The DayMap Guide

Your first five minutes

DayMap holds your projects and your schedule in one window, so you can drag a task from a project straight onto the day you'll do it. Here's the whole loop.

1. Choose a starting point

   The first time you open DayMap it asks whether to begin with sample projects or a blank slate. Explore with sample data is the easier way in — you can clear it later from Settings with Remove Sample Data. Pick Start fresh if you'd rather build your own.

2. Make a project

   Press ⇧⌘N, or click the New Project button in the toolbar, or click the + at the far right end of the Project Planner. Give it a name, pick a color, and click Create.

   Each project becomes a colored column in the Project Planner. Color isn't decoration — it's how you'll recognize a task later in the Scheduler.

3. Add some tasks

   Click the + at the bottom of the column, type a name, press Add. Repeat. Don't worry about order or dates yet — just get things out of your head.

   To break a task down, hover it and click the + that appears on its right edge to add a subtask. You can nest as deep as you like.

4. Drag a task onto a day

   This is the part that makes DayMap DayMap. Drag a task from its column down onto a day in the Task Scheduler below. That's it — it's scheduled. The task keeps its project color, so you can see at a glance whose day is whose.

   Prefer the keyboard? Right-click a task and use Schedule ▸ Today / Tomorrow / Next Week.

   

5. Give one a time

   Double-click a task to open its details. Under Scheduled, turn on Set a specific time — it starts at 9:00 AM, adjust from there. Timed tasks gather in a pinned strip in their Scheduler day, in clock order, at the top by default — the Timed tasks in a day setting moves them to the bottom.

6. Work the day

   Press ⇧⌘F to open Focus — one day, one list, nothing else. Tick things off there, or click any checkbox anywhere in the app.

7. Capture things as they come up

   Press ⌃⌥⌘I from any app while DayMap is running. A small panel appears, you type a line, press Return, and it lands in your Inbox. Sort it into a real project later.

How DayMap is laid out

There's no sidebar. The window is two stacked areas, plus a search pane that slides in when you need it.

• The Project Planner (top) — your projects, side by side as colored columns, scrolling horizontally. The Inbox is always pinned to the far left.
• The Task Scheduler (bottom) — everything you've scheduled, as Week, Next 7, Month or Upcoming, plus your real calendar events if you've turned those on.
• The divider between them is draggable. Pull it up or down to give whichever half more room.

On Mac you can also click the maximize button in the Scheduler header (Maximize the Scheduler) to hide the Planner entirely and let the Scheduler fill the window. Click it again to bring the Planner back.

On iPad it's the same layout with a grip-handle divider you drag. If you drag the Planner almost closed, a small round Restore the Planner button appears in the Scheduler's top corner to bring it back.

The toolbar

Left side, in order: Voice Capture, New Task, New Project, Focus, the eye for Overlook, and Waypoint when you've switched it on. In the middle, the area filter, which also serves as the window's title. Right side: the Completed menu (how far back to show finished work) and the search field. On iPad there's also a gear for Settings; on Mac, Settings lives in the usual place at ⌘,.

A small cloud appears inside the search field only when iCloud sync can't start, with the reason. While sync is working normally, nothing shows. On iPhone the cloud sits in the toolbar instead.

Keeping the Inbox in view

With a lot of projects, the Inbox scrolls off to the left along with everything else. Turn on Keep Inbox in view — in Settings, or on the Inbox column's own menu — and it stays put while the rest of the Planner scrolls behind it. It's set per device, because it depends on how much width you have.

Projects & columns

A project is a column. Create one with ⇧⌘N, the toolbar button, or the + at the end of the Project Planner.

Renaming, coloring, reordering

• Rename: double-click the column header and type. Return saves, Escape cancels.
• Recolor: open the column's ••• menu → Color…. There are twelve preset swatches, or use Custom color for anything else. The header text flips between black and white automatically so it stays readable.
• Reorder: drag a column by its header. A colored line shows where it will land — drop on the left half of another column to go before it, the right half to go after.
• Resize: drag the column's right edge. Anywhere from 190 to 680 points wide. The width sticks.
• Collapse: click the ☰ icon in the header and the column shrinks to a narrow strip with the name running vertically. Click it again to expand. ⌥⌘← and ⌥⌘→ collapse and expand every project at once.
• Hoist: ••• → Hoist Project, or ⇧⌘H, collapses every other project so the one you're planning has the Planner to itself. Expand All Projects brings the rest back.

Project notes

Open ••• → Get Info for the project's details sheet: name, notes, color, and area. Any URL you type into the notes is detected automatically and listed underneath as a clickable link.

Sending someone a copy

The project's share menu has Send a Copy — as text on any device, and as a PDF on the Mac. It goes through the normal share sheet, so it can go wherever you'd send anything else. What arrives is a snapshot of the project as it stands, readable without DayMap, and it follows your completed-tasks setting so it matches what you're looking at. Notes are never included. To work on a project together instead, see Shared projects.

Archiving a project

••• → Archive Project, or press and hold it in the Projects list on iPhone. A finished project can be put away rather than deleted: it leaves the Planner, and its tasks stop appearing on your days — no Scheduler, no Bearings, no reminders, nothing on the watch. Every task, note and date inside it is kept.

