---
title: "Task notes and checklists — everything inside one task"
description: "Open a task in TaskPocket and its notes, checklist, dates, reminder and repeat sit in one window. Free on every plan, and a repeating checklist resets itself."
canonical: https://taskpocket.io/features/task-notes-and-checklists/
lastUpdated: 2026-10-09
---
1. [Home](https://taskpocket.io/)
2. [Features](https://taskpocket.io/features/)
3. Notes and checklists

# A to-do app with checklists and notes inside every task

Click a task in TaskPocket and it opens in one window: formatted notes, a checklist, and chips for its start date, reminder, repeat and project. Notes and checklists are free on every plan, on the web and on iPhone. When a repeating task rolls forward, its checklist starts again unticked, and the finished round keeps its ticks in Completed.

By [Bohdan Stefaniuk](https://taskpocket.io/about/) Last updated 2026-10-09

## Where the rest of a task goes

A task title holds about six words. “Plan the Kyoto days” is a fine title, but the work behind it is a ryokan to reserve, a pass to buy, a link you found last week and a note that the tea ceremony by the station is the wrong one. That has to live somewhere.

If the task app has nowhere good to put it, it goes somewhere else: a notes app, an email to yourself, a second list. Then the task says “plan Kyoto” and the plan is in another window. Or the steps become tasks of their own, and a list of eight things turns into a list of thirty.

Repeating work makes it worse. A monthly budget review has the same five steps every month. If the steps don’t come back with the task, you either retype them or stop following them.

## One window for the whole task

Click a task’s title in any list and it opens over the list. The top row has the checkbox, the title and a menu with Cancel, Duplicate and Delete. Under it come the notes, then the checklist, then a row of chips: start date and reminder, deadline, repeat, and the list the task lives in.

There’s no Save button. The title and notes save a second and a half after you stop typing, or when you click away, and a small “Saved” mark confirms it. The chips save the moment you change them. Esc closes the window, and anything still unsaved is saved on the way out.

You can also add a date after the title. Type “every monday” or “tomorrow 6pm” after the saved title and it turns into a repeat or a date when you leave the field. That’s the same parser as [natural-language capture](https://taskpocket.io/features/natural-language-capture/), and it only reads text you add after the title.

## Notes with formatting, saved as Markdown

Notes take bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code, links, and bulleted and numbered lists, nested if you need them. There’s no toolbar. Use the usual shortcuts (⌘B or Ctrl+B for bold, ⌘I or Ctrl+I for italics) or type the Markdown: a dash and a space starts a list, two asterisks make bold. A web address turns into a link as you type it, and pasted Markdown keeps its formatting.

Some formatting is left out on purpose. Notes have no headings, quotes, code blocks or tables. Paste a heading and it becomes a bold line, and a pasted quote becomes plain text. Notes are for the detail of one task, not for documents.

What’s stored is plain Markdown, not a private rich-text format. The iPhone app reads the same text, the [JSON export](https://taskpocket.io/features/export-your-data/) writes it out as Markdown, and the [public API](https://taskpocket.io/api/) returns it as Markdown too. Your notes leave TaskPocket in a form any editor can open.

## A checklist, not a pile of subtasks

A new task shows an “Add checklist” button under the notes. After the first item, the checklist works like a list in a text editor. Enter starts the next item, splitting the line at the cursor. Backspace at the start of an item joins it to the one above. Paste six lines and you get six items, with any leading dashes or “[ ]” boxes stripped.

Hover an item for a drag handle to move it and an × to delete it. Ticking an item saves straight away. Ticked items stay where they are, so the list keeps the order you gave it.

Checklist items are steps, not tasks. They have no date, no reminder and no project, they don’t show up in Today, and they go one level deep. That’s the point: the steps of “Plan the Kyoto days” belong to that task and stay out of your lists. In a list, a small icon after the title tells you a task has notes, and another tells you it has a checklist.

## What happens to the checklist when a task repeats

In TaskPocket a repeating task is one task whose date moves forward when you finish it. The checklist moves with it. When you tick off a repeating task, two things happen:

1. The round you just finished is saved to Completed, with its notes and its checklist exactly as you left them, ticks included.
2. The task itself moves to its next date with every checklist item unticked, in the same order. The notes stay as they are.

