Todoist Goals Removed: The Best Built-In Workaround and When to Switch Apps

Todoist’s Goals experiment is gone, but most former Goals users should not migrate their entire task system immediately. A goal label, a structured description, and one saved filter can restore the useful cross-project work view. What it cannot restore is the automatic percentage based on completed linked tasks—and that specific gap should drive your decision to stay or switch.

By Remote Work Picks · Updated August 5, 2026

Our verdict: Stay with Todoist if you mainly used Goals to gather related tasks and preserve the reason behind the work. Consider ClickUp, Asana, or Coda only if automatic goal rollups influence weekly planning, leadership reporting, or accountability across a distributed team.

This guide is based on published specifications, support documentation, and pricing checked as of August 2026. We compared documented features and pricing; we did not rely on unreleased roadmap promises.

Affiliate disclosure: Some product links may be affiliate links. If you purchase through one, Remote Work Picks may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. That does not affect our verdicts or the tradeoffs named below.

What Todoist Removed on July 13, 2026

Goals was an experimental web feature for Pro and Business accounts. It separated an outcome—the “why”—from the projects containing the work.

A goal could have a description, deadline, and, for team goals, a responsible person. Users could connect tasks from different projects and see the active work in one place. Todoist allowed up to 10 personal goals and 50 team goals per workspace.

Its most important capability was automatic progress. If a goal had 10 linked, non-recurring tasks and four were complete, Todoist displayed 40%. The percentage changed as linked tasks were checked off.

On July 13, the Goals tab and goal records disappeared. Todoist said linked tasks would remain in their original projects. It suggested taking screenshots or exporting through its Claude or ChatGPT connectors before the cutoff.

Todoist retired its experimental Goals feature on July 13, 2026. The Goals tab and saved goals disappeared, while linked tasks remained in their original projects. Todoist recommended screenshots or AI-connector exports before removal and directed users to project and section descriptions. Source: Todoist’s Goals retirement notice, updated July 1, 2026.

Todoist introduced or emphasized two partial replacements:

• Project and section descriptions: Available on every plan, these hold the outcome, context, constraints, and other information that does not belong in a task title.
• Project Insights: Available on current Pro accounts, excluding Pro Legacy, with At Risk, Progress, and Completed widgets. Todoist also added active-task, completed-task, and progress indicators to My Projects.
• Project Health: A Business feature Todoist said it was improving to incorporate descriptions and repeatedly postponed tasks.

Those features provide better context and project-level visibility. They do not recreate one goal that automatically rolls up selected tasks from several unrelated projects.

The Best Built-In Workaround: Descriptions, Goal Labels, and Saved Filters

The cleanest replacement uses three existing Todoist objects:

1. A project or section description stores the goal definition.
2. A dedicated label marks every task contributing to that goal.
3. A saved filter retrieves those active tasks across projects.

This is our recommended recovery procedure.

1. Create a durable goal record

Put the goal definition in the description of the project most closely associated with the outcome. If no single project is the obvious home, create a lightweight “Goals index” project containing one uncompletable task per goal, then store the details in each task description.

Use a consistent template:

Outcome:
Owner:
Decision date:
Success measure:
Included projects:
Original task baseline:
Last reviewed:
Status note:

For example:

Outcome: Publish the Q4 distributed-work handbook
Owner: Maya
Decision date: October 15, 2026
Success measure: Approved handbook published and announced
Included projects: People Ops, Editorial, Internal Launch
Original task baseline: 12
Last reviewed: August 5, 2026
Status note: Drafting in progress; legal review not scheduled

The “original task baseline” matters if you intend to estimate progress manually. Without a stable denominator, adding three tasks halfway through the work can make a goal appear to move backward without explaining why.

2. Create one label per active goal

Use short, unique labels such as:

@goal-q4-handbook
@goal-client-portal
@goal-hiring-plan

Avoid a generic @goal label by itself. It can create a broad portfolio view, but it cannot distinguish one outcome from another.

Apply the specific goal label to every contributing task, regardless of its project. New tasks must be labeled as they are created; neither the old Goals feature nor this workaround automatically discovers future tasks.

A task may carry more than one goal label when it genuinely contributes to two outcomes. Be deliberate, though: that task will appear in both views, and any manual progress calculation could count the same completion twice.