To see what you've archived, press ⇧⌘A on the Mac, use the area filter menu on iPad, or on iPhone the Archive row at the bottom of your Projects list. Restore puts a project back exactly as it was.

An archived project doesn't count toward the five projects of the free version, so putting one away is never a reason to delete real work.

Deleting a project

••• → Delete Project. DayMap tells you exactly how many tasks go with it before you confirm, and the deletion can be undone with ⌘Z.

Tasks & subtasks

Add a task with the + at the bottom of a column, or ⌘N for a new task with its details already open.

Reading a task row

Left to right: a disclosure triangle if it has subtasks, a checkbox, a small red clock badge if it's scheduled, the title, an optional preview of its notes, and a deadline flag if it has one. Hover a row and a + appears on the right to add a subtask under it.

Nesting

Subtasks nest as deep as you want. With a task selected in the Planner, Tab indents it under the row above and ⇧Tab pulls it back out. You can also drag: drop onto the middle of another task to nest inside it, or onto the top or bottom edge to place it before or after as a sibling. Dragging a task carries all of its subtasks with it, even into a different project.

Completing a parent completes everything underneath it. Unchecking a parent leaves its subtasks alone, so a subtask you finished yourself stays finished — use ⌘Z if you meant to reopen the whole thing.

Bringing in a list

Copy a list from Notes, Reminders, Mail or a web page and drop it on a project. Each line becomes a task, and indented lines become subtasks. Drop it on a task instead and the lines become that task's subtasks. Past twenty lines, DayMap asks first, and ⌘Z removes every task the drop made, and only those. Mac and iPad.

Linking a file

Drag a file from Finder onto a task and DayMap adds a link to it in the task's notes. The file itself stays where it is — so one in iCloud Drive or Dropbox opens on your phone too, and one on your Mac's own disk won't, which DayMap says beside the link.

Keyboard in the Planner

Click a task once to select it, then:

The details sheet

Double-click any task (or ⌘I) to open it. Here you'll find its name, which project it belongs to, its scheduled date and optional time, its deadline, its repeat rule, notes, and any links found in those notes. Moving a task to another project from here brings its subtasks along.

For a repeating task, the date row depends on where you opened it from: one day from the Scheduler, or the whole series from its project. Repeating tasks has the details.

The list of projects is in alphabetical order, with the Inbox at the top. Archived projects aren't offered, and neither is the Templates library.

Deleting a task

If a task has subtasks, or repeats, DayMap asks before deleting it and says exactly what goes with it — how many subtasks, how many past occurrences. A plain task is deleted straight away, and ⌘Z brings any of them back.

Templates Pro

A checklist you run again and again — packing for a trip, publishing a post — can be kept as a template. Right-click the task and choose Save as Template…; it goes into your template library with its subtasks. To use one, open a project's ••• menu and choose New from Template.

A copy carries the title, the notes and the subtasks, and nothing else. It arrives unscheduled and unfinished, with no deadline and no repeat, because the old dates belong to the last time you did it. Drag it onto a day when you know when.

Scheduling

Four ways to put a task on a day, all equivalent:

• Drag it from its column onto a day in the Scheduler.
• Right-click → Schedule → Today, Tomorrow, Next Week, or Custom….
• Open its details and use the Scheduled row. For one day of a repeating task, see Repeating tasks.
• In Focus, use the Reschedule button.

Dragging an already-scheduled task to a different day keeps its time of day — only the date moves.

All-day vs timed

A scheduled task is all-day until you turn on Set a specific time, which starts at 9:00 AM. All-day tasks sit in the main body of the day; timed ones collect in a pinned strip, sorted by clock. That strip sits at the top of the day by default — the Timed tasks in a day setting moves it to the bottom. It stays pinned either way, so it never scrolls out of sight. In week view it shows three at a time with a +N more button to expand it.

A scheduled task with subtasks shows a small mark and a count in the Scheduler, so you can see what's underneath before you move it.

Week, Next 7, Month and Upcoming

The switch in the Scheduler's header offers four views. Week runs from the start of the week and moves a week at a time. Next 7 starts on today and moves a day at a time. Month is the whole month, and Upcoming is a continuous list of the days ahead.

⌘1 and ⌘2 jump to Week and Month. ⌘[ and ⌘] step backward and forward, ⌘T jumps to today, and the calendar icon in the header opens a date picker to jump anywhere. Every view accepts drops, so you can schedule a month ahead just as easily.

The Scheduler text size setting applies to Month too, on Mac and iPad. At Large and Extra Large the month's day numbers and task names are larger, and a busy day shows fewer names with a larger +N more.

Weeks start on Sunday or Monday, or follow your device's region — the Start week on setting. Following the system gives Sunday in the US and Monday across most of Europe.

Ordering a day

Drag tasks into the order you mean to work them — in Week view, in Upcoming, and in Focus. On a Mac, ⌥↑ and ⌥↓ move the selected task without dragging. On iPhone, open the Schedule tab's Day view, tap Arrange, and drag by the grips. Tasks with a time are the exception: the clock decides where those go.

