Keep your Outlook inbox squeaky clean by turning your emails into Todoist tasks that you can work on later. Learn how to set up, use, and remove the Outlook add-in.
System requirements
To use the Outlook add-in, create an email account with any of the following supported Microsoft services:
- Outlook.com
- Live.com
- Hotmail.com
- Office 365 email accounts
- Cloud-enabled Microsoft Exchange accounts
If your email account isn’t hosted on any of these supported services, the integration won’t work. As an alternative to using this integration, you can forward incoming emails as tasks or comments to Todoist.
For Todoist for Outlook to work smoothly, check that your computer runs on the following operating systems:
- Windows: Outlook 2019 or later
- macOS: Outlook 2016 or later
If you’re using an older version of Outlook, open a web browser and log in to your Outlook account to use the add-in.
Set up the Outlook add-in
Warning
If you’re using a corporate Outlook account, check if your administration has enabled web add-ins. If add-ins are disabled or you're using a personal IMAP or POP3 email account, the integration won’t work.
- Log in to your Microsoft Outlook account.
- Open an email.
- Click the Apps icon at the top-right of the email.
- Select Get Add-ins.
- Search for Todoist.
- Click Add to install the add-in.
- Click Continue.
Create a task with the Outlook add-in
There are two ways to create tasks with the Outlook add-in:
Add a task to your Inbox
- Open the email.
- Click the three dots icon at the top-right of the email view.
- Scroll down to the Todoist icon.
- Click Add to Todoist Inbox. This adds the email as a task to your Inbox.
Add a task to any Todoist project
- Open the email.
- Click the three dots icon at the top-right of the email view.
- Scroll down to the Todoist icon.
- Click Add to Todoist.
If you're asked to log in to your Todoist account, click Log in → Agree.
- Enter a name for your task, assign a due date, a project, labels and priority level.
Note
There’s no option to add a due time or task duration with the add-in.
- Click Add task. This adds the task to your chosen project.
Remove the Outlook add-in
- Open a web browser.
- Log in to your Outlook account.
- Open an email.
- Click the three dots icon at the top of the email view.
- Click Get Add-ins.
- Click My add-ins in the left-hand side.
- Click the three dots icon under the Todoist icon.
- Click Remove.
Revoke permissions to access your Microsoft account
The method for revoking permissions depends on your Microsoft account type.
- Personal account: Manage your permissions in your Microsoft account settings
- Work or school account: Manage your permissions in the My Apps portal
If you revoke permissions for the Outlook add-in, you won't be able to use the integration until you grant permission to access your information again.
Get in touch
If you’re having trouble setting up or using the Todoist for Outlook add-in, get in touch with us. We—Dermot, Sergio, Omar, and the rest of the CX team—are eager to help!
FAQ
This is most likely happening because the email you're trying to access has been moved, archived or deleted.
In order for you to get access to an email that has been moved, archived or deleted, the Outlook add-in may ask you to log in to your Microsoft account, to get your permission to use the Microsoft Graph API.
Access to the API is needed in order to fetch a robust link to the email, which is then attached to your Todoist task. Once this is done, the email link will work even if the email has been moved, archived or deleted. We only use your permission to access the Graph API to fetch a web link for the email, and for nothing else.
Usually, the add-in will be able to do this automatically by using Single Sign-On, which runs in the background. However, this option is not available on all Outlook platforms and account types. Therefore, in some cases, you may be asked to log in to your Microsoft account.
If you select to log out in the add-in settings, we log you out of Todoist and also out of your Microsoft account.If you’ve moved the linked email out of the folder which it was in when creating the task, then the link has become invalid, and you won’t be able to use it anymore. If this is the case, you can create a new task from the email’s new location (and you may also want to delete the old task with the broken link).
This can happen if you are either on a corporate account where the installation of web add-ins has been disabled, or you are using an account type that is not supported by web add-ins like an IMAP or POP3 account.
Unfortunately, not. The model of embedding the whole of Todoist inside Outlook cannot be achieved anymore. We're really sorry for any confusion caused, this is the integration model that Microsoft is moving forward with and the only one that will be supported by them.
Please log in with your email and password (if you don't have a password, here's how you can create it), or open the Outlook web app and login into the web app with your Google account.
Please contact your network admin and ask them to access the Integrated Apps option in the O365 admin portal. They should then select Add Apps and then search for Todoist for Outlook.
From there, they can choose to deploy the integration either for all users or for specific users. They will then need to consent to the required permissions. The specific permissions the plugin requires are:
- Read your mail
- Sign you in and read your profile
- Maintain access to data you have given it access to