Best Free Reminder/To-Do Program

There are literally dozens of free stand-alone reminder programs. Even more if you include sticky notes utilities and calendaring programs that offer reminder features. Many, I can assure you, are not worth installing. Of the nine programs I looked at, two impressed me for their ease of use of their reminder and “to-do” features. “Easy To-Do” [1] has the starkest interface of any of the products I reviewed yet it is among the most effective in use. It has all the features you need but no more, including unlimited task lists, task categories, recurring reminders, audible and visual alarms, adjustable snooze, configurable reports and more. It’s been really well thought through with lots of nice touches like the ability to add a new task or reminder by simply right-clicking the tray icon. Rainlender [2] by contrast, is a much slicker product but a tad more difficult to use. Rainlender is not only a reminder program but a very capable iCal “compatible” desktop calendar, though the calendar feature can be turned off. Used as a reminder and “to do” program it’s very feature rich with a really snazzy interface employing things like variable windows transparency, impressive mouse-over effects, hotkeys and easy skinning. It also has several features missing from Easy To-Do such as the ability to synchronize events between clients as well as Outlook appointment integration. I liked, too, the way the tray icon shows the current date, a feature that Easy To-Do could well emulate. Either of these programs will meet the reminder needs of most users. Some will prefer Easy To-Do for its simple but effective approach while others will be won over by Rainlender’s optional desktop calendar, impressive interface and powerful features. Firefox and Thunderbird users also have the option of using the free ReminderFox and Mozilla Calendar extensions which together provide similar functionality. They offer the advantage of avoiding the need for running a separate reminder application but at the cost of not having reminders available when Firefox or Thunderbird aren’t running.

[1] http://www.xanadutools.com/ Freeware, all Windows versions, 1.2MB.
[2] http://ipi.fi/~rainy/index.php?pn=projects&project=rainlendar Free GPL software, all Windows versions, 948KB
[3] http://reminderfox.mozdev.org/ Free Open Source, requires Firefox and/or Thunderbird
[4] http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/ Free, Open Source, available as Firefox and/or Thunderbird extension or in stand- alone form as Sunbird.

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