Finding a task's project

Right-click a task in the Scheduler or in Focus and choose Take Me to its project. DayMap switches areas if it has to, opens the column if you'd folded it, and scrolls to the task. Mac and iPad.

Carrying unfinished work forward

Turn on Carry unfinished work to today in Settings, and anything left undone on an earlier day moves onto today the first time you open DayMap each day. It tells you what it moved and offers to put it back. Repeating tasks and finished ones are left alone. It's off unless you turn it on. Overlook counts what moved and can list it.

To do the same thing by hand, Task ▸ Bring Overdue to Today (⇧⌘T) sweeps every unfinished task from before today onto today, keeping any specific times intact. Repeating tasks are deliberately left alone here too, so a series doesn't collapse onto one day.

3 Daily Bearings

Any day can carry three tasks marked as the ones that matter most, numbered 1, 2 and 3. They're called your Daily Bearings — the direction you're steering that day, as distinct from everything else that happens to be scheduled on it.

Designate one from a task's right-click menu in the Scheduler, or from its row. The numeral appears beside it. A day holds three; designating a fourth asks which one drops.

A bearing moves to the top of its day's work. Set all three and they read 1, 2, 3 down the list, in the order you chose them. A task with a time keeps its place on the clock.

The numbering follows how the day reads, so a day is always numbered 1, 2, 3 with no gaps. Move a bearing to another day and the designation travels with it; unschedule it and the designation goes, because a bearing with no day has nothing to belong to.

Mark a repeating task as a bearing and it's one of the three on every day it comes round. Its number follows that day's order, so it might be 1 on Tuesday and 2 on Wednesday. If a day already has three, that day keeps the three you chose.

Overlook shows today's three at the start of each day, and offers a way to choose them if you haven't. Pro

Switch the feature off in Settings if you don't want it. Nothing is deleted — the marks come back if you switch it on again.

Deadlines

A deadline is when a task is due — separate from the day you've planned to do it. Set one in the task's details under Deadline. Deadlines are day-only; there's no time component.

Once set, a small flag appears on the task wherever it's shown, and it changes as the date approaches:

The flag disappears once the task is complete.

Repeating tasks Pro

Open a task's details and set Repeat. The task must already be scheduled — the picker stays grayed out until it is.

Options: Daily, Every Weekday, Custom Days…, Weekly, Every 2 Weeks, Monthly, Yearly.

And every few of them. Beside Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly there's an interval, so a task can repeat every 3 weeks, every 6 months, every 2 years — whatever it actually is.

And on the second Tuesday. Set a task to Monthly and an On row appears, offering the day of the month or the weekday position that task's own date sits on — Second Tuesday, Last Friday. The choices follow the date, so a task on the last Friday is offered Last Friday as well as Day 27. Move the task to a different week and the rule follows it.

Custom Days… reveals seven day circles — S M T W T F S — so you can build things like Monday/Wednesday/Friday.

When it ends

The End row offers Never, On Date, or After a set number of times.

How repeats appear

A repeating task appears once in its project column — that's the task itself, holding the rule — while the days it falls on appear in the Scheduler. DayMap works those days out from the rule as it draws them, so a series stretches as far ahead as you care to look without filling your project up with copies.

Completing one day completes only that day; the series carries on. Changing the rule changes today and everything after it, and leaves past days alone as history. Turning repeat off removes the upcoming ones.

In the Planner a repeating task shows a repeat symbol in the project's color instead of a checkbox, with how it repeats underneath its name — Weekly — Tue, Wed, Thu. That row is the rule, so there's nothing to tick there; click the symbol to change the rule. Tick it off in the Scheduler, in Focus, or on iPhone's Schedule tab, where each day is a real day.

Each day of a series can be nudged on its own — dragged to a different day, or taken off the Scheduler for that day only — without disturbing the rest. Right-click a day of a repeating task in the Scheduler for Skip This Day, Delete This and Future, or Delete Repeating Task — only the last takes the whole series.

Changing the date of one day

Open one day of a repeating task from the Scheduler, from Upcoming or from Focus, and under its date it says Changes this day only, with the day the series starts. Change the date there and only that day moves; the rest of the series stays where it was. The button beside the date reads Skip This Day, which takes that one day off.

Open the same task from its project and the date is labeled Starts. That is the series itself, so changing it moves the whole series.

In Focus, Reschedule on a repeating task moves only the day you're looking at.

The Inbox & capture

The Inbox is where anything you haven't filed yet lands. It's a permanent project pinned to the left of the Planner. The point is to get a thought down in a second and sort it out later.

The global hotkey (Mac)

Press ⌃⌥⌘I from any app while DayMap is running and a small panel appears in the middle of the screen. Type, press Return, it's in your Inbox. Escape or clicking away cancels.

Change the shortcut in Settings ▸ General ▸ Quick Add Shortcut. It needs at least one modifier key. DayMap doesn't need Accessibility permission for this.

