Sift Download

Your Reminders, sorted by urgent against important.

Sift is a fast triage layer on top of Apple Reminders. It uses the lists you already have, and there is nothing to migrate.

Download for iPhone Download for Mac

Free. No account, no server, no subscription.

The Eisenhower lens

Urgent against important, laid over the lists you already keep.

Your tasks are already in Reminders, in the lists you keep there.

Sift sorts them by urgent against important. A task’s quadrant comes from its due date and priority, and you can move it by hand whenever that is wrong about your day.

Name the quadrants your way: plain verbs, the classic Eisenhower labels, or one word each.

A figure: twelve tasks from Reminders, first as one list, then sorted into four quadrants. Do holds Renew the passport, File the insurance claim and Send the Acme proposal. Schedule holds Switch the electricity tariff, Get the lease agreement signed and Renew the vehicle registration. Quick Wins holds Pick up the dry cleaning, Collect the parcel and Fix the squeaky door. Later holds Book a table for Friday, Look into standing desks and Try the new pasta recipe.

How it looks on Mac and iPhone
Show the Matrix on
Fig. 1Matrix on the Mac. Four quadrants, each with its count. The Matrix on the Mac, with the Overview’s week at the top of the sidebar. Do holds 3 tasks, Schedule 9, Quick Wins 3 and Later 13; each quadrant lists its first three, Do with Send the Acme proposal, Renew the passport and File the insurance claim.
Fig. 2Matrix on iPhone. The same four quadrants, stacked. The same Matrix on iPhone, the four quadrants stacked, each with its count and its first tasks.

One card. One decision.

Triage, not another inbox.

One card at a time, on the keyboard or under your thumb, until the pile is gone. Place it in a quadrant, snooze it, or move it to Someday. A task you are not going to do this week can be put out of sight without being deleted.

Sift suggests a quadrant and says why, and each quadrant says what it will set before you press it.

Fig. 3Triage on iPhone. One card, four places to put it. Triage on iPhone, the last of five cards: Reply to the landlord, with Sift’s reason for Later. Each quadrant says what it sets, and the tiles below count the four cards already sorted, one in each.

On the Mac

1–4
place it in a quadrant
⏎
take Sift’s suggestion
S
snooze
0
move to Someday
K
skip the card
U
undo

The day, once it is decided

The daily review walks what is overdue, what has gone stale and what you are waiting on. Then it asks one question.

What will you actually do today?

Your answer becomes the day’s focus. Today is the shortlist you chose, not everything that happens to be due. In the evening Sift asks you to pick tomorrow’s focus, grouped by why each task is offered. Finishing the day’s focus gets a small celebration.

On both devices. One leads the rituals, the other offers them fifteen minutes later, and finishing on either closes the day everywhere.

Fig. 4Daily review on the Mac. Four steps, then one question. The daily review on the Mac walks its four steps, Overdue, Stale, Waiting and Focus, then asks “What will you actually do today?” over four tasks, and three are picked: Send the Acme proposal, Renew the passport and Write the Northwind project brief.
Fig. 5Today on iPhone. Your focus tasks, ticked off one by one. Today on iPhone: the three focus tasks, Send the Acme proposal, Renew the passport and Write the Northwind project brief, are ticked off one by one, the count goes from 0 to 3 of 3, and the Focus done card comes in.

What needs you, at a glance

Overview draws your day instead of describing it.

A ring for what is left today, dots for what is overdue, seven bars for your week. Switch between what needs you, how today went, and your week.

On the Mac it sits at the top of the sidebar. On the iPhone it opens from Today and from Browse.

Fig. 6Overview on iPhone. Your day as a ring and dots. Overview on iPhone, opened over Today: the ring with 2 left today, two of three focus pips filled, 2 overdue, and 5 to triage.

Every capture, sorted

Add a task the moment it occurs to you. Quick add reads dates as you type them, like 16/9 or tomorrow.

On the Mac

  • The menu bar: what is burning, one click away, and quick add without leaving your app.
  • ⌥Space opens quick add from anywhere.
  • Add a page from Safari’s Share menu, selected text from Services, or anything from Shortcuts.

On both

  • The “Add to Sift” Shortcuts action, with title, notes, link, list and due date.
  • Notifications with Complete and snooze buttons.
  • Your own iCloud keeps the Mac and the iPhone in step.

On the iPhone

  • The share sheet: share a page or text from any app.
  • Widgets for the Home Screen and the Lock Screen: Today, and On fire for what needs attention first.
Fig. 7Share from Safari. Any page becomes a task. A page shared from Safari on the Mac: the Add to Sift card with the title Write the Northwind project brief and the page’s link. Add is pressed, the card says Added to Sift with a tick, and the task goes to the Inbox.
Fig. 8Inbox on iPhone. New tasks wait here for triage. The Inbox on iPhone: five tasks to triage, Book a table for Friday first. The task shared from Safari, Write the Northwind project brief, arrives at the top and the count goes from 5 to 6.

Still a Reminders task

Delete Sift tomorrow. Reminders keeps every task exactly as Sift last left it.

Fig. 9Before and after Sift. Sift’s marks go; your reminders stay. The same five reminders before and after Sift. The quadrant and focus marks are Sift’s and go with it; the titles, dates and lists are Reminders’ and stay.

No lock-in, by construction

Sift reads and writes your tasks through EventKit, Apple’s own framework, so they stay ordinary reminders that Reminders, Siri and your other apps still see. Sift keeps only its own lens on the side.

It never touches what it cannot see

Tags, subtasks, attachments and flags are invisible to EventKit, so Sift neither shows nor rewrites them. It never writes into your notes.

No account, no server

The lens lives in your own iCloud private database, which nobody else can read, including the developer. No telemetry, no analytics, no advertising identifier. Read the privacy policy.

Get Sift.

iOS 18 or later iPhone Widgets and the share sheet. Download on the App Store Download on the App Store macOS 15 or later Mac The menu bar, quick add from anywhere and capture from Safari. Download on the Mac App Store Download on the Mac App Store

On both: the Matrix, triage, the daily review, today’s focus and the Overview, kept in step through your own iCloud.

Free, no subscription, no in-app purchases.