Yash Wate / Android Authority
I use a bunch of apps on my phone and computer every day. Aside from essential ones, such as Bitwarden and Google Authenticator, these include plenty of productivity apps that help me get things done — both at work and in my personal life.
While I pay for a few of these apps, most are either completely free or offer a feature-rich free plan that serves my needs just fine. Here’s a look at my current favorite stack of free productivity apps that actually work and make my life easier — all of which are available on Android.
What’s that one ultimate productivity app you can’t live without?
46 votes
A notes app.
54%
A to-do app.
28%
A task management app.
15%
Something else. Tell us in the comments.
2%
Notesnook
Megan Ellis / Android Authority
Notesnook is a free, open-source note-taking app that uses end-to-end encryption to protect your notes. I switched to Notesnook from Simplenote a few weeks back and use it for quick note-taking — jotting down information, thoughts, and ideas I frequently need. And it keeps my notes synced across all my devices so I can view or edit them on any device.
What I like most about Notesnook is its comprehensive free plan. It has all the features I need in a note-taking app, such as a rich-text editor and support for attachments, tables, and checklists. Plus, there are organizational features such as notebooks, folders and subfolders, tags, and colors to help organize notes more effectively.
Obsidian
Nathan Drescher / Android Authority
Obsidian is another popular free note-taking app I use. It’s my go-to app for storing structured and permanent notes. In other words, I use Obsidian as a personal knowledge base, where I research my personal projects, take notes on new skills I’m learning, track books and blogs to read, and keep tabs on my supplements, among other things.
I’ve set up Obsidian to sync notes across all my devices using the free Remotely Save plugin. Speaking of plugins, that’s where Obsidian’s true power lies; you can find plenty of useful plugins to extend the app’s functionality. Some of my favorite plugins include Bases, Graph View, Slash Commands, Advanced Tables, Excalidraw, QuickAdd, Templater, and Linter.
TickTick
Dhruv Bhutani / Android Authority
TickTick is one of the best to-do apps for keeping up with everyday tasks. I’ve been using it for several years now, and I have nothing to complain about. While it isn’t a completely free app, its free tier offers all the features I need, such as text formatting, attachments, checklists, subtasks, tags, and comments.
One of my favorite TickTick features is Smart Recognition. Thanks to it, I can type, say, “meeting tomorrow at 8 PM” to create a quick task entry and save those extra clicks or taps for selecting the date and time manually.
Another handy TickTick feature is recurrent tasks. I use it to remind myself of my recurrent tasks, like bill payments, generating invoices, renewing insurance, and more, every month. I also like the ability to assign priority levels to my tasks, so I know what needs immediate attention and what can take a back seat.
Trello
Yash Wate / Android Authority
Trello is a project management app, and I use it to track my tasks for different clients every week, as well as the progress of my personal projects. I prefer it over other apps, such as Asana, since none of my other clients use it, so I don’t have to juggle between two accounts. I also like Trello because it offers a generous free plan, and its Kanban-style workflow feels more intuitive for managing daily tasks.
Among other things, I find Trello’s custom fields option really handy. Using it, I can add two dates to my tasks: one for when it’s due date for the publication and the other “do by” for my own. I also like the subtasks feature. It lets me break down a task for, say, a review into “draft,” “take product shots,” and “edit,” making it easier to track my progress. Finally, there’s the filter feature, which allows me to filter my cards by status and labels to review my work for different clients at the end of each month.
Toggl Track
Yash Wate / Android Authority
Toggl Track is a time-tracking app that helps me log work hours and the time I spend on each task for all my clients every day. The best part is it’s super easy to use. All I need to do is start the timer before I begin working on a task and stop it when I’m done. Toggle Track then saves the time and lets me add more details about the session, such as a description and project name. I also prefer adding a tag to group similar work sessions.
Subsequently, I can go to the calendar tab in the Toggl Track app to see a summary of how I spent the entire month. Toggl Track also has some handy widgets. My favorite is the one that lets you monitor and stop an active session right from the phone. I’ve found this useful at times when I’ve left my desk without stopping the timer on my Mac. Besides, the Toggl Track app has an auto-tracker feature that automatically records the time you spend on your computer, though I prefer to keep it disabled.
Airtable
Yash Wate / Android Authority
Airtable is my database app of choice for storing data in a structured manner. It essentially offers a board with multiple rows and columns, similar to Excel spreadsheets, where I can enter my data and analyze it using different views as needed. I started using Airtable to keep tabs on my review units. That way, I know which products I’ve returned and which ones are still with me.
Over time, I’ve found some more useful cases for Airtable. I now have a board to track my investments, with comments on the rationale for each and the returns over the last few years. Then there’s one to keep records of my office inventories, so I can refer to it whenever I can’t remember where I kept an item. I’ve also set up a board to save products (watches, tech accessories, etc.) that I want to buy.
Raindrop.io
Megan Ellis / Android Authority
Raindrop.io is an all-in-one bookmark manager app. I switched to it after Pocket shut down and have been using it since to save everything from articles and pages to images and videos from the web that I may need later.
Depending on whether I’m on my phone or my computer, I use either the share menu or the browser extension to save items to Raindrop. I then add tags or move items to a relevant folder (or collection) if one exists, so it’s easier to find them later. When I feel lazy or can’t locate an item manually, I use the Raindrop search with search parameters. It’s surprisingly good and returns matching results in seconds.
MacroDroid
Tushar Mehta / Android Authority
MacroDroid is one of the best Android automation apps. Thanks to it, I’ve automated a bunch of repetitive tasks on my phone, so I don’t have to perform them manually. All I need to do is create a macro, which involves choosing an appropriate trigger and an action to execute when that trigger gets triggered.
For example, I’ve created an automation that automatically deletes screenshots on my phone every 30 days. Similarly, I have one that automatically rotates my phone’s screen when I open and close apps like YouTube and Netflix, so I don’t have to toggle screen orientation manually. I’ve also created a macro that automatically starts my favorite playlist in Spotify when I connect my phone to my car.
What’s your favorite Android productivity app?
41 votes
Notesnook
12%
Obsidian
15%
TickTick
12%
Trello
7%
Airtable
7%
Raindrop.io
5%
MacroDroid
32%
Other (let us know in the comments)
10%
The above apps greatly simplify various everyday tasks for me across all my devices. All of these apps, except for MacroDroid, are available on all major mobile and desktop platforms — and every single one is available on Android.
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