So next month’s budget review starts with all five steps open, and last month’s stays in Completed with whatever you did or skipped. If you tick the task by mistake, untick it on the web and both the date and the checklist go back. There’s more on the repeat engine in [recurring tasks](https://taskpocket.io/features/recurring-tasks/).

Nothing has to be switched on for this, and there’s no cap on how many items come back. A checklist is a good fit for any routine you do by steps, like a [weekly review](https://taskpocket.io/guides/gtd-weekly-review-checklist/).

## The chips: date, deadline, repeat and list

The chip row under the checklist holds everything about when and where. It stays in view while long notes scroll.

- Start date and reminder. Pick Today, Tomorrow, This weekend or Next week, type a date, or open a two-month calendar. The calendar is also where you add a reminder time. A task takes one [reminder](https://taskpocket.io/features/reminders/), on its start date.
- Deadline. The day it’s actually due, separate from the day you plan to start. It’s Premium. On the free plan the chip shows a Premium mark and opens the upgrade dialog. The difference is explained in [start dates and deadlines](https://taskpocket.io/features/start-dates-and-deadlines/).
- Repeat. Every day, week, weekday, month or year in one click, or a custom rule: the third Thursday, the last day of the month, after completion, ending after a number of times or on a date.
- List. Inbox, Someday or any project. ⌘⇧M, or Ctrl+Shift+M, opens the picker from the keyboard.

## On iPhone

The iPhone app opens the same task with the same parts: title, notes, start date and reminder, deadline on Premium, repeat, list and checklist. Edits save when you close it, and they sync both ways, offline included.

Two parts do less on the phone. Notes show bold, italics, code and links that you wrote on the web, and links open with a tap, but the iPhone editor has no way to add bold or italics. Typing a dash and a space, or “1.” and a space, still starts a list. The checklist splits, joins and pastes the same way, but it has no drag to reorder.

## How other task apps handle notes and checklists

Every serious task app has some way to put steps inside a task. They differ in what a step is and what happens to the steps when a task repeats. The table states only what each vendor documents. Where a cell says unknown, the vendor doesn’t publish the answer and this site won’t guess.

*Notes and checklists inside a task, compared across Todoist, Things 3, TickTick and TaskPocket*

| Feature | Todoist | Things 3 | TickTick | TaskPocket |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Steps inside a task | Yes 1 | Yes 2 | Yes 2 | Yes 3 |
| Steps on the free plan | Yes 4 | Unknown | Partial 5 | Yes 6 |
| Steps come back when a task repeats | Partial 7 | Yes 8 | Unknown | Yes 9 |
| Formatted notes | Yes 10 | Unknown | Unknown | Partial 11 |
| Formatting on the phone | No 12 | Unknown | Unknown | Partial 13 |

1. Sub-tasks, each with its own date, up to four levels deep.
2. A checklist.
3. A checklist, one level, with no dates on items.
4. Sub-tasks are on every plan.
5. 19 checklist items on free, 199 on Premium.
6. No cap on items in the app.
7. With Reset sub-tasks on: up to 30, sub-sub-tasks dropped, order not kept.
8. Each copy is made from a template that holds the checklist.
9. Every item comes back unticked, in order. The finished round keeps its ticks in Completed.
10. Bold, italic, H1 and H2 headings, quotes, code blocks, lists, links, strikethrough.
11. Bold, italic, strikethrough, code, links and lists. No headings, quotes or code blocks.
12. Not available in Todoist for iOS and Android.
13. Lists by typing on iPhone. Bold and italics display but cannot be added there.

Todoist’s sub-tasks are a different idea. Each one is a full task, with its own date, and they nest four deep. If your steps need their own dates, or a step is really a small project, Todoist is built for that and TaskPocket isn’t. Todoist’s notes also do headings, quotes and code blocks, on the web and desktop. The full picture is in [TaskPocket vs Todoist](https://taskpocket.io/compare/taskpocket-vs-todoist/).

Things 3 is closest in spirit. A repeating to-do there is a template, and each copy brings the template’s checklist with it, which gets you the same fresh list every time. TickTick has checklists too, capped at 19 items a task on its free plan.