Voice capture

⇧⌘D, or the microphone in the toolbar. Talk; the words appear as you go; press Add to Inbox. Transcription happens on your device. You'll be asked for microphone and speech-recognition permission the first time.

Siri and Shortcuts

DayMap gives Siri seven things it can do, and every one of them works without the app opening. Say the phrase, answer Siri's question if it asks one, and you're done.

You can't say the item in the same breath as the phrase — Siri always asks first. That's a rule of Apple's, not a DayMap setting, so "add this" doesn't capture what's on screen or what you just said; Siri still asks what you mean.

All seven appear in the Shortcuts app too, as Add to Inbox, Today's Tasks, This Week, Put On Today, Make It a Bearing, Complete Task and Remember This — so you can build any of them into a larger shortcut. They show up in Spotlight as well, with no setup.

Typing a day into a task

End a task with a day and DayMap schedules it there. Type Email Tom back on Tuesday and you get a task called Email Tom back, on Tuesday. Times work too — Standup Thursday at 3.

It works anywhere you type a whole task: Quick Add, the task editor when you create one with + or ⌘N, a column's New Task, and the add rows on iPhone. Quick Add shows you what it understood underneath the field before you press Return.

A day only counts when it's the last thing you typed. That's what keeps Meet with Tuesday Weld a meeting with a person, and leaves Order the March issue, Pay invoice 5 and Review Q1 exactly as written. Renaming a task you already have is left alone as well — only a task being named for the first time reads a date out of its name.

One exception: a task added from a particular day — a day's + in the Scheduler, or on iPhone's Schedule tab — goes on that day. The day you picked wins, and a date word you typed stays in the name, so Meet Tom Friday added from Tuesday is on Tuesday.

Filing what you've captured

Drag from the Inbox column into any project, or open a task's details and change its Project.

Focus

⇧⌘F, or the Focus button in the toolbar. One day at a time, with everything else out of the way. Mac and iPad only.

The left side lists that day's tasks, split into Timed and All day. The right side is a working pane for whichever one you've selected, where you can:

• Rename it, or edit its notes
• Toggle a specific time on or off
• See its repeat rule and when the next occurrence falls
• Tick off subtasks, with a progress bar and an N of M done count
• Reschedule it to another day. For a repeating task, only that day moves.

A status pill in the corner tells you where the task stands — Today, in 2h, Overdue 3d, Completed, and so on.

Step between days with the arrows either side of the date, or click the date to pick one. If a day is empty, DayMap offers a shortcut straight to your next scheduled day.

Overlook Pro

Overlook is the day at a glance, before you start on it. The name comes from the high point on a trail where the whole route is visible below. Overlook starts the day; Waypoint ends it.

When it opens

By itself, the first time you open DayMap each day, and not again that day. On a Mac you leave running, the first time you bring DayMap forward on a new day counts. It can take a few seconds after launch while DayMap catches up with iCloud. It never opens the very first time you use DayMap; the Welcome comes first.

What it shows

The date and how many tasks are on today, then, in this order:

• 3 Daily Bearings — numbered 1 to 3, each with its project.
• At a time — your timed tasks, plus today's calendar events if you've turned on Calendar Events. Events are gray and marked Calendar, with all-day events first.
• Deadlines — tasks due today or already past due (due today, 2 days overdue), most overdue first.
• Carried over — how many unfinished tasks moved onto today this morning, when Carry unfinished work to today is on. Show them lists which. To put them back, use Undo in the notice DayMap shows when it moves them; Overlook doesn't hold one.
• Everything else today — a count by project, such as 5 more: Work 2, Home 2, Inbox 1.

It shows the whole day whichever area you've selected, the same as the Scheduler and Focus. Overlook is for reading: you tick things off and move them in the Planner and the Scheduler as usual.

Choosing your Bearings

If today has no Bearings yet, Overlook shows three empty places and a Choose Bearings button. Choosing is optional, and Start the Day works either way. Once today has Bearings, the button reads Change Bearings.

On Mac and iPad the button opens Focus on today. On iPhone, which has no Focus, it goes to today in the Schedule tab's Day view. Press and hold a task there and choose Make this a Bearing, or swipe it if you've set a swipe to Bearing.

Closing it

Start the Day. On a Mac, Return or Escape does the same; on iPhone and iPad you can also swipe the sheet down. A Mac can't quit while Overlook is open, the same as Focus, so close it first.

Opening it any time

Turning off the automatic opening

On a Mac, Settings ▸ General ▸ Open Overlook each day. On iPhone and iPad, Settings ▸ Your Day ▸ Overlook ▸ Open Overlook each day. It's set on each device separately, so turning it off on your phone leaves it on for your Mac. The eye still opens it when the setting is off.

Overlook is part of DayMap Pro. Without Pro it doesn't open by itself, the eye and ⇧⌘O open the upgrade screen instead, and in place of the switch Settings shows Overlook is part of DayMap Pro — Upgrade…

Waypoint Pro

Waypoint is an optional end-of-day journal: a few questions, a couple of minutes, no scoring. Every good navigator stops at the end of a day's walk and marks where they actually are — not to grade themselves, but to orient.

