Skip to content
OpenTask

FAQ

Edit this page on GitHub

Where is my data?

Everything lives in a single /data volume: the SQLite database (opentask.db), your attachments/, nightly backups/, and the auto-generated secrets.json. There is no external database and no cloud component. Back up (or move) the whole /data directory and you have moved your entire instance. See Data & volume layout.

How do backups and restore work?

OpenTask takes a nightly snapshot with SQLite's VACUUM INTO and zips it (with your attachments unless disabled) into /data/backups, keeping the last 14 by default. From Settings → Backups you can list and download snapshots, click Back up now, or restore by uploading a zip — a restore is verified and swaps in behind a maintenance lock, taking a safety snapshot of the current state first. Full details, retention semantics, and a manual fallback are in the Backups guide.

Why don't push notifications work on my iPhone?

Apple only delivers Web Push to a site that has been added to the Home Screen, and only on iOS/iPadOS 16.4 or newer. In Safari, open OpenTask, tap the Share button, choose Add to Home Screen, then open OpenTask from the new icon and enable notifications there. (OpenTask shows these steps in an in-app install dialog.)

If you can't or don't want to install to the Home Screen, use the ntfy channel instead: configure it in Settings → Notifications and install the ntfy app. ntfy (and gotify) deliver reliably on iOS without the Home-Screen requirement.

Why does Google Calendar lag behind my iCal feed?

That's Google, not OpenTask. Google Calendar refreshes subscribed (webcal/ external) calendars on its own schedule — typically every 8 to 24 hours — so new or changed tasks can take most of a day to appear. Apple Calendar and most desktop clients let you set a much shorter refresh interval. The feed itself (/ical/<token>/tasks.ics) is always current; only the client's poll frequency is slow. See the REST API page for the feed and how to rotate its token.

Why is priority 1 "highest" here but 4 in Todoist's API?

OpenTask stores priority the intuitive way: 1 = p1 (highest) … 4 = p4 (default). Todoist's REST API inverts this — in their API, 4 is the highest priority and 1 is the default (the Todoist UI still labels them P1–P4). When you import from Todoist, OpenTask maps the values for you, so a Todoist P1 task stays a p1 task here.

How do I re-open registration?

Registration is open until the first account is created, then it locks automatically. To create another account, set OPENTASK_ALLOW_REGISTRATION=true and restart the container; the sign-up form reappears. Turn it back off afterward to relock. See Configuration → Core.

How do I turn off the update check?

Set OPENTASK_DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK=true and restart. OpenTask otherwise polls GitHub Releases once a day to tell you when a newer version is available; nothing is ever downloaded or installed automatically.

Do I need HTTPS?

For anything beyond local testing, yes. Browsers only allow Web Push and installing the PWA ("Add to Home Screen") on a secure (HTTPS) origin, so reminders-to-device and the installable app require TLS. http://localhost is the one exempt origin, which is why everything works when you're testing on the same machine. Terminate TLS at a reverse proxy and set OPENTASK_PUBLIC_URL — see Running behind a reverse proxy.

What's explicitly out of scope?

OpenTask is single-user and deliberately narrow. Not planned for v1:

  • Sharing / assignees / teams — it is single-user by design.
  • Board & calendar layouts — list-first only (first candidates post-1.0).
  • CalDAV — the read-only iCal feed is the calendar integration; two-way sync is out.
  • Google Calendar two-way sync and location reminders.
  • Email reminder channel — the notification-channel interface exists, but SMTP isn't wired up (push, ntfy, gotify, and webhook are).
  • Native mobile apps — the installable PWA is the mobile story.
  • Localization — the UI and the Quick Add parser are English at launch.

These are non-goals, not promises. See the design spec's non-goals section for the full rationale.

Docs index · Install · Configuration