TaskPlate User Guide

This is the same guide you will find inside the app, under Settings → About → TaskPlate Guide. Read it start to finish, or jump to the part you need.

The Three Lists

Every task lives in one of three lists, shown as tabs at the bottom: To Do, In Progress, and Done. Add a task to To Do, move it to In Progress when you start it, and move it to Done when it’s finished. There’s no extra hierarchy — just three honest states that match how you actually work.

Adding a Task

There are two ways, and they suit different moments. The round + button floating at the bottom is for jotting things down fast: it opens a single line at the bottom of the screen — type a name, press Return, and it’s saved with another blank line ready for the next one, so you can empty your head in one go without leaving the list. The + in the toolbar at the top opens the full form instead, where you can set a due date, time, alert, checklist, and notes all at once. Either way a name is the only thing required; everything else can be added later by opening the task. New tasks are added to the end of the list, so it stays in the order things occurred to you.

Due Dates & Times

Turn on “Due Date” to schedule a task; the time switches on five minutes from now, giving you a moment to fine-tune it or leave it as an all-day date. Tasks with a due date show it right on the list, and anything past due is clearly flagged as Overdue in red — live, the instant it happens, not just the next time you open the app. If you’d rather not act on it right now, tap Acknowledge, just below the date and time, to quietly silence the warning — or long-press the task in the list and choose Acknowledge Overdue without opening it at all, which is quicker when several have piled up. Any alert still waiting on that task is cleared at the same time, since the alert was the warning that this moment was coming. The due date itself is left exactly as you set it — if the deadline no longer applies, switch it off, or long-press the task in the list and choose Remove Due Date, which also removes its time and alert. Acknowledging lapses on its own if you push the due date out again, so nothing gets permanently silenced by accident. Overdue is about the due time passing and is separate from alerts: it has its own button, and it never affects the app icon badge.

Alerts

Any task with a due date can have an alert, set in the same section — from the specified time to a week ahead, in steps of minutes, hours, or days. Alerts are off unless you ask for one. They’re delivered as local notifications directly on your device, so they work instantly with no account, login, or internet connection required. Tap an alert when it arrives and TaskPlate opens straight to that task. Once an alert has been delivered it stays yours to dismiss: the task shows “Alert not cleared” with a Clear button, the list marks it “Alert” alongside the due date, and the app icon carries a count of everything not yet cleared. Nothing clears it but that button (or Clear Alert in the long-press menu on the list) — simply opening the task won’t, so an alert can’t quietly disappear before you’ve dealt with it. Finishing or deleting a task clears its alert too, since there’s nothing left to be alerted about. Acknowledging an Overdue warning also clears any alert waiting on that task: the alert was the warning that this moment was coming, so dealing with the moment settles both. It doesn’t work the other way round — clearing an alert leaves an overdue task still marked overdue, because seeing the alert isn’t the same as accepting that the deadline has passed.

Checklists

Break a task into steps with a checklist. Tap the + in the Checklist header to add a sub-item, then press Return to save it and drop straight into the next one — so a whole list can be typed without reaching for the + again. Press Return on a blank line when you’re done, and tap an item’s box to tick it off. Anything left blank is discarded, so a stray tap never leaves an empty row behind. When a task has more than one item, two shortcut icons in the header let you check or uncheck everything in one tap — handy for a checklist you’re clearing all at once or starting over. The reorder icon lets you drag items into any order — both when creating a task and when editing one later. Use the trash icon to select and remove several items at once, with Select All there when you want the lot. The task’s row shows your progress at a glance — like “2 of 5” — so you can see how far along you are without opening it. Want completed steps to collect at the bottom automatically? Turn on Auto-Sink Checklist in Settings — it’s off by default, and turning it on immediately tidies up every existing checklist, not just new ticks. Check All and Uncheck All never trigger that sinking themselves, so checking everything at once stays a single, tidy jump rather than items shuffling one by one.

Notes

Every task has a free-form notes field for the extra detail that doesn’t belong in the title — a link, a list, a reminder to yourself. The list doesn’t show them, keeping every row compact so more tasks fit on screen; open a task to read its notes. Search still looks inside them.

