Todoist Task Action Shortcuts
Once a task exists, this category covers the everyday actions performed on it after capture — completing, deleting, moving between projects, duplicating, editing its title, and clearing an accumulated backlog of overdue items — the ongoing maintenance work of actually working through a task list day to day rather than the initial capture moment covered on the task-capture category page.
| Action | Windows | Mac | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Complete focused task | Click checkbox or Tab+Enter (varies) | Click checkbox or Tab+Enter | Marks the currently focused task complete, removing it from the active view and logging it to your completed history. |
| Archive/delete focused task | Delete (with confirmation) | Delete (with confirmation) | Removes the focused task entirely, distinct from completing it — deletion removes it from history too, while completion preserves a record in your completed tasks log. |
| Move task to a different project | V (with task focused) | V | Opens a project picker for relocating the focused task into a different project entirely, useful when a task was captured quickly into a default location and needs sorting into its actual proper project afterward. |
| Duplicate focused task | Ctrl+Shift+C (varies) | Cmd+Shift+C | Creates a copy of the focused task including its labels and priority, a useful starting point for a recurring-in-spirit but not truly repeating task that would otherwise need to be typed out again from scratch. |
| Edit the focused task's title | E (with task focused) | E | Puts the focused task's title directly into an editable state, letting you correct a typo or rewrite the task without opening its full detail view. |
| Reschedule all overdue tasks | Today view banner > Reschedule (no default single key) | — | Shows a one-click option in the Today view to move every currently overdue task forward to today (or another chosen date) in a single action, rather than rescheduling each overdue task individually one at a time. |
Completing a task (clicking its checkbox, or Tab+Enter depending on version and platform) marks it done, removing it from active views and logging it permanently to your completed-tasks history — distinct from deleting, which removes all record of the task ever having existed at all.
Archiving or deleting a task (Delete, with a confirmation step) removes it entirely, and it's genuinely important to understand this as functionally different from completing a task: deletion erases the task from your history too, while completion preserves a permanent record you can review later. If you're ever unsure which action to take on a task you no longer need to see, completing it is the safer default when there's any chance you might later want to confirm it actually happened, since deletion offers no such record afterward beyond a brief undo notification immediately following the action.
Moving a task to a different project (V, with it focused) opens a project picker for relocating it — commonly used when a task was captured quickly (perhaps via the global Quick Add shortcut, without taking the extra moment to type the # project syntax inline) into a default inbox location and needs proper sorting afterward into whichever project it actually belongs to.
Duplicating a task (Ctrl+Shift+C, though this binding has varied somewhat by version) creates a full copy including its existing labels and priority level — a genuinely useful starting point for a task that's similar to but not quite the same as an existing one, or for something recurring-in-spirit that doesn't fit Todoist's actual recurring-task syntax cleanly, letting you avoid retyping all of a task's details from scratch.
Editing a task's title (E, with it focused) drops directly into an inline editable state for correcting a typo or substantially rewriting the task, without needing to open its full detail view first just to make a text change — worth knowing as the fast path for a simple title fix, reserving the full detail view for changes that need more context, like adding a lengthy description or reviewing existing comments.
Rescheduling all overdue tasks at once (a banner option in the Today view, no dedicated single keystroke) addresses a genuinely common real-world Todoist situation: returning after a few busy days away to find a stack of overdue tasks that individually rescheduling one at a time would be tedious for. This one-click bulk reschedule moves every currently overdue task forward to today (or another date you choose) in a single action, which is considerably faster than opening each overdue task individually and manually resetting its due date.
A practical maintenance routine worth building around these shortcuts: reviewing the Today view each morning, using the overdue-reschedule banner first if there's a backlog to clear, then working through the remaining list using Complete for finished items and Edit or Move for anything that needs adjusting before you're actually ready to act on it — a repeatable daily pattern that keeps a task list genuinely current rather than slowly accumulating stale, never-addressed overdue items that make the whole system feel less trustworthy over time.
Worth being explicit about a distinction that trips up people newer to Todoist: completing and archiving/deleting look similar in effect (the task disappears from your active list either way) but mean genuinely different things for your longer-term records. If you ever want to look back and confirm something actually got done — useful for a weekly review, or simply the satisfaction of seeing a history of finished work — only completed tasks provide that record. A deleted task leaves no trace at all beyond the brief undo notification immediately following the deletion, so reaching for Complete by default and reserving Delete specifically for tasks that were mistakenly created or are no longer relevant at all (rather than genuinely finished) is the safer habit for anyone who values that historical record.
Duplicating a task deserves one further practical note: because the duplicate carries over labels and priority but not its original due date by default in most versions, it's worth treating duplication as a template-starting-point action rather than assuming a fully identical copy — you'll typically still need to set a fresh due date on the duplicate separately, using the Schedule shortcut covered on the task-capture category page, rather than expecting the copy to already carry forward the original's specific date.