Searching for a to do list Chrome extension is a strangely expensive little project. The Chrome Web Store has more than 111,000 extensions, and most are not widely used: 86.3% have fewer than 1,000 users.[1] That does not mean every small extension is bad, but it does mean random testing is a poor filter when your actual problem is already too many tabs, too many inboxes, and too many places a task can disappear.
One testing project of 53 Chrome productivity extensions estimated that the average user wastes 46 hours trying extensions before settling on a workable setup.[2] That sounds painfully believable. The waste usually does not come from one bad install; it comes from installing five “almost right” tools that each add another capture box, another notification style, and another place to check.
So this is not a universal leaderboard. It is a trade-off map. Todoist, TickTick, Any.do, Google Tasks with TasksBoard, Microsoft To Do, Focus To-Do, Notion Web Clipper, and ClickUp all belong in the conversation, but they do not solve the same problem. The right extension depends on what breaks first in your day: capture speed, review structure, household coordination, ecosystem fit, or project-management depth.
Quick Comparison
| Extension | Best fit | Chrome workflow strength | Free plan reality | Paid plan / cost note | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Todoist | Fast capture and clean personal task management | Natural-language entry handles tasks like “Submit report every second Thursday at 3pm” without menu hunting | 5 projects; no reminders, labels, or filters | Pro is $5/month after a December 2025 price increase; verify at publish time because some sources still show $4/month[4] | Excellent capture speed, but important organization features sit behind Pro |
| TickTick | All-in-one structure for tasks, time blocking, habits, and focus | Bundles task list, Pomodoro timer, habit tracker, Eisenhower Matrix, and calendar view | Usable, but the reason to choose TickTick is the paid bundle | $35.99/year, roughly $3/month[6] | Strong value and structure, but busier than Todoist |
| Any.do | Simple daily planning and household sharing | Plan My Day gives a clear daily review moment | Unlimited tasks and lists | Premium is $4.99/month; Family covers 4 members for $8.33/month[7] | Friendly for ordinary life logistics, but advanced reminders require Premium |
| Google Tasks / TasksBoard | Google Workspace users who want the lightest setup | Syncs naturally with Gmail and Google Calendar; TasksBoard improves the browser experience | Completely free | No paid tier | Frictionless if you already live in Google, but no natural-language input, Pomodoro, calendar view, or habit tracking |
| Microsoft To Do | Outlook and Microsoft 365 users | Flagged Outlook emails can become tasks automatically | Completely free | No paid tier | Good ecosystem fit, but the Chrome extension is more basic than the native desktop apps |
| Focus To-Do | Pomodoro-first users | Keeps task execution and focus sessions close together | Useful when timing work matters more than managing a large task database | Pricing depends on current plan availability | Better as a focus companion than a full task-management hub |
| Notion Web Clipper | People who collect pages into Notion | Captures web pages and research into a workspace | Depends on Notion plan and workspace setup | Notion pricing is separate from the clipper itself | Adjacent to task capture, not a standalone to-do list extension |
| ClickUp | Teams or individuals whose tasks are really projects | Connects browser capture to project spaces, docs, views, and collaboration | Free tier can work for lightweight use | Paid tiers matter when collaboration and advanced project features grow | Powerful, but too heavy if you only need a personal list |
Chrome Web Store user counts help with one narrow question: is this extension established enough to avoid obvious abandonment risk? They are not market share. Todoist shows 500,000+ Chrome Web Store users,[3] while TickTick shows 100,000 Chrome users despite having a much larger overall user base outside Chrome.[5] That distinction matters because a Chrome extension can be a doorway into a mature app, not the full measure of the product.
A second caveat: several extension roundups in this space use affiliate links. That does not make them useless, but it does make borrowed rankings weak evidence. I treat outside roundups as cross-checks only; the decision here rests on capture behavior, ecosystem fit, feature gates, and the amount of maintenance each tool adds.
Choose by the Thing That Actually Breaks
Most people choose a task extension by asking which one is “best.” That question is too vague to survive a real Tuesday. A better starting point is the failure mode you keep repeating.
| If your day usually fails because… | Install first | Why this choice fits |
|---|---|---|
| You see a task in Chrome and lose it before capture | Todoist | Natural-language input removes the small menus that usually slow capture down |
| You need tasks, focus sessions, habits, priorities, and calendar planning in one place | TickTick | Its packed structure can reduce tool-switching instead of adding yet another app |
| You manage errands, chores, reminders, and shared household work | Any.do | Plan My Day and the Family plan solve ordinary coordination problems without pretending they are enterprise projects |
| Your tasks already start in Gmail and Google Calendar | Google Tasks / TasksBoard | The best feature is not power; it is staying inside the Google flow with almost no setup |
| Your tasks start as Outlook emails or Microsoft 365 commitments | Microsoft To Do | Flagged email sync is more valuable than a prettier standalone extension if Outlook is your real inbox |
| Your “task list” is actually client work, team work, statuses, docs, and handoffs | ClickUp | At that point, a lightweight checklist becomes the wrong object; you need project management |
If your answer is “all of these,” start with the source of capture. A messy review can be repaired later. A task that never enters the system cannot be reviewed at all.
