Everyone wants to improve their productivity and get more done in the day. It’s not about working more, but improving the way we work—managing our tasks more efficiently, improving our focus, and automating repetitive activities. Fortunately, this list of the best free productivity apps is here to help.
Because is there anything worse than discovering an app or a piece of software that looks like it’ll change your life, but then realizing it costs actual money? (In this economy! Outrageous.)
No worries, though. We’ve done the work of digging through the app stores to find the best of the best free productivity apps. Whether you want to avoid distractions, organize and manage your workflows, or better track your time and budgets—you can get started with one of these tools without ever needing to pull out your credit card.
Free apps vs. free plans
In general, you won’t find productivity apps that don’t have some kind of monetization. While there are some apps that are totally free, many paid apps come with free plans. Other paid apps have restricted free plans to encourage users to sign up for paid tiers.
But, there are lots of productivity apps with generous free plans—enough for individual use, and sometimes sufficient for small teams, too. In this article, we’ve prioritized productivity apps that are either completely free to use, or offer generous free plans.
The 12 best free productivity apps
We’ve reviewed 12 free apps to help you jump-start your productivity.
For improving focus
Block out distractions and gamify your work sessions with these free apps.
1. Engross
Free plan or free app? Free app!
Engross is a 100% free productivity app with loads of features to help you focus, organize tasks, and manage your time. The app includes a Pomodoro clock, inspired by the Pomodoro Technique time management methodology, and a customizable stopwatch to track time the way you want.
Engross’s planner and calendar lets you organize your tasks and create to-do lists, and the app allows you to create recurring tasks and events for regular activities. The statistics and analysis features help you track your work time and optimize your productivity, too.
2. Forest
Free plan or free app? Free app (costs $3.99 on iOS).
Forest is another free app (or mostly free—the iOS app costs $3.99, but the Chrome extension and Android app are free) for improving productivity. The app helps you focus by gamifying your experience. First, you take a personality test to help Forest determine your focus needs. The app then lets you plant a virtual tree that grows while you work.
If you get distracted, or abandon the app, the tree dies. So, you stay productive by keeping yourself away from distractions. Forest offers a fun way to improve your focus, but understandably, it’s not for everyone.
For managing tasks
Manage and organize your everyday tasks with these free productivity apps.
3. Todoist
Free plan or free app? Free plan.
Todoist is a mature, easy-to-use task management app with a really straightforward, intuitive interface. The app works across all devices, allowing users to organize their daily activities and stay productive wherever they are.
Todoist’s free plan lets users create and manage five projects, collaborate with up to five people, and access a week’s worth of activity logs. If you like, you can always upgrade to the paid plan (starting at $5/month) for better limits.
4. Habitica
Free plan or free app? Free app!
Habitica is a task management app that lets you gamify your daily activities. You can set up “positive” and “negative” tasks of varying difficulty levels, and Habitica sets up a gamified experience. You then gain—or lose—“health” and “mana” points as you complete positive and negative tasks, respectively.
The app defines recurring activities as “dailies”—although they can be scheduled less often than daily, like every three days or once a week. One-time tasks are called “to-dos”, and you can make your own to-do lists. The app is open source and free to use, although users can subscribe to contribute to its development.
Habitica is a fun, free productivity app if you like gamified experiences. Otherwise, users that aren’t into games might find the app a bit distracting.
For time tracking
Find out which projects take up most of your time with these great time-tracking apps.
5. Toggl
Free plan or free app? Free plan.
Toggl is a powerful time-tracking tool with a free plan for up to five users. Compared to many other time-tracking tools, Toggl’s interface is simple and very easy to use. The free plan gets you unlimited time tracking, projects, clients, and tags. You can also track desktop activity, set automated time-tracking triggers, and detect idle time (like when you space out for a bit too long).
Toggle integrates with over 100 popular apps, allowing users to track time and activity across them. The free plan supports reports to help you track productivity, and can import CSV files. To access billing features and other advanced capabilities, however, you’ll need to subscribe to a paid plan (starting at $8/user/month).
6. MyHours
Free plan or free app? Free plan.
MyHours has been around for more than two decades, and the software is one of the most mature time-tracking apps in the business. The best part? Its free plan has very generous limits, with unlimited team members and projects.
MyHour’s free plan lets users track time with the app, or manually log their time. It also includes weekly timesheets for tracking, and a daily timer with “start” and “stop” buttons. The free version also lets users create tasks and manage billables, and it comes with basic reporting features, too.
MyHour’s free plan is more than enough for individuals and growing teams, but if you’d like to take advantage of its more advanced features, the paid plans start at $7/user/month (or $6/user/month for annual billing).
