Archive and Task Completion

Kan Do never deletes anything just because you finished it. Completed tasks either stay on the board with a strikethrough or move to the archive, and you choose which.

#Completing a task

Tap the circle on a card or row. It fills with your accent color, a small sparkle burst plays, and the title draws a strikethrough. What happens next depends on the Task Completion setting:

• Keep on Board: the task stays exactly where it is, crossed out. You can still drag it, open it, and uncheck it.
• Move to Archive: after the strikethrough draws, the card fades out and the cards below slide up. The task is now in the project's archive.

Widget check-offs, Siri, and Shortcuts honor the same setting.

#Setting it app-wide

Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Task Completion sets the default for every project. Switching to Move to Archive immediately archives tasks that are already completed, except in projects that have their own Keep on Board setting.

#Setting it per project

Project Settings has its own Task Completion choice: App Setting, Keep on Board, or Move to Archive. A project's own choice overrides the app-wide setting, so a kanban board can keep its finished cards in a Done column while your errand lists sweep themselves clean. Switching a project to Move to Archive archives its already-completed tasks. Like Sort By, this is a device preference.

#Archiving by hand

You don't have to complete a task to archive it:

• Right-click or press and hold a card and choose Archive.
• A column's … menu has Archive All Tasks (keeps the column) and Archive Column (archives the column and its tasks together).
• A project's context menu in the sidebar has Archive for the whole project.

#Finding archived things

There are two archive views:

#The project's archive

The box icon in a project's toolbar shows what's archived in that project, in two sections:

• Tasks, each with Restore Task and Delete Task.
• Boards, listing archived columns as "Column name (count)", each with Restore Column and Delete Column.

Restoring a column brings back the column and its tasks together.

#The sidebar archive

The box icon at the top of the sidebar shows archived projects and archived tasks across the whole app, each row with Restore and Delete. When nothing is archived it reads "Nothing Archived".

#Restoring

Restoring a task always marks it incomplete again and puts it back in the column it came from. If that column was deleted, the task goes to the Inbox. Kan Do records the archive and restore dates in the task's History section.

#Deleting

Delete in either archive view removes the item from your boards on every device. On iPhone and iPad, shake to undo works for a few seconds after deleting a task; on the Mac, ⌘Z.

#Recently Deleted

A deleted task isn't gone right away. The device you deleted it on keeps it for 30 days, with its note, subtasks, and attachments.

Open the box icon at the top of the sidebar and choose Recently Deleted…. Each row shows the task, where it lived, when it was deleted, and how many days are left.

• Restore puts the task back where it was, on all your devices. If its column has been deleted since, it goes to the Inbox.
• Swipe a row (or right-click it on the Mac) for Delete Now, and Delete All clears the list. Both are final.

Things to know:

• Recently Deleted lives on the device where the task was deleted. It doesn't sync, so look for a task on the device you deleted it from.
• It covers tasks deleted in the app or through Siri. Deleting a whole column, project, or space doesn't put its tasks there, and neither do deletions made by an AI assistant or on another device.
• An attachment that hadn't finished downloading from iCloud when the task was deleted can't be kept.

#Emptying the archive

Empty Archive… in the same menu deletes every archived task at once, after asking. Archived projects and columns aren't touched. The tasks go to Recently Deleted on that device, so there are still 30 days to change your mind.

To have Kan Do do this for you, set Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Delete Archived Tasks to After 30 Days, After 90 Days, or After 1 Year. It's Never unless you choose otherwise. Once a day, the device with the setting turned on removes tasks that have been in the archive that long, on all your devices.

#Completed tasks in smart lists

Under Keep on Board, completed tasks still appear in Inbox and in a project's list, crossed out. Under Move to Archive they disappear from every list. Today, Upcoming, and Flagged only ever show incomplete tasks, and the Calendar shows dated tasks whether or not they're done.

#Widgets and archived columns

A widget showing a project lists its open tasks only. Completion columns and archived columns are left out.