Sunrise - A real planner for Google Tasks
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Google Tasks is fine for jotting things down. It’s terrible for planning your day. No Today view. No overdue section. No way to see what’s due this week at a glance. Just flat lists.
Sunrise is a planner built on top of Google Tasks. See today’s tasks, catch what’s overdue, scroll through what’s coming up, and organize work on a kanban board — all synced with your existing Google Tasks lists. Your data stays in Google.
Replies
This looks clean. Does rescheduling a task in Sunrise also update the due date back in Google Tasks?
Sunrise
@dhiraj_patel5 Absolutely! That is the core foundation of how Sunrise works.
Me using Google Tasks every day makes this feel practical. Would keyboard shortcuts for moving tasks between days speed up planning? I think power users would appreciate that option.
Sunrise
@nathan_jake To be honest, I'm a total mouse user, so I hadn't even thought about that! But you’re so right—it would be a game-changer for power users. Definitely going to look into adding this. Thanks for the awesome idea!
this is exactly the kind of small honest tool i like seeing on here, google tasks really is just a flat notepad and everyone quietly builds their own workaround for it. syncing both ways instead of just reading is the part that actually matters, a read only overlay would've been useless the moment you edit something on mobile. does the kanban board write status back as a change to the task itself or is that just a local view on top
Sunrise
@omri_ben_shoham1 The Kanban board writes changes directly back to Google Tasks in real time!
If you drag a task between date columns, it updates the task's due date in Google. If you drag it between columns representing different task lists, it actually moves the task to that list on the Google backend.
that's exactly what I was hoping to hear. a lot of these planner layers fake it with a local board that quietly drifts from the source over time, glad this one is actually bidirectional all the way down to the due date and list
I like that existing Google Tasks sync without extra setup. would offline editing with automatic syncing later fit your roadmap? That could help people who travel or work with unreliable connections.
Sunrise
@gaspard_dupuich Offline support is actually already built in! Sunrise caches your tasks locally so you can view them offline, and any edits you make will automatically sync back to Google once you're reconnected.
While the functionality is there, I haven't extensively tested it yet. If you happen to give it a spin while traveling, I’d love to know how it works for you!
Love that it is a client on top of Google Tasks rather than a second silo, since no migration is the reason I would actually try it. One concrete thing though: Google Tasks basically only stores flat lists plus due dates, so where does the kanban board layout live, the columns and card ordering? If I organize a board in Sunrise and then open plain Google Tasks, does that structure survive, or is the board arrangement Sunrise-side only?
Sunrise
@leo404 Great technical question! On the Tasks page, the columns represent your Task Lists, so dragging a card moves the task to that list on the backend and will show up in Google Tasks. On the Upcoming page, the columns are dates, so dragging a card changes its due date directly in Google.
The only part stored Sunrise-side only is the exact visual order of cards within a single column, since Google’s API doesn't support custom sorting.
That split makes sense — list membership syncs, visual order doesn't. So if I hand-order cards in a column by priority and then open it on another device or in plain Google Tasks, that manual order is gone and I am back to Google's default sort? Trying to work out whether my prioritization survives a device switch or only holds in the Sunrise session where I set it.
Sunrise
@leo404 That is exactly right. Because Sunrise doesn't have a backend database to store custom positions, we don't actually support manual drag-and-drop card ordering within a column right now. Instead, tasks are automatically sorted by either date or title across your sessions, meaning your main layout will look exactly the same if you switch devices.
As a quick workaround for prioritization, you can utilize the star functionality to highlight your top tasks for the day. Since the star feature isn't available in Google's official API and we don't store your data on a server, these stars are kept local to your current device and session.
It's a simple, temporary way to prioritize while keeping your data completely private and lightweight, but I'm definitely looking into how we can handle cross-device sorting better in the future.
Makes sense, keeping stars local is the honest tradeoff for staying backend-free. On the cross-device sorting you mentioned exploring: is the plan to add real storage, or could you stash priority in a field Google Tasks already syncs, like the notes body or a hidden tag, so ordering rides along without you running a backend? Curious whether the no-server constraint is a hard line or just the current stage.
the notepad vs planner distinction is exactly right — capture and planning are completely different jobs that google tasks tries to do with one flat list. does it pull due dates from existing google tasks or do you have to re-enter them in sunrise?
Sunrise
@sabber_ahamed It pulls them automatically! There is absolutely no need to re-enter anything. Any changes you make in Sunrise sync right back, and vice versa.
@cteerakit bidirectional is the hard part most tools skip — good to hear it's real. does it handle recurring tasks from Google Tasks or is that still on the roadmap?
Sunrise
@sabber_ahamed That is a great question, and I want to be fully transparent here. Recurring tasks are unfortunately a limitation right now.
Because Google's official API doesn't actually expose or support recurring task logic to third-party developers, Sunrise can't fully manage the repetition. The way it works right now is that a recurring task will simply pop up on your board on the day it is currently due.
I know that’s a massive pain and it’s something I feel too as a user. I’m exploring a workaround for this and hopefully find a way to fix it in the next update.
@cteerakit appreciate the transparency — that API gap is genuinely annoying and I'm glad you're not papering over it. showing it on the due date is a decent fallback. curious if the workaround involves tracking repetition state locally or if there's a way to hook into the calendar event side to infer it
I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but I can't seem to figure out how to actually add a task/event after entering the details. (See the video for reference.) https://createademo.com/v/cmr9vyc2i0001l20449uwxakb
Sunrise
@john_marker3 That's a weird bug. Ideally the task should popup as you type the title. I'll look into it.
Sunrise
@john_marker3 The issue is most likely happening because your Google account is completely brand new and you haven’t created any task lists inside Google Tasks yet, so Sunrise doesn't have a place to send the task. That's why it's silently failing when you try to save.
The quick fix right now is to just open Google Tasks once, create an empty task list there, and then Sunrise should work perfectly.
I’ll make sure to fix this in the next update so that if a user doesn't have a task list, the system will automatically create one for you. Let me know if that works after you create the list!
So I tried but I got this "Google hasn’t verified this app".
Sunrise
@joseph_g4 Yeah, sorry about that. Because Sunrise connects directly to your Google account via their API, Google requires a formal verification process for new apps.
I’ve already submitted everything for approval, but Google takes quite a bit of time to review. In the meantime, it's completely safe to click "Advanced" and then "Go to Sunrise (unsafe)" to get in.
The no-backend bet is elegant, but the Google Tasks API has a habit I'd watch for: writes aren't read-your-own-write consistent. When I built against it, a PATCH to a due date would land, but the next tasks.list still returned the stale value for a few seconds, so an optimistic board can briefly snap a card back before it settles. And two devices editing the same task give you no clean ETag or conflict signal, just silent last-write-wins. On reconnect, are you reconciling against Google's version, or trusting the local cache?
Sunrise
@dipankar_sarkar The snap back, I've seen that too but not that often so I've fixed it. The two device editing the same task, I don't think I can solve it without a backend so that would be in a later stage. On reconnecting, it's local cache update to Google then back.