Switch it on in Settings ▸ Show Waypoint. On Mac and iPad it opens from the toolbar, just after Overlook's eye, and on a Mac with ⇧⌘M too; on iPhone there's a pin on the Projects screen and another on Schedule.

Answers save as you go — leaving a field, changing the day, or closing the pane all write what you typed. Return starts a new line, so an answer can be a paragraph rather than one long sentence.

Nothing is created until you write something. A day you open and don't fill in leaves no record at all — nothing stored, nothing synced, and nothing for a later review to count as a day you missed. Looking Back lists only the days you wrote on, newest first.

If you write on two devices on the same day before they've synced, both pieces are kept and joined rather than one replacing the other.

Choosing the questions

In Settings, under Show Waypoint, Questions asked lists every question, DayMap's and your own, and you can switch off any you'd rather not be asked. Nothing you've already written is removed — look back at an earlier day and the question and your answer are both still there.

A question of your own can be a checklist. Write one — Things that matter each day — save it, and give it up to ten check boxes: water, a walk, reach out to a friend. Reword the question later and the boxes stay.

Sharing what you've written

The share button at the top of the pane offers the day you're looking at, This Week, This Month or Everything, as plain text. Days you didn't write on are left out. Nothing leaves DayMap unless you send it.

Summary Pro

A look back over what you finished. Overlook opens the day and Waypoint closes it; Summary is the longer view — a week, a month, a quarter or a year, built from your own records.

Opening it

It isn't on Apple Watch.

What it shows

• How much — tasks completed, split into one-off and recurring, and how many of the days you were active.
• Day by day — a row per day for a week, and per week for anything longer, so a year stays readable.
• What you finished — the tasks themselves, grouped by project. A repeating task appears once with a count beside it, as ×4, rather than four times.

Archived projects and the template library are left out. A repeating task counts once for each day you completed it.

Which span it opens on

Week opens on last week, because that is usually the one worth looking back on. Month, Quarter and Year open on the current one. The arrows beside the buttons step further back.

Waypoint entries

Include Waypoint adds your journal to the document. It is off every time you open Summary, and stays off until you ask — a journal should never end up in something you meant to share without you putting it there.

Saving and printing

Reading a summary is free. Save PDF… is on every platform and Print… is on the Mac; both are part of DayMap Pro. Without Pro the buttons are still there with a padlock, so you can see what you would be getting.

Search & completed tasks

Search

Type in the toolbar's search field — ⌘F puts the cursor there on a Mac. A results pane slides in from the right, and at the same time the Planner itself filters down to matching tasks — so you get both the list and the area.

Search covers task titles and notes. Each result shows a breadcrumb of where it lives, like Work › Launch plan › Draft copy. Click one to open it.

Showing and hiding completed work

The Completed menu in the toolbar controls how much finished work stays visible:

• Hide completed
• Completed today
• Last 7 days — the default
• Last 30 days
• All completed

⇧⌘C toggles quickly between hidden and the last 7 days.

Clearing out old items

In Settings you can turn on Delete completed items after a number of days (90 by default). This is off unless you turn it on, and it permanently deletes — it's a cleanup, not an archive.

Areas Pro

Areas group your projects into the domains your life actually splits into — Work, Family, Home. A project belongs to one area, or to none, and it can also be set to appear in as many others as you like — open its ••• menu and choose Areas….

An area filter shows the projects filed under the areas you picked, plus any project set to appear in one of them. Everything else is hidden, including projects you haven't filed at all — those live under No Area. To make a project span everything, like the calls and emails you owe each day, tick every area under Also appears in. The Inbox is the one exception: it's never filed anywhere and stays in view whichever area you pick.

These used to be called Contexts. The word changed in 1.12 and nothing moved: your projects are filed exactly where they were. In GTD a context is where you can do something (@phone, @errands); what DayMap groups is a domain of responsibility, which is an area — and now it says so.

Create one from the filter menu in the toolbar (New Area…), from the New Project sheet, or in Settings ▸ Areas.

To file a project, open its ••• menu and choose Areas… — on iPhone, press and hold the project in the Projects list. The sheet asks two separate things: Belongs to is the one area it's filed under, and Also appears in is everywhere else you want to come across it. A project's Get Info panel sets the first of those too.

Creating your first area is the part Pro pays for. Once you have areas, moving projects among them is free — if your subscription lapses you can still tidy the filing you built.

Showing one, or several

Clicking an area switches to it. Click Work and you see Work. Click Family and you see Family — not both.

To see more than one at once, either hold ⌘ and click, or use Show Several… in the same menu, which gives you a checklist. Show Several… is also how it works on iPhone and iPad, where there's no key to hold.

All Areas shows everything, including projects you haven't filed. No Area shows only the unfiled ones, which is how you'd go and file them. On a Mac, ⌃Tab and ⌃⇧Tab step through your areas.

When exactly one area is showing, a new project you create is put in it automatically. With several showing there's no right answer, so it stays unfiled rather than DayMap guessing.

