Your first five minutes

DayMap holds your projects and your calendar 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 board. Give it a name, pick a color, and click Create.

   Each project becomes a colored column on the board. Color isn't decoration — it's how you'll recognize a task later on the calendar.

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 calendar 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 at the bottom of their calendar day, in clock order.

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 board (top) — your projects, side by side as colored columns, scrolling horizontally. The Inbox is always pinned to the far left.
• The calendar (bottom) — a week or month view of everything you've scheduled, 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 calendar header (Maximize the scheduler) to hide the board entirely and let the calendar fill the window. Click it again to bring the board back.

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

The toolbar

Left side: Voice Capture, New Task, New Project, the context filter, and Focus. 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 ⌘,.

Projects & columns

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

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.

Project notes

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

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 on the board, 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.

Keyboard on the board

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.

Scheduling

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

• Drag it from its column onto a day in the calendar.
• Right-click → Schedule → Today, Tomorrow, Next Week, or Custom….
• Open its details and use the Scheduled row.
• 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 at the bottom of the day, sorted by clock. In week view that strip shows three at a time with a +N more button to expand it.

Week and month views

⌘1 and ⌘2 switch between them. ⌘[ and ⌘] step backward and forward, ⌘T jumps to today, and the calendar icon in the header opens a date picker to jump anywhere. Both views accept drops, so you can schedule a month ahead just as easily.

Weeks start on Sunday.

Clearing up overdue work

Task ▸ Bring Overdue to Today sweeps every unfinished task from before today onto today, keeping any specific times intact. Repeating tasks are deliberately left alone so a series doesn't collapse onto one day.

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 greyed out until it is.

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

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

DayMap lays repeats out ahead of time rather than generating the next one when you tick the last. Occurrences are drawn about six months forward and extended automatically as time passes.

This means the task appears once in its project column — that's the master, holding the rule — while all its future occurrences appear on the calendar. Completing one occurrence completes only that one; the series carries on.

Changing the rule rebuilds today's and future occurrences and leaves past ones alone as history. Turning repeat off removes the upcoming ones.

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 board. 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

Say any of: "Add to DayMap", "Add to my DayMap Inbox", "Capture in DayMap", "New DayMap item". Siri asks "What would you like to add?", you answer, and it's filed without the app ever opening.

You can't say the item in the same breath as the phrase — Siri always asks first. The same action is available in the Shortcuts app as Add to Inbox if you want to build it into a larger shortcut.

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

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.

Search & completed tasks

Search

Type in the toolbar's search field. A results pane slides in from the right, and at the same time the board itself filters down to matching tasks — so you get both the list and the context.

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.

Contexts Pro

Contexts group projects into broader areas of life — Work, Family, Hobby. A project belongs to at most one.

Create one from the filter menu in the toolbar (New Context…), from the New Project sheet, or in Settings ▸ Contexts. Assign a project via its ••• menu → Context, or in its details sheet.

Use the filter menu to show only one context's projects at a time. All Contexts shows everything; No Context shows the unfiled ones. When a filter is active, a new project you create is put in that context automatically.

Rename or delete contexts in Settings ▸ Contexts. Deleting a context doesn't touch the projects in it — they just become uncategorized.

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 on the calendar, 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 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

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 ▸ General shows the live status: "Syncing with iCloud", "iCloud sync is off — data stays on this Mac", or a prompt to sign in to iCloud if you aren't.

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 and it's in your Inbox — or use Add to Project… to send it somewhere specific instead.

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.

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, 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.

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.

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.

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 context. 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.

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. There's a yearly plan, a monthly plan, and a one-time lifetime option. Already bought it? Restore Purchases is in Settings.

Keyboard shortcuts (Mac)

Creating & capturing

Tasks

Calendar

View

Settings reference

⌘, on Mac; the gear icon on iPad and iPhone.

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.

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 calendar view

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 greyed 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's the master, holding the rule. Its occurrences live on the calendar, drawn about six months ahead.

Voice capture says access is off

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