Todoist: Best When Capture Speed Matters Most
Todoist earns its place the moment a task appears in the browser. If you can type “Submit report every second Thursday at 3pm” and move on, the extension has done the most important job a Chrome task tool can do: it has stayed out of the way at the capture moment.
That natural-language speed is especially valuable for people who collect work from email, documents, dashboards, and web apps all day. You are not opening a full project view just to add one obligation. You are converting a loose thought into a scheduled task before the tab changes and the thought evaporates.
The free plan is where Todoist stops feeling frictionless for some users. It caps you at 5 projects and does not include reminders, labels, or filters.[4] That is fine if you run a simple personal list. It is less fine if you depend on labels for contexts, filters for reviews, or reminders for anything time-sensitive.
Pricing also deserves care. The most current source in the brief puts Todoist Pro at $5/month after a December 2025 price increase, while some comparison pages still show $4/month.[4] If you are publishing or budgeting from this comparison, verify the live price before committing. For an individual who values capture speed, Pro can still be easy to justify; for someone who only wants a free Chrome-side checklist, the free-plan limits are not small details.
TickTick: Best All-in-One Value
TickTick is the extension I would hand to someone who keeps trying to assemble a system out of separate timers, habit apps, calendars, priority grids, and task lists. It bundles a Pomodoro timer, habit tracker, Eisenhower Matrix, and calendar view into the same product, with a paid tier at $35.99/year, or about $3/month.[6]
That packed structure can look like clutter if you want a spare writing surface and nothing else. For other users, especially people who need visible scaffolding to decide what to do next, the bundle can feel like relief. NexaSphere’s testing specifically flags TickTick as ADHD-friendly because of its built-in structure.[6] That is a narrower claim than “TickTick works for everyone with ADHD,” but it matches the product’s real appeal: fewer separate systems to maintain.
The trade-off is visual and cognitive density. TickTick asks you to accept a busier interface than Todoist. If you will use Pomodoro, habits, matrix planning, and calendar views, that density earns its keep. If you will ignore three-quarters of the bundle, you may be paying for structure that becomes background noise.
Any.do: Best for Daily Planning and Household Sharing
Any.do is strongest when the task list is not a personal productivity shrine. Groceries, school forms, renewals, calls, errands, shared reminders, and “please don’t make me think through the whole week right now” planning are legitimate task-management problems. Any.do’s Plan My Day feature is aimed directly at that morning decision bottleneck.[7]
The pricing structure also reflects that ordinary-life use case. The free plan includes unlimited tasks and lists, while advanced recurring reminders and location alerts require Premium at $4.99/month. The Family plan covers 4 members for one flat $8.33/month, which is unusual among major to-do extensions because it treats household coordination as its own category rather than forcing families into team-project language.[7]
That makes Any.do less exciting for someone who wants filters, detailed project taxonomies, or a full GTD-style command center. But for a shared home list, the absence of enterprise ceremony is the point. A spouse, roommate, or teenager is more likely to use a simple shared plan than a carefully architected productivity database.
Google Tasks and TasksBoard: Best for Staying in Google
Google Tasks is easy to underrate because it is basic. That is also why it survives. If your work already runs through Gmail and Google Calendar, the lightest possible task system may be the one that is already waiting in the side panel. TasksBoard makes that experience more usable in Chrome by giving Google Tasks a fuller browser view.
The cost is not hidden: Google Tasks has no natural-language input, no Pomodoro timer, no habit tracking, and no richer calendar-planning layer of its own. It is completely free, but “free” here means you accept a narrower tool. For someone who only needs to turn Gmail follow-ups and calendar-adjacent reminders into a simple list, that can be a good bargain.
This is also where ecosystem comfort matters more than feature charts admit. A standalone tool with better task features can still fail if the user never opens it. If your reflex is already Gmail first, Google Tasks with TasksBoard may beat a more powerful extension simply by being where your attention already is. Readers comparing Google, Microsoft, and independent tools by ecosystem can use the complementary guide Best To-Do List Chrome Extensions: Choose by Ecosystem, Not Rankings.