3. Save a cross-project filter

For the basic view, the filter query is simply:

@goal-q4-handbook

A more useful weekly-review version separates urgent, unscheduled, and later work:

@goal-q4-handbook & (overdue | today),
@goal-q4-handbook & no date,
@goal-q4-handbook & due after: today

Todoist uses commas to display multiple queries as separate lists. This produces three practical groups:

• Work due now
• Work without a date
• Work scheduled later

You can add & assigned to: me to make a personal execution view or & assigned to: others for delegated work. Todoist’s filter documentation includes the supported syntax for labels, assignments, dates, priorities, projects, and sections.

Favorite the filter so it remains close to Today and Upcoming. For a team, document the label spelling in the goal description; a small naming mismatch creates an incomplete view that may otherwise look authoritative.

Todoist labels can group active tasks from multiple projects, and a saved @goal-name filter can present that work in one view. The critical limitation is that filters exclude completed tasks, so they cannot reproduce Goals’ automatic completion percentage. Source: Todoist’s filter guide, updated July 2, 2026.

What the Workaround Restores—and What It Cannot Replace

The workaround is strong enough for execution but weaker for measurement.

The fundamental problem is completed-task visibility. Todoist explicitly lists “show completed tasks” as an unsupported filter. Once a labeled task is completed, it disappears from the saved filter. The label still organizes active work, but the filter has no completed numerator from which to calculate progress.

Project Insights does not solve that cross-project problem. It can show progress within a project, but a goal may include only some tasks from three different projects. Project progress and goal progress are not interchangeable.

A defensible manual percentage

If a percentage is useful but not important enough to justify migration, add a weekly progress line to the goal record:

Progress: 5 completed / 14 current scoped tasks = 36%
Scope: 12 original + 2 added

Use:

completed contributing tasks ÷ current scoped non-recurring tasks × 100

Document additions and removals instead of silently changing the denominator. This prevents a common reporting failure: showing 50% one week and 40% the next because new scope appeared, with no explanation.

This is intentionally a manual checkpoint, not a claim that Todoist calculates the number. The person updating it must reconcile completed work using the activity log, retained exports, or the team’s review notes. Beginner provides one week of activity history; Pro and Business list full reporting history.

When Staying With Todoist Still Makes Sense

Stay when Todoist remains the better place to do the work and goal reporting is secondary.

That is usually true when:

• You have a small number of active goals.
• One person owns each goal.
• The main need is a focused cross-project list.
• A short written status is more useful than a percentage.
• Leadership does not need automatic portfolio dashboards.
• Your team already captures outcome metrics in another system.
• Moving tasks, recurring dates, comments, and integrations would create more work than the missing feature saves.

The saved-filter method is especially reasonable for individuals and small remote teams. Todoist remains quick for capturing work, assigning dates, and building personal views. Replacing it with a heavier project-management platform solely to regain a progress ring is difficult to justify.

As of August 2026, Todoist Beginner cost $0 and included labels plus three custom filters. Pro was $5 per user monthly on annual billing, with 150 filters and full reporting history; Business was $8 per user monthly on annual billing, before local tax. Source: Todoist’s pricing page.

The annual reporting-cost test

Here is a practical way to value the missing automation.

Assume you manage eight goals, and reconciling each goal takes two minutes during a weekly review:

8 goals × 2 minutes × 52 weeks = 832 minutes
832 ÷ 60 = 13.9 hours per year

For a five-person team, moving from Todoist Business at $8 per user monthly to Asana Advanced at $24.99 would add approximately:

($24.99 − $8) × 5 users × 12 months = $1,019.40 per year

Ignoring migration costs, the reporting time would need to be worth about $73 per hour to recover that subscription difference:

$1,019.40 ÷ 13.9 hours = $73.34 per hour

This is not a universal break-even point. It is a decision framework. Substitute your goal count, review time, seat count, and actual plan costs. Also include migration, training, and the friction of a more complex interface.

If the percentage is merely decorative, stay. If it determines staffing, budget, launch readiness, or an executive status report, automated rollups become materially more valuable.

Alternatives for Cross-Project Goals, Automatic Progress, and Team Reporting

These are capability matches, not a generic ranking. Each alternative wins on a different requirement and gives something up.

ClickUp: the closest direct replacement

Verdict: Choose ClickUp when you want a dedicated Goals area and automatic percentages without paying Asana’s Advanced price.

