Google Finally Adds Task List to Gmail

The company's suite of office tools has been rounded out with an all-important task list for keeping track of day-to-day jobs.

Google fans who have been awaiting a Google-based task list feature for years finally got their wish on Monday, when Google developers officially unveiled a new Tasks feature for Gmail in a posting on the Gmail Blog.

Google has kept the task manager relatively lightweight, with less complexity than third party task managers that could be manually added to Gmail, such as Remember the Milk. Opening the task manager from Gmail’s sidebar opens a simple task window that allows users to add tasks by merely typing and pressing enter. More options, like moving items and arranging them into different lists, are available through icons on the bottom. Users can also convert e-mails (like the one reminding you to pay your credit card bill) to tasks through the Gmail interface.

The Tasks feature is available immediately through the Google Labs feature in Gmail, which acts as a sort of testing ground for new features that can be enabled and disabled as necessary.