[](https://doist.grsm.io/leightonprice1199) # Todoist Filters **Last updated:** ***8 Sep 2022*** - After running this page for a good number of years, Todoist has finally updated its help pages for both Dates and Filters. I'm happy to say that the folks at Todoist kindly reached out to me about incorporating some of the additional content found here into their own help pages to which I happily agreed and have been credited. The new and improved official doc for Filters can be found [here](https://todoist.com/help/articles/introduction-to-filters). I'll leave this page available online as I know many have it bookmarked for reference. --- ## Overview To be totally transparent, I've used the [official Todoist help page](https://todoist.com/help/articles/introduction-to-filters) for Filters, as the backbone for this guide. I've streamlined it a bit, made it easier to read and I've also ***added quite a few tips and tricks*** to make things a little clearer for some of the [Free Todoist users](https://todoist.com/pricing) that may be using Filters for the first time, now that up to 3 Filter queries are included within that plan. If you copy and paste the code block below into a new task in your Todoist Inbox, the [uncompletable task](https://todoist.com/help/articles/how-to-create-an-uncompletable-task) will act as a handy [Markdown link](https://todoist.com/help/articles/text-formatting) to this page which is then available from all your devices for quick reference. `* __[Reference Sheet - Todoist Filters](https://www.leightonprice.com/todoist/filters.html)__` It will then look like this in Todoist....  In addition to Filters, my expanded take on [Todoist Due Dates & Times: Natural Language Syntax](https://www.leightonprice.com/todoist/dates.html#) is also well worth checking out if you haven't done so already. Finally, at the bottom of [my homepage](https://www.leightonprice.com), you'll find a section listing some of the tools I've produced to enhance the Todoist experience which may also be of interest. Cheers. --- ## The key operators powering Filters Constructing Todoist's Filters can seem quite intimidating, even when following the official Support guides. There is no UI to create them, or any live-feedback when constructing them. However, once you get a grip on the syntax/operators/logic used to build the text strings, things tend to fall into place. Eventually! You'll see the specific operator symbols, detailed below, featuring throughout the examples that follow. **|** The 'pipe' symbol acts as **OR** **&** The ampersand symbol acts as **AND** **!** The exclamation mark acts as **NOT**. As you'll see below, this comes in extremely handy when used in conjunction with some of the filter commands, thus creating the opposite effect **()** Parentheses are used to create more complex/conditional queries. See the first General example below **,** The comma is used to 'chain,' multiple filter queries together. This has the effect of creating clear 'sections,' to your filter outputs. Not to be confused with Todoist's [Project Sections](https://todoist.com/help/articles/introduction-to-sections) **#** This is not an operator per se, but is the means of indicating a project i.e., #Work **##** By extension, the double hashtag is used to show all tasks in a parent project **AND** any sub-projects that may be listed within it i.e., ##Work *** ## General examples **(today | overdue) & #Work** Shows all tasks that are overdue or due today that are in the "Work" project. Open this filter first thing when you get to work to get a clear overview of what you need to get done **7 days & @waiting** Shows all tasks that are due in the next 7 days and are labelled **@waiting**. Good for proactively identifying roadblocks in your week **created before: -365 days** Shows all tasks created more than 365 days ago. Use this filter to find the tasks that have been gathering dust on your to-do list **assigned by: me** Shows all tasks you assigned to others. Handy for following up on delegated tasks **assigned to: Leighton Price** Shows all tasks assigned to Leighton Price. A quick way to see what Leighton's working on **added by: me** Shows all tasks created by you **added by: Leighton Price** Shows all tasks created by Leighton Price **shared & !assigned** Shows all tasks in shared projects that haven't been assigned to anyone. Another good filter to make sure every task is accounted for **subtask** Shows all sub-tasks **!subtask** Shows all parent tasks ***Note*** - It's not possible to filter for parent tasks that have subtasks associated with them. So you can isolate only subtasks with **subtask** or tasks that are not subtasks with **!subtask**. There is currently no other logic over and above that **view all** Shows all tasks. An easy way to get a list of all tasks in every project **due before: +8 hours & !overdue** Shows all tasks due within the next 8 hours, but excludes all tasks that are overdue. A handy filter to see what's planned for the next 8 hours *** ## Filtering based on due dates **Jan 3** Shows all tasks due on that date. For example: *May 5*, *05/16*, *August 8, tomorrow, tod, in 10 days, Sunday, Feb 10 2020* **due before: May 5** Shows all tasks that are due before that date. Examples: *due before: August 10*, *due before: 08/13, due before: 6pm* **due before: next week** Shows all tasks that are due this week, up to and including Sunday **due before: sat** Shows all tasks with a due date in the current working week **due after: sunday & due before: next monday** Shows all tasks due next week ***Note*** - This comes with a rather big caveat in that it will work on every day of the week ***EXCEPT if it happens to be Monday!