Microsoft To Do: Best for Outlook-First Workflows
Microsoft To Do has the same kind of advantage for Microsoft 365 users that Google Tasks has for Google users: it does not need to be the most feature-rich standalone task app if it is attached to the place where your work arrives. The strongest workflow is flagged Outlook emails becoming tasks automatically.
The Chrome extension is more basic than the native Windows or macOS app, so this is not the pick for someone who wants the browser extension to carry the whole system. It is the pick for someone whose actual command center is Outlook, Teams, and Microsoft 365. In that environment, a free task tool with reliable email-to-task behavior can be more useful than a prettier extension that lives outside the workstream.
Focus To-Do, Notion Web Clipper, and ClickUp
Focus To-Do belongs in the tested field because some people do not mainly need a better list; they need help starting and finishing sessions. If Pomodoro is the center of your work rhythm, a timer-connected task tool can reduce the gap between choosing a task and actually working on it. If your real problem is sorting dozens of commitments across projects, Focus To-Do is more companion than hub.
Notion Web Clipper needs even tighter framing. It is useful for saving pages, references, and research into Notion, but that is adjacent to task capture rather than the same thing. A clipped article is not automatically a next action. If your Notion workspace already has a disciplined task database, the clipper can feed it. If not, it can simply create a more beautiful backlog.
ClickUp earns attention when the word “task” is hiding a larger project-management requirement. If work needs owners, statuses, docs, dependencies, multiple views, and team handoffs, a simple Chrome checklist will collapse under the weight. ClickUp is much more tool than a personal browser to-do list, and that is either exactly the point or exactly the problem.
Superhuman’s testing of 28 productivity Chrome extensions and Zapier’s to-do app roundups both provide useful cross-checks for established contenders, but neither changes the practical split here: capture tools, ecosystem tools, focus tools, and project-management tools should not be judged as if they are interchangeable.[8][9]
What “Free” Costs in Each Extension
Free is useful only when you know what the free plan removes. Todoist’s free plan removes reminders, labels, and filters, which affects people who need review structure or time-sensitive prompts.[4] Any.do keeps unlimited tasks and lists free, but advanced recurring reminders and location alerts move to Premium.[7] Google Tasks and Microsoft To Do are fully free, but they stay simpler by design.
TickTick is the strongest value play if you will use the paid bundle: Pomodoro, habits, matrix, and calendar view at roughly $3/month.[6] But value is not the same as cheapness. A $0 extension that misses reminders you need is expensive in consequences; a $3 extension full of unused modules is expensive in maintenance.
If your only requirement is “I refuse to pay,” compare the free options directly before installing a paid-tool trial. The deeper free-tier breakdown in Free To-Do List Chrome Extensions: Which Ones Are Actually Worth Installing? is the better next stop.
A Practical Installation Order
Do not install all eight. That is how the testing spiral starts.
- If capture speed is the pain, install Todoist first and test natural-language entry for one week.
- If you keep adding separate focus, habit, and planning tools, install TickTick and see whether the bundle replaces them.
- If shared life admin is the pain, install Any.do and test Plan My Day plus shared lists.
- If your tasks already live in Gmail or Google Calendar, try Google Tasks with TasksBoard before paying for anything.
- If Outlook is your real inbox, try Microsoft To Do before forcing an independent app into the workflow.
- If you need statuses, owners, docs, and team handoffs, skip lightweight lists and evaluate ClickUp as project-management software.
Give the first choice enough time to expose the real friction. A good test is not whether the extension looks clean on day one. It is whether a task that appears in Chrome on a busy afternoon ends up captured, reviewed, and acted on without creating another place you dread checking.
If you are also comparing broader time-blocking, focus, and planning tools outside Chrome, the wider Best Time Management Software in 2026: 12+ Tools Compared comparison can help place these extensions inside a larger system. If the harder question is why certain productivity methods never stick for you, start with Productivity Is Personal: A Diagnostic Guide.
For the fastest browser capture, choose Todoist. For the most structure per dollar, choose TickTick. For household planning, choose Any.do. For Google or Microsoft workdays, start with the built-in ecosystem option. For project depth, choose ClickUp. Anything beyond that is probably another extension trying to turn indecision into a feature.
References
- Google Chrome Statistics And User Trends 2026, About Chromebooks.
- Chrome Extensions for Productivity Tested, WorkOrbit.
- Todoist Chrome Web Store listing, Chrome Web Store.
- 7 Best Todoist Alternatives in 2026 and How to Switch, Any.do.
- TickTick Chrome Web Store listing, Chrome Web Store.
- Best To-Do List Chrome Extensions 2026, NexaSphere.
- The 9 Best To-Do List Apps in 2026: Tested and Compared, Any.do.
- Chrome Productivity Extensions, Superhuman.
- Best To-Do List Apps, Zapier.