Getting started

Pinwork is a private, native task app for Apple devices. There is no Pinwork account to create. Open the app and start with Today. Your task contents stay private; Sync and privacy explains the limited usage events that help improve setup and purchases.

Your tasks live on your device and sync through your private iCloud database when iCloud is available. Pinwork also works offline, so you can keep capturing and planning even without a connection.

The main lists

Pinwork starts with a small set of lists that cover most day-to-day work.

• Today: your starting view, with tasks scheduled for today and work that needs your attention now.
• Upcoming: an interactive calendar for tasks scheduled ahead.
• Inbox: unscheduled tasks you captured quickly and still need to process.
• Projects: groups of related tasks, goals, or areas of work.
• Tags: labels you can use across projects and lists.
• All Tasks: the full task list with filters.
• Archive: finished work. Tasks appear here when they are Done or Canceled.

Apple Watch focuses on the lists that make sense on your wrist: Today, Inbox, and Upcoming.

Where navigation lives

Navigation changes by device size, but the lists are the same.

• iPhone and compact iPad: use