Rename, recolor or delete areas in Settings ▸ Areas. The projects in an area are never deleted with it — but you choose where they go. Deleting an area that still holds projects asks first, and offers to archive them — the button names how many — or to Keep Them on the Board, where they land under No Area and the filter menu counts them so none go missing. Archiving is the reversible one, and usually what you want if you've finished with that body of work. An area holding nothing is deleted without asking.

Drag an area's row in Settings ▸ Areas to reorder it (on iPhone, tap Edit first). The order you choose is the order everywhere — the filter, the New Project sheet, and your other devices.

Apple & Google Calendar Pro

Two separate switches that work in opposite directions. Turn on either, both, or neither. Both need Calendar permission, and both are set per device.

Sending your tasks out to a calendar

Settings ▸ Calendar Sync ▸ Show scheduled tasks in my calendar.

Every scheduled task is mirrored into a calendar of your choosing, so your tasks show up in Calendar, on your phone's lock screen, wherever you already look. Pick DayMap (automatic) to have it create a dedicated calendar, or choose one of your own.

• Timed tasks become one-hour events; all-day tasks become all-day events.
• Repeating tasks become a single native recurring event rather than hundreds of copies.
• Notes come along.
• This is one-way. DayMap writes out; it never reads changes back in.
• Turning it off removes every event DayMap created.

Bringing your events into DayMap

Settings ▸ Calendar Events ▸ Show my calendar events in DayMap.

Your real appointments appear alongside your tasks in the Scheduler, so you can see that Thursday is already full before you drop four tasks on it. Choose which calendars to include from the checklist.

• Events are read-only. DayMap never edits or deletes them, and they have no checkbox — a deliberate tell that they aren't yours to complete.
• Clicking one opens it in Calendar.
• The calendar DayMap writes into is automatically left out of this list, so your tasks don't appear twice.

If a task doesn't appear

Open Settings ▸ Calendar. If DayMap couldn't write it, a line there names the task and the reason — a calendar it can't write to, or Calendar being unavailable at that moment. Nothing appears there while it's working.

DayMap keeps trying on its own, so a passing problem usually clears itself. If the reason mentions permission or a read-only calendar, point DayMap at one it can write to. The same line appears when DayMap removed a task but couldn't remove its event, which is worth knowing — otherwise an event stays in your calendar for something you've already dealt with.

If events look wrong

Rebuild Calendar Events clears out DayMap's events and re-syncs from scratch. This is the fix for duplicates or leftovers stuck at 12 AM.

Reminders Pro

Off until you turn them on, in Settings ▸ Reminders. DayMap asks for notification permission at that moment, not at launch.

A task notifies you if it's scheduled, has a specific time, and isn't done. The notification shows the task name with its project underneath; tapping it opens that task.

Things that never notify: all-day tasks (no time to fire at), completed tasks, and deadlines. Reminders look at the scheduled time only.

DayMap keeps roughly the next month of reminders queued, up to the 64-alert limit Apple allows any app. If you have more timed tasks than that, the soonest ones win, and the queue rolls forward each time you open the app.

iCloud sync Pro

With Pro active and Use iCloud on, DayMap keeps your projects and tasks in step across every device signed into the same iCloud account. Without Pro, everything stays local to one device.

Anything you created before upgrading gets uploaded on that first synced launch, so nothing is stranded.

Turning iCloud off only stops that device syncing. It doesn't delete anything from iCloud or your other devices.

Settings shows the live status beside Use iCloud, with a short report underneath of whether setup, download and upload are working — on iPhone and iPad as well as the Mac. If something has stopped, the reason is there and can be selected and sent to support.

When it stops

An orange cloud beside Search means DayMap has something to say about syncing. It appears only for a problem, so nothing there means nothing is wrong. Clicking or tapping it opens the report.

Your work is safe on the device either way — nothing is lost while it waits; it just hasn't been copied to your other devices yet. Quit DayMap and open it again clears most of it.

If the same thing keeps coming back, Reconnect to iCloud sits under the report. DayMap sets up its iCloud connection again the next time it opens. Your projects and tasks aren't touched and nothing is removed from iCloud. It's worth trying when changes have stopped reaching your other devices and reopening hasn't helped.

DayMap doesn't use iCloud Drive for your tasks, so it syncs whether iCloud Drive is on or off.

iCloud sync keeps your own devices in step. To work on a project with somebody else, see Shared projects.

Shared projects Pro

Share one project with another person and you both work on the same tasks. Add or edit on either side and the other sees it.

Switching it on

Sharing is off until you turn on Shared projects in Settings, next to Use iCloud. That adds Share Project… to every project's ••• menu.

Inviting somebody

Choose Share Project… and Apple's own sharing panel opens, so the invitation can go by Mail, Messages or a link. Once a project is shared, the same menu item reads Manage Shared Project….

What's shared, and what isn't

• Shared: the project's tasks and subtasks, notes, deadlines and repeats, and anything either of you ticks off.
• Notes cross too. Notes on the project and its tasks are part of what you share. If a project holds notes meant only for you, move them out before you invite anybody.
• Your areas stay yours. An area holds other projects that aren't shared, so it can't travel with one that is. The other person sees the project on its own and files it wherever they like on their side.
• The name stays yours. They can edit everything inside the project, but not rename the project itself.
• One project at a time. Your Inbox, your template library, your other projects and your Waypoint stay private.

