Help > How to use Twitter with Toodledo

Twitter is a third party service that can be used to add and retrieve tasks via SMS text message (on your cellphone) or via instant message. You can also receive reminders of tasks that are due in the next few hours. These reminders will be sent to you via IM or SMS text message.

Setting Up Your Twitter Account

First, you must make an account at Twitter. Then go to our "connections" page and type in your Twitter username. You will be given instructions on how to verify your Twitter account and finish the linking process.

If you want to link Twitter up to your IM client or mobile phone, you can do this via Twitter's "Settings" page. Keep in mind that your mobile phone company may charge you to receive SMS text messages and you will be fully responsible for these charges. Neither Twitter nor Toodledo charge for sending text messages.

Adding Tasks Via Twitter

To add a task via Twitter, send a direct message to Toodledo with the name of your task. Via IM or SMS you would type something like this, "d toodledo Call Jim". The 'd' at the beginning tells Twitter that this is a direct message to toodledo, and not a public message to be posted to your Twitter profile.

In addition to the name of the task, you can also set the priority, due-date, folder, and context using a special syntax.

• Priority - The default priority is "0 - Low". To set a higher priority use the ! character as many times as necessary. Typing !! would give your task a priority of "2-High".
• Due-Date - To set a due-date, use the # symbol and then type the due-date. For example: "#today" or "#Next thursday" or "#5/12/08".
• Folder - To set the folder use the * symbol and then type the name of your folder. For example: "*ProjectA".
• Context - To set the context use the @ symbol and then type the name of your context. For example: "@home".

Putting it all together, here are some examples of SMS or IM messages that you could send to add a task:

Retrieving Tasks Via Twitter

To retrieve a task via twitter, send Toodledo a message that starts with a question mark (?) followed by what tasks you want to retrieve. You can retrieve tasks based on due-date, priority, folder or context.

• Priority - Type from one to three exclamation points (!). For example: "!!!". This will return all tasks with a priority of "3 Top".
• Due-Date - Prefix it with a # and choose from overdue, today, tomorrow, this week, next week, or this month. For example: "#today". This will return all tasks that are due today. "#this week" would return all tasks with a due-date in the next 7 days.
• Folder - To fetch all tasks in a particular folder use the * symbol followed by your folder name. For example: "*Chores".
• Context - To fetch all tasks in a particular context use the @ symbol followed by your context name. For example: "@phone".

Putting it all together, here are some examples of SMS or IM messages that you could send to fetch some tasks:

Text messages are limited to 140 characters. If the number of tasks returned would exceed this limit, we will order the tasks by importance and then send you as many as we can, along with a note about how many we couldn't send you.

It may take 1-2 minutes for your query to reach our server, get processed and then get returned to you.

Reminders Via Twitter

If you have turned on reminders, we will send a direct message to your Twitter account for any task that has a due-date and due-time in the next hour.

You can turn reminders on and off by sending a direct message to toodledo with + or - as the message. For example: "d toodledo -" would turn reminders off and "d toodledo +" would turn reminders back on.