ClickUp Goals are made of measurable Targets. Targets can be numeric, currency-based, true/false, or connected to a task, subtask, or List. Goal progress updates as Targets change. According to ClickUp’s Goals documentation, Free accounts receive 100 uses, while Unlimited and higher plans receive unlimited access.

The Unlimited plan was $7 per user monthly with annual billing and included Goals and portfolio management. Business was $12 and added advanced dashboard capacity; Goal Folders require Business or higher.

The loss is simplicity. ClickUp offers more hierarchy, configuration, views, and reporting surfaces than Todoist. That is useful for a team lead and potentially distracting for someone who mainly wants a calm personal task list. Read our closer look at ClickUp 4.0 and its all-in-one approach before treating feature quantity as an automatic upgrade.

Check ClickUp’s current plans.

Asana: best for formal team goals and reporting

Verdict: Choose Asana when goals form part of an operating cadence across departments.

Asana Goals can update automatically from connected tasks, projects, and sub-goals. Advanced also includes unlimited portfolios, weighted goals, and goal reporting. That makes it better suited to quarterly planning, nested objectives, and leadership reviews than a collection of Todoist filters.

As of August 2026, Goals were included with Asana Advanced at $24.99 per user monthly when billed annually, or $30.49 monthly. The Asana Goals guide documents manual and automatic measurement sources.

The tradeoff is cost and organizational weight. For a five- or ten-person team, the price difference from Todoist compounds quickly. Asana is most defensible when portfolios, workload, approvals, and reporting are requirements—not when you only miss a personal progress percentage.

For a broader evaluation, compare the options in our guide to project-management tools for remote teams.

Review Asana’s current pricing.

Coda: best for a custom goals-and-context workspace

Verdict: Choose Coda when your goals need written context, task relations, custom calculations, and meeting-ready views in one document.

Coda can connect a Goals table to a Tasks table through relations. A formula-driven progress column can then calculate completed tasks divided by total related tasks. Coda’s progress-bar documentation uses the same example: one of four tasks displays 25%, and two display 50%.

This approach can preserve the best parts of Todoist Goals while adding decision logs, weekly updates, confidence ratings, and custom dashboards. A personal document can begin on the $0 plan; paid collaborative workspaces use Doc Maker billing, with editors and viewers not billed as Makers. Coda now routes plan selection through Superhuman Docs, so confirm the live workspace quote before budgeting.

The tradeoff is ownership. Coda provides the building blocks, not an opinionated goal system. Someone must create the relations, maintain the formulas, control editing, and decide what counts as complete. Our guide to using Coda for efficient project management shows where that flexibility helps and where it adds maintenance.

See current Coda/Superhuman Docs plans.

How to Rebuild or Migrate Your Goals After the Cutoff

Because the July 13 cutoff has passed, start with whatever records remain: screenshots, AI exports, planning documents, status reports, and the tasks still sitting in their projects. Todoist’s retirement notice does not promise post-cutoff access to deleted goal records.

Rebuild inside Todoist

Use this sequence for each active outcome:

1. Write the outcome, owner, date, and success measure in a durable description.
2. Create a unique @goal-name label.
3. Identify the contributing active tasks across projects.
4. Apply the label in bulk where possible.
5. Save and favorite the cross-project filter.
6. Record the current task baseline.
7. Add a weekly status line only if somebody will actually maintain it.
8. Archive the label and filter when the outcome closes.

After setup, compare the filter against each included project once. This catches missing labels before the new view becomes part of a team review.

Migrate to another app

Do not import everything by default. Move one active goal and its contributing work first.

During the pilot, verify:

• Whether tasks can contribute across project boundaries
• Which completion states count toward progress
• Whether recurring tasks affect the denominator
• How newly created tasks become connected
• Whether one task can support multiple goals
• Who can edit the target, owner, or status
• Whether completed work remains visible
• What appears in portfolio and leadership reports
• Which plan is required for every participant

Run one complete weekly review in the candidate app before committing the rest of the workspace. A polished goal dashboard is not useful if the team avoids updating the underlying tasks.

The decision is narrower than it first appears. Todoist still handles cross-project execution well with labels and filters. Switch only when the missing automatic calculation creates recurring manual work or weakens decisions your team actually needs to make. Recheck that decision by November 5, 2026—or sooner if Todoist replaces Goals, changes completed-task behavior in filters, or expands Project Insights across projects.