about development.

Supported by bounty from Doist company

Much of the work on this has been kindly supported by Amir Salihefendic of Doist company. They're awesome!

In response to a "Need a way of buying beer" issue, I've created a "Buy Me a Coffee" account. If you feel the urge to show some appreciation for this project, feel free to send me a few dollars. If not, that's fine too, I hope you enjoy using todoist-shortcuts :)