Moving Tasks

Long-press (or open) a task to move it between To Do, In Progress, and Done at any time. To move several at once — say, everything you finished today — tap Select in the toolbar, tick them, and choose Move To in the bar at the bottom; they keep their order and join the bottom of the new list, so the tasks already at its top stay put, and Undo is on hand for a few seconds if you picked the wrong list. Progress isn’t locked into a single direction — move a task back if you’re not ready, or straight to Done if you finish it early. Moved on its own, a task lands at the top of its new list, so you always see it right away. A task keeps its due date and alert wherever it goes, including into Done — the deadline stays as a record of when it was meant to happen, and a task moved back out of Done picks up where it left off. Finished tasks never flag as overdue or chase you about an alert, whatever their dates say. Switching to a different tab while a task is open automatically saves your changes and closes it, so you never have to remember to back out manually.

Pinning & Reordering

Pin your most important task to the top of To Do or In Progress so it’s always the first thing you see. A pin sticks when you move a task between To Do and In Progress, and clears automatically once a task reaches Done. Use Reorder from the toolbar to drag tasks into whatever order makes sense to you — TaskPlate doesn’t force a sort order on your priorities.

Search

Tap the magnifying glass at the top of any list to open a search field that filters it as you type, matching task names, notes, and checklist items — so a task is findable by any detail you remember about it, not just its title. Finding one task among many never takes more than a few keystrokes. Tap the (x) in the field when you’re done to close it and bring back the full list.

What’s Coming Up

To see what’s due soon, tap the filter icon at the top of any list and choose a range: Has Due Date, Due This Week, This Month, This Quarter, This Year, or Next Year. The list then shows only tasks with a due date in that range, earliest first, with all-day tasks leading their day. In To Do and In Progress, the “This…” ranges also include anything already overdue, since that’s the most pressing of all. A banner under the title shows which filter is on; tap its (x), or choose All Tasks, to return to your usual order. Nothing about your tasks or their order changes — the filter only changes what you’re looking at, and Reorder is unavailable while it’s on.

Deleting Tasks

Long-press a task and choose Delete to remove a single one, or tap Select in the toolbar, tick several, and choose Delete in the bar at the bottom to clear them out at once. Deleted tasks aren’t gone forever — they move to a Deleted Tasks archive (found in Settings), where swiping right restores a task to To Do, swiping left removes it for good, and a long-press offers both plus a choice of which list to restore into.

Cleaning Up Automatically

If you’d rather not think about deleted tasks piling up, turn on Auto-Delete in Settings → Delete Configuration and pick a retention period — 7 days through 6 months, or a custom length. TaskPlate then quietly removes anything older each time the app opens. You can also tap Delete Permanently Now to clear the whole Deleted Tasks list at once.

App Lock

If your list holds anything sensitive, turn on “Lock TaskPlate” in Settings → Security. The app then locks on launch and whenever you switch away, and opens only with your device’s passcode, Touch ID, or Face ID. Turning App Lock on or off requires authenticating too, so it can’t be disabled behind your back. It’s off by default — flip one switch when you want the privacy.

Appearance

Choose Light, Dark, or System appearance, and pick an accent color — including a fully custom color — from Settings. Default puts the accent back to the one the app ships with, and Reset Appearance returns both settings to how they were on a fresh install, so experimenting is never a one-way door. Your tasks and every other setting are left untouched. It’s a small amount of personalization on top of an interface that otherwise stays out of your way.

Color Scheme

For a bigger change of look, Color Scheme recolors the whole app — backgrounds, cards, and controls — with one of four warm, hand-picked palettes: Sage & Ink, Sand & Brick, Slate & Amber, and Plum & Stone. Pick one from Settings → Appearance, right below the accent color. It’s available only in Light appearance, since each palette is designed around a light background; switching to Dark (or leaving it on System, which can turn dark) sets Color Scheme back to Standard automatically, and the picker is disabled until you’re back in Light. Standard is the app’s ordinary look and always available.

App Configuration

In Settings → App Configuration, set which list — To Do, In Progress, or Done — opens first each time you launch the app, so TaskPlate starts exactly where your day does. The same section holds Auto-Sink Checklist, and Hide In Progress, which reduces TaskPlate to two lists — To Do and Done — for anyone who’d rather not track a middle state. Turning it on moves every In Progress task to To Do; turning it back on later doesn’t bring them back on its own.

Simple by Design

TaskPlate intentionally leaves out projects, tags, collaborators, and syncing. Everything is stored privately on your device — there’s nothing to configure, nothing to learn, and nothing standing between you and your list. That’s the whole idea.

See TaskPlate in action — read the walkthrough →