Ticking things off together

Tick something off and it's done for both of you, on every day — for an ordinary task and for each occurrence of a repeating one. If the other person marks Tuesday done on a weekly task, you see Tuesday done.

Bearings are the exception worth knowing. A bearing is marked on the task itself, so a task you make one of your three in a shared project shows as a bearing for the other person too. For the same reason they can't make a shared task one of their three — DayMap says so on the spot. Bearings on their own projects work as always.

Stopping, or leaving

If it's your project: choose Manage Shared Project… and stop sharing from Apple's panel. The project stays with you, keeps its area, and goes back to being private.

If it was shared with you: choose Leave Shared Project…. DayMap asks first, because from your side leaving looks much like deleting. The project leaves your devices and stays with its owner, untouched.

When a share ends, the other person is told which project went, and that their own work is untouched.

Shared projects appear on your Mac, iPad and iPhone. The Apple Watch shows only your own projects for now.

iPhone

The iPhone app is built around a five-item bar: three tabs and two capture buttons.

Quick capture

The raised + opens a small sheet asking "What's on your mind?". Type and press Return, or tap Quick Add, and it's in your Inbox. Project… sends it somewhere specific instead, and Details… opens it in the full editor. On a smaller iPhone, Project and Details show as icons so everything fits on one line.

Adding a task inside a project gives you Add and Details. Details opens the new task straight away, so a note, a deadline or subtasks are one step away.

Where DayMap opens

Settings ▸ Your Day ▸ When DayMap Opens picks the screen you start on — Projects, Today, Upcoming or Inbox. It applies when DayMap opens fresh, not when you come back to it from another app.

Day and Upcoming

Day shows one day with a week strip across the top. The arrows move a week at a time; tap a day in the strip to move within the week, or Today to come home.

Upcoming is a continuous scroll of the days ahead. You can drag a task from one day onto another here to reschedule it, or up and down within its day to reorder it.

To reorder a day in Day, tap Arrange, drag by the grips on the right, then tap Done. The Schedule tab remembers whether you were on Day or Upcoming.

Adding a task to a day

Every day's heading on the Schedule tab has a gray + at its right, in both Day and Upcoming. Tap it and Quick Add opens with that day already chosen; the sheet says where the task will land, such as Adds to Inbox and the date. Use Project… to file it in a project instead.

The day you tapped wins. Typing a date word — Meet Tom Friday — doesn't move the task, and the words stay in its name. In Day, a day with nothing on it has no heading; it says Your day is clear and offers an Add a Task button that does the same thing. The blue + in the tab bar works as before: into the Inbox, with no day.

Today's heading also carries the eye that opens Overlook.

Swipe actions

Swipe any task for a quick action. Out of the box, swiping right deletes and swiping left sets the task to today. Change either in Settings ▸ Swipe Actions — the choices are Delete, Add Date, Complete, Bearing (while 3 Daily Bearings is switched on), or None.

Add Date schedules the task for today. It doesn't open a date picker.

Working with tasks

Tap a task with no subtasks to open it. Tap one with subtasks and it expands instead — use the ⓘ button on its right to open its details. Long-press any task for Edit…, Copy and Cut, plus paste options where they apply.

Reorder projects by tapping Edit and dragging. Press and hold a project in the Projects list for its Info — name, color, areas, notes, and the Archive and Delete actions, all in one sheet. Archived projects are in the Archive row at the bottom of the list.

Apple Watch

The watch app does two things, deliberately.

Today

Everything still unfinished today, timed items first, with a N left count. Tap a row anywhere to complete it — there's no swiping or long-pressing to learn. When you're done, it says All clear.

Capture

Tap the microphone and dictate, scribble, or type. It goes to your Inbox. Nothing is recorded or stored — the watch's own input handles it.

A capture made away from your iPhone sends itself to iCloud on its own. If it can't, the watch says so rather than leaving you to find out later.

Complications

Two you can add to a watch face:

• Today — how many tasks are left and what's next. Available as circular, inline, rectangular and corner. Tapping it opens Today.
• Capture — a microphone that goes straight to the capture screen. Circular only.

Coming from the old DayMap

If you used DayMap years ago, your projects and tasks can come across — with their subtasks, notes, scheduled dates and completions.

On a Mac, open Settings ▸ Coming from DayMap 2? ▸ Import from DayMap 2…. If the old app's files are still on this Mac the panel opens straight to them. Choose the file named DayMap.b_storedata, or choose the Backups folder and DayMap takes the most recent one in it.

You see what it will bring before anything happens — how many projects and tasks, and what it can't bring. A backup of your current data is saved first, every time. And importing the same file twice won't make copies of anything, so if you're not sure whether it worked, run it again.

Your whole history

If the folder holds years of backups, Read All brings back everything they hold between them — including tasks you finished or deleted long ago. That's a separate button on purpose: most people want their current work, not their archive.