*** This illustrates how convoluted creating filters in Todoist can sometimes be. Hopefully, Todoist will introduce a simple **due: next week** type of instruction that works consistently. I'm not aware of any other way of achieving this at present. To further confuse things, **due: next week** will be accepted in a filter, but it will just return tasks due for the single day you have configured for "Week start" in settings. **due before: first day** Will return all tasks due within the **current** calendar month **due after: June 20** Shows all tasks that are due after that date. Examples: *due after: May 16*, due after*: 09/23, **due after: in 3 days* **due: yesterday, today** This will give you a filter view, restricting those tasks appearing in the overdue "section," to just those that were due yesterday but you didn't complete, along with today's task listed below. **no date** Shows all tasks that have no due date associated with them. Alternative: *no due date* **!no date** All tasks with a due date assigned to them **!no date & !no time** All tasks with a due date ***AND*** time assigned to them **overdue** Shows all tasks that are overdue. Alternatives: *over due*, *od* **overdue & !no time, today & !no time** Focus on all tasks that are overdue and have had a specific time assigned to them along with all tasks due today, but only with times **#Inbox & no date, All & !#Inbox & !no date** Tasks in your Inbox without a date, followed by a separate 'section' with all your tasks in Todoist that have due dates set, but are not in your Inbox **5 days** Shows all tasks due within the next 5 days. Alternative: *next 5 days* **recurring** Shows all tasks that have a recurring due date **!recurring** All tasks that either have a non-recurring due date or no due date at all assigned to them **no time & !recurring** All tasks with a due date (no time assigned) and are not recurring **due before: +4 hours** Shows all tasks due within the next four hours and all overdue tasks ***Quick tip*** You can write the date in any of these ways: - Specific date: 10/5/2017, Oct 5th 2017 - Specific date and time: 10/5/2017 5pm, Oct 5th 5pm - Relative date: today, tomorrow, yesterday, 3 days (due in the next 3 days), -3 days (due in the past 3 days) - Days of the week: Monday, Tuesday, Sunday *** ## Filtering based on priority level **p1** Shows all tasks with the priority level 1 **No priority** Shows all tasks with no priority level (a.k.a. p4) **!No priority** Shows all tasks with a priority level of either p1, p2 or p3 assigned **@email** Shows all tasks with the label **@email** **no labels** Shows all tasks that don't have any labels **!no labels** Shows all tasks with labels assigned --- ## Filtering based on project, sub-project and section **##Work** Shows all the tasks in the #Work project and its sub-projects **##School & !#Science** Shows all the tasks in the #School project and its sub-projects but excludes the #Science project **/Meetings** Shows all tasks belonging to sections titled "Meetings", across all projects **!/*** All tasks in your Todoist account that are not assigned to sections **!/* & !#Inbox** As above, but don't include your Inbox in the results, giving you sectionless tasks only in the projects you've created *** ## Filtering based on when a task was created **created: today** This is handy for quickly checking on everything you've added to Todoist today that's not yet completed. If you add this filter to your [favorites](https://todoist.com/help/articles/add-a-project,-label-or-filter-to-favorites) it's easy to get to for a quick review **created: Jan 3** Shows all tasks created on Jan 3 **created before: -365 days** Shows all tasks created more than 365 days ago **created after: -365 days** Shows all tasks created within the last 365 days *** ## Filtering based on keyword(s) **search: email** Shows all tasks that contain the word email **search: research** Shows all tasks that contain the word research **search: http** Find all tasks that contain web links **!search:*** If you use [uncompletable tasks](https://todoist.com/help/articles/how-to-create-an-uncompletable-task) and use asterisks exclusively for this purpose in your task details, it's possible to discount these "information only" tasks from your filter results. For example, **#Work & !search:*** will give you only completable tasks in your Work project. You can use double underscores instead of asterisks when [Markdown formatting for bold](https://todoist.com/help/articles/text-formatting) to avoid the search returning these tasks too. **search: http & search:*** List all uncompletable tasks that contain web links. Handy for any identifying any reference links you may have added at the top of your projects *** ## Combining queries to create even more powerful filters **Today & @email** Shows all tasks that are due today and are also labeled **@email** (& can be read as "and") **@work | @office** Shows all tasks that are labelled either **@work** or **@office** ( | can be read as "or") **(today | overdue) & #Work** Shows all tasks that are either due today or are overdue and are also in the "Work" project (enclose parts of your query with "()" to create more complex filters) **!assigned** Shows all tasks that are not assigned to anyone (! can be read as "not") **Today & !#Work** Shows all tasks that are due today but excludes tasks in the "Work" project **#Homework & tomorrow & !@science** Shows all tasks that are due tomorrow in the "Homework" project but excludes tasks with the **@science** label *** ## Using wildcards in filters To filter for several items with similar characters, you can use a wildcard by placing an asterisk "*" in your search term. For example, the filter query *@*ball* will pull up a list of all tasks that have a label which ends with the word "ball", like *@baseball* and *@football* **@home*** Shows all tasks with any label that starts with "home". For example, *@homework* and *@home* **assigned to: m* smith** Shows all tasks assigned to anyone whose first name starts with an M and last name is Smith **#*Work** Shows all tasks from projects which name ends with "work". For example, *#Artwork*, *#Network, and #Work* **/Work*** Shows all tasks from sections that have the word "Work" in the title. For example, */Work Meetings*, */Work Admin*, and */Work Calls* *** ## Run multiple filters at the same time Todoist filters also let you combine searches to create multiple task lists at once. To combine 2 or more searches into one filter, separate each with a comma: “,” For example, p1 & overdue , p4 & today will show two task lists, one for the query p1 & overdue and another for p4 & today *** **[Go to www.leightonprice.com](https://www.leightonprice.com)**