For project management
Manage personal and team projects better with Trello and Asana.
7. Trello
Free plan or free app? Free plan.
Trello gained its reputation as the Kanban board app. And while it did originate as a Kanban app, it has evolved into a fully fledged project management tool. Its generous free plan offers unlimited cards and power-ups (Trello’s term for integrations), and access to Trello’s web, desktop, and mobile apps.
Trello’s free plan is a great option for individuals and small teams, but it restricts you to one view—Kanban—and the free customization and team management features are limited, too. We’re also not big fans of Trello for managing teams. For us, Asana is better designed for team management.
8. Asana
Free plan or free app? Free plan.
Like Trello, Asana is a household name in project management software. It’s a mature, feature-rich platform with an intuitive, friendly interface. The app manages to do everything you need it to, without overwhelming users with complex or clunky interfaces.
Asana’s free plan is also very generous, with unlimited projects, tasks, messages, file storage (100MB/file on the free plan relative to Trello’s 10MB/file), and collaboration with up to 15 members. And, unlike Trello, Asana’s free plan supports different project views—and let’s face it, the Calendar view has become essential.
Asana offers over 100 free integrations (including for time tracking), and it has web, desktop, and mobile apps. Overall, it's one of the best free productivity apps for growing teams.
For improving sales productivity
Try these sales productivity tools to improve your team’s workflow.
9. Calendly
Free plan or free app? Free plan.
Calendly is a great scheduling software for sales teams that eliminates lots of back and forths. Instead of trying to figure out the ideal time to schedule a meeting, people can check your availability through a unique Calendly link and book a slot that suits them (and you!). The tool really helps sales teams save time, stay organized, and improve productivity.
Calendly’s free plan is enough for individual needs: it lets you connect one calendar (it supports Office365, Google, iCloud, and Outlook), customize your booking link, and create as many one-to-one meetings as you need. The paid plans offer more advanced features and let users create group events and one-off meetings, among other things.
10. Klyck
Free plan or free app? Free plan.
Klyck is a document creation and management platform designed specifically for B2B needs. The platform helps sales teams create interactive sales presentations to engage prospects and nurture them. The app is also great for creating and managing knowledge bases as it includes pre-made templates, permissions management, and advanced search features.
Klyck’s free plan is ideal for individual use, with unlimited pages, and it lets you invite up to five guests to your workspace. However, the free plan has a 5MB file upload limit, so it’s not great for larger files.
For automating repetitive tasks
Save loads of time with these easy-to-use, no-code automation apps.
11. Magical
Free plan or free app? Free app!
Magical is a free Chrome extension that helps sales pros, recruiters, and customer service teams save seven hours a week by automating repetitive tasks. The tool includes a text expander that lets you save anything from short phrases to whole email templates, making it much easier to respond to conduct outreach, send follow-ups, and respond to customers
Magical also comes with a transfers feature that helps you save even more time by automating boring, repetitive data entry tasks, like updating your CRM or ATS. Transfers frees users from repetitive copy-pasting by transferring data from your open tabs to the destination in record time.
Plus, unlike other popular automation tools, Magical doesn’t require any integrations. There’s no extensive setup involved, and the app works where you do. Just add it to Chrome and start automating.
12. IFTTT (If This, Then That)
Free plan or free app? Free plan.
IFTTT’s free plan is super generous: it gives you access to all the app’s existing automations, and lets you create up to five custom ones. The app is very mature and versatile, supporting integrations with hundreds of popular apps. Its web and mobile apps are both stable, with great interfaces, allowing users to conveniently automate tasks across different devices.
IFTTT goes all in on automation by supporting connections with smart devices. So, users can use it to automate smart devices and use the voice assistant to manage task automation. If you need a free app to automate various tasks, IFTTT is one of the best options.
Ready to boost your productivity?
There are lots of ways to improve productivity, such as:
- Organizing tasks and projects better.
- Tracking and optimizing your time.
- Automating repetitive tasks.
- Improving your focus.
And, fortunately, there are lots of free productivity apps to help you save time, organize your workflow, and get more done.
Still have a few questions?
What are people asking about productivity apps?
Let’s take a look at any outstanding questions you may have.
What is the #1 productivity app?
There isn’t a specific #1 productivity app, but Todoist, Asana, Engross, and Magical are all popular options. Check out our list for more great picks.
What is the most useful productivity tool?
It depends on your needs. If you’re looking to improve focus, Engross is a great free app, but if you need to manage tasks better, Todoist is a solid choice.
What apps increase productivity?
Any app that improves the way you work can increase productivity! This includes apps that help you focus, automate repetitive activities, and manage tasks and workflows.
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