## What this doesn't do

- Checklist items are not tasks. They have no dates, reminders or projects, they don’t appear in Today or Upcoming, and they can’t be turned into tasks or nested.
- A list row shows an icon when a task has a checklist, not a count like “2 of 5”.
- Notes are text only: no images, file attachments, headings, quotes, code blocks or tables.
- On iPhone, notes have no control for bold or italics, the checklist has no drag to reorder, and the task menu has no Duplicate.
- The task window can’t put a task in a project section. Drag it there in the project instead.
- No comments and no edit history on a task. TaskPocket is for one person and doesn’t do sharing.
- The deadline chip is Premium, and on the free plan Completed shows the last 14 days, so older finished rounds of a repeating task are out of view until you upgrade.
- Undoing a finished repeat works on the web while online. A checklist item renamed in between keeps its current state.

## Questions people ask

### Does TaskPocket have subtasks?

No, it has checklists. Each task can hold a checklist of steps you tick off, but the steps have no dates or reminders of their own and don’t show up in your lists. If you need steps with their own dates, make them tasks in a project.

### Are notes and checklists free?

Yes, on every plan, on the web and on iPhone, with no cap on checklist items in the app. The only Premium chip in the task window is the deadline.

### Does the checklist reset when a recurring task repeats?

Yes. When you finish a repeating task, it moves to its next date with every checklist item unticked and in the same order. The round you finished is saved to Completed with its ticks as they were.

### Can I use Markdown in task notes?

Yes. Type it or paste it: bold, italic, strikethrough, inline code, links, and bulleted and numbered lists all work, and notes are stored as Markdown. Headings, quotes and code blocks are not supported, so a pasted heading becomes a bold line.

### Is there a limit on checklist items?

Not in the web app or the iPhone app. When the public API or the MCP server writes a checklist, it takes up to 200 items of up to 500 characters each.

### Do notes and checklists work on iPhone?

Yes, both sync with the web and work offline. The iPhone notes editor makes lists as you type but has no bold or italics control, and the iPhone checklist can’t be reordered by dragging.

## Sources

1. [Todoist Help — Use sub-tasks (every plan, four indent levels, a date on each sub-task)](https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/introduction-to-sub-tasks-kMamDo) checked 2026-10-09
2. [Todoist Help — Reset a sub-task (up to 30, sub-sub-tasks ignored, order not preserved)](https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/reset-a-sub-task-in-todoist-V6SRBGPw0) checked 2026-10-09
3. [Todoist Help — Format text in a Todoist task (not available on iOS and Android)](https://www.todoist.com/help/articles/format-text-in-a-todoist-task-e5dHw9) checked 2026-10-09
4. [Things Support — Using Repeating To-Dos (the template holds the checklist)](https://culturedcode.com/things/support/articles/2803564/) checked 2026-10-09
5. [TickTick — Premium comparison (19 checklist items on free, 199 on Premium)](https://ticktick.com/upgrade) checked 2026-09-01

Notes, checklists, reminders and repeats are free on every plan, on the web and on iPhone. The deadline chip is the one Premium part of the window.

## Related reading

- [Recurring tasks that survive real life](https://taskpocket.io/features/recurring-tasks/) — Nth weekday, the last business day, stop after ten, skip one, and repeats counted from the day you finish. What each app can express, with sources.
- [Start dates and deadlines — two dates, two questions](https://taskpocket.io/features/start-dates-and-deadlines/) — When you plan to start and when it is actually due are different questions. Here is how the two dates work in TaskPocket, and which apps have both.
- [Reminders that arrive with your browser closed](https://taskpocket.io/features/reminders/) — Put a time on a task and TaskPocket tells you: in your browser with the tab shut, and on your iPhone. Free on every plan, and one reminder on each task.
- [Export your data — one click, one JSON file, free](https://taskpocket.io/features/export-your-data/) — Your tasks, projects, sections, checklists and notes in a readable JSON file, on any plan. Here is exactly what is in it, and the three things it does not keep.
- [The GTD weekly review checklist](https://taskpocket.io/guides/gtd-weekly-review-checklist/) — All eleven steps of David Allen’s weekly review, in order, with what each one is actually for and where people give up. Works with any app, or none.
- [Todoist vs TaskPocket (2026) — an honest comparison](https://taskpocket.io/compare/taskpocket-vs-todoist/) — Todoist is bigger, runs everywhere and sells custom reminders on Pro. TaskPocket is smaller, with no AI and no subscription. Where each wins, with sources.