What doesn't come across

Tags, because DayMap has no tags. Attachments. Project colors, which the old app never actually stored. And if it can't tell how often a repeating task repeated, the task comes across without the repeat and DayMap tells you how many — rather than guessing an interval that would be wrong every week afterwards.

Backups & restore

DayMap backs itself up without being asked. It writes a snapshot when you open the app if the last one is more than six hours old, and again when you send the app to the background.

A snapshot holds every project, task and area. DayMap keeps the ten most recent, plus the newest from each of the last seven days.

In Settings ▸ Backups you can Back Up Now, Restore…, and — on Mac — Show Backups to open the folder in Finder. On iPhone and iPad you can export the latest backup to share or save it elsewhere.

Restoring

Restore in DayMap is additive. It puts back what's missing and doesn't delete anything you've made since.

Before it writes anything you get a preview: when the backup was taken, what's in it, and exactly what would be added. If nothing is missing it tells you so plainly rather than making you guess.

If you genuinely want to roll back — to undo edits, not just recover deletions — tick Also undo changes since this backup. That one rewrites changed items to match the backup and discards what you did after it.

Either way, DayMap saves a fresh backup of your current state before restoring, so the restore itself is reversible. If you've asked it to undo changes and that backup can't be saved, it stops and changes nothing.

If a restore can't be saved, DayMap says so, with the reason, and nothing is changed.

Free vs Pro

The free version is a complete task manager on one device. Pro adds sync and the features that assume more than one device or more than a handful of projects.

One purchase covers your Mac, iPad and iPhone, and Family Sharing extends it to everyone in your Apple Family group. There's a monthly plan, a yearly plan with a free trial, and a one-time lifetime option — all three unlock exactly the same features. The DayMap Pro section of Settings names the plan you're on, and holds Restore Purchases.

If Pro lapses, nothing you made is taken away. Sync, calendar sync and reminders stop until it's active again; your projects, tasks and existing repeats stay exactly as they are.

Keyboard shortcuts (Mac)

Creating & capturing

Tasks

Calendar

View

Printing

iPad with a keyboard

The iPad understands a smaller set. The rest of the menu bar is Mac-only.

Languages

DayMap is in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese, and follows the language your device is set to.

Using a different language for DayMap alone

This changes DayMap only, and leaves the rest of your device as it was.

If something reads wrong

The translations are new. Report a Translation Problem — in DayMap's Settings, and in the Help menu on the Mac — sends the exact words you're looking at, so the right line gets fixed rather than a guess at which one you meant.

Settings reference

⌘, on Mac; the gear icon on iPad and iPhone. The Mac keeps most of these on one General page; iPhone and iPad group them into screens such as Appearance, Your Day and Calendar.

Most display preferences follow you to your other devices. Light and dark doesn't — it's about the room a device is in — and neither does anything marked per device below.

Troubleshooting

My devices aren't syncing

Check three things: Pro is active, Use iCloud is on, and you've relaunched since turning either on. DayMap picks local or synced storage at launch and can't switch while running. Also confirm both devices are signed into the same iCloud account.

Then look under Use iCloud in Settings, which reports whether setup, download and upload are working. If one has stopped, the reason is written there — select it and send it to support if it doesn't make sense.

I can't find Share Project

Turn on Shared projects in Settings, next to Use iCloud. It needs DayMap Pro and iCloud sync, and it's off until you switch it on.

I can't tick off a repeating task in the Planner

In the Planner that row is the rule, not a day. Tick the day off in the Scheduler, in Focus, or on iPhone's Schedule tab.

Overlook didn't open this morning

It opens once a day, the first time DayMap opens, and it can take a few seconds after launch while DayMap catches up with iCloud. It needs Pro, and Open Overlook each day is set on each device separately — on the Mac under Settings ▸ General, on iPhone and iPad under Settings ▸ Your Day. The eye opens it any time.

Changing a repeating task's date moved only one day

Opened from a day, the date belongs to that day alone — it says Changes this day only. To move the whole series, open the task from its project, where the date is labeled Starts.

I'm getting the same reminder on every device

Reminders are per-device. Turn them off everywhere except the one device you want alerts on.

My calendar has duplicate or 12 AM events

Settings ▸ Calendar Sync ▸ Rebuild Calendar Events. It clears DayMap's events and re-syncs from your current tasks.

My tasks show up twice in the Scheduler

You've probably included DayMap's own calendar in Calendar Events. DayMap normally excludes it — if you switched destination calendars, uncheck the old one.

The Repeat option is grayed out

Either the task isn't scheduled yet — repeats need a starting date — or you're on the free plan.

I deleted something by accident

On Mac, ⌘Z undoes deletions of tasks and projects. If it's too late for that, Settings ▸ Backups ▸ Restore… puts back what's missing without touching anything you've done since.

I have two Inboxes

DayMap merges them on its own the next time it launches or syncs. Nothing is lost.

The repeating task only shows once in its column

That row is the task itself, holding the rule. The days it falls on appear in the Scheduler, worked out from the rule as DayMap draws them — so the series runs as far ahead as you care to look, without filling the column with copies.

Voice capture says access is off

Grant microphone and speech recognition in your system privacy settings, then reopen the capture window.