Sunrise
A real planner for Google Tasks
367 followers
A real planner for Google Tasks
367 followers
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.
Sunrise
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@cteerakit Congrats on launching Sunrise — a real Today view, an overdue section and a kanban board on top of Google Tasks is exactly what Tasks has always been missing. We made you a free launch video for it (below), yours to download or re-post anywhere, no strings, and it is whitelabel. You can add it to your launch page in here; launches with video tend to do better than those without.
We built it with FoxPlug: paste your site and it turns what you just shipped into a launch video, images, GIFs and posts in about 30 seconds. This one is on us — make your own free at https://foxplug.com
@cteerakit Well, I have been waiting for this one for long. Thank you for solving a problem for me!
Sunrise
@daniellebe Thank you so much! Hearing that it solves a real problem for you makes all the hard work worth it. Really appreciate the support!
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 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.
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!
The "Google Tasks is a notepad, not a planner" framing is spot on. For me the single biggest gap is exactly your Today view, being able to see what's actually due now versus the pile I've been snoozing. Flat lists let you lie to yourself about how much is overdue.
One question: does the two-way sync handle recurring tasks cleanly? That's usually where these Google Tasks layers quietly break for me. Nice, focused launch. @cteerakit @Sunrise
Sunrise
@sharun_kanan Thank you for the support!
Regarding recurring tasks, you've highlighted a known limitation within the Google Tasks API. The API does not expose recurrence schedules or future repeat dates to third-party developers. As a result, future instances cannot be viewed ahead of time in your upcoming schedule.
I'm considering adding native recurring task support directly inside Sunrise. However, because of the API limits, these native recurrences would not sync back to Google Tasks and vise versa. I'm still evaluating which route to go.
@cteerakit Thanks for the response! This irrespective of the new R&D, is a life-saver. Rooting for you!
This is exactly the gap I hit with Google Tasks too, everything lives in flat lists and there's no real sense of "what's actually due today" without manually scanning. One thing I didn't see addressed: I run a personal Google account and a separate work Workspace account with tasks split across both. Does Sunrise support connecting more than one Google account at once, or is it locked to a single sign-in? That's usually the dealbreaker for me with tools built on top of Google Tasks.
Sunrise
@galdayan That is a great point. Because I use separate project management tools for work, I hadn't hit that specific wall myself just yet. However, the good news is that I am actually planning to migrate my own work setup over to Google Workspace soon. I have no doubt I will be running into the exact same multi-account friction you just described.
Right now, Sunrise is focused on a single sign-in. But handling multiple Google accounts simultaneously is absolutely on my radar, and it is something I will be actively exploring as I build out the next phases.
Thanks for bringing this up!
@cteerakit makes sense, appreciate the honest answer instead of a vague "it's on the roadmap." Good luck with the Workspace migration, you'll find out fast which parts of the UX assumed a single account. Will keep an eye on Sunrise as multi-account support lands.
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