Inline Commands

Inline commands allow to quickly make changes to an item by typing special command sequences its title.

Inline commands are a powerful tool to quickly process inbox items or edit items in general. They are especially useful in combination with keyboard shortcuts.

To apply a command you need to put it at the end of an item’s title. For example, suppose you want to create an action named “Prepare a report”, move it to Next and set its Time attribute to 1h. You can achieve all this in one step by writing Prepare a report :n :t 1h as the title of a new item.

A sequence of commands gets applied to the item when it is saved. Once applied, the command sequences is removed from the title.

Any text that comes after a sequence of valid commands gets truncated. For example Prepare :f a report will create a focused task with the title Prepare.

The following table presents all available commands.

Desired action Command example Remarks
Move to next :n
Move to someday/maybe :m
Move to waiting :w
Move to waiting and set contact :w Name A missing contact will be created
Move to projects :p Will convert into a project if necessary
Move to scheduled, and start tomorrow :s
Start in n days :s 5
:s 5d
Set specific start date :s May 5
:s 5 May
:s 5 May 2018
Set focus :f
Remove focus :f none
:f 0
Set time in minutes :t 10m
:t 10
Set time in hours :t 1h
Remove time estimate :t none
Set energy to High :e h
:e high
Set energy to Medium :e m
:e med
Set energy to Low :e l
:e low
Remove energy estimate :e none
Make due Today :d
Set due date n days into the future/past :d +5
:d 5
:d -1 Negative values represent the past
Set specific due date :d May 5
:d 5 May
:d 5 May 2018
Assign tags :# tag
:# tag1,tags2 Specify a comma-separated list of tags.
Assign contexts :@ context Will assign @context to the item.
:@ Work,Home
Last modified October 31, 2020