Microsoft says that they love Linux and open-source, but we still do not have native support for a lot of its products on Linux.
While they could be trying to add more support, like the ability to install Microsoft Edge on Linux– but it’s not excellent for a multi-trillion dollar company.
Similarly, Microsoft’s To-Do service is also a popular one, replacing Wunderlist as it was shut down in 2020.
In case you’re curious, we have a lot of to-do list applications available for Linux. So, if you want to switch away from Microsoft To-Do, you’ve got options.
Microsoft To-Do is a cloud-based task management application that lets you organize your tasks from your phone, desktop, and the web. It is available to download for Windows, Mac, and Android.
So, if you would rather not use the web browser but a separate application, what can you do on Linux?
Kuro to the rescue.
Kuro: Unofficial Open-Source Microsoft To-Do App
Kuro is an unofficial open-source application that provides you a desktop experience for Microsoft To-Do on Linux with some extra features.
It is a fork of Ao, which was an open-source project that stepped up to become a solution for it. Unfortunately, it is no longer being actively maintained. So, I came across a new fork for it that seems to get the job done.
Kuro provides some extra features that let you toggle themes, enable global shortcuts, and more from within the application.
Note that this application is fairly new, but a stable release is available to try. Furthermore, the developer plans to add more themes and features in the near future.
Features of Kuro
If you tend to use Microsoft services (like Outlook), its To-Do app should be a perfect option to organize your tasks. You can even flag emails to create tasks out of it.
With Kuro desktop client, you get a few quick features to configure that include:
- Ability to launch the program on start.
- Get a system tray icon to quickly create a task, search, or check the available list for the day.
- Enable Global shortcut keys.
- Toggle available themes (Sepia, Dracula, Black, Dark).
- Toggle Auto Night mode, if you do not want to constantly change themes.
- Hide the tray icon, if you do not need it.
- Customize the font size as required.
In addition to some features, you can also access certain settings to enable/disable email notifications, confirm before deleting, and more such controls for the to-do app experience.
Overall, the experience wasn’t terrible, but I noticed some weird graphical glitches in the user interface for a few minutes. I am not sure if it is a known issue.
Install Kuro in Linux
You can find the .deb package for Ubuntu-based distributions from its GitHub releases section.
In either case, you can also get it from the Snap store for any Linux distribution of your choice. The package is also available in AUR for Arch Linux distributions.
The developer also mentions that a Flatpak package is on its way. So, you can keep an eye on its GitHub page for more information on that.
Have you tried this already? Do you know of a better Microsoft to-do client for Linux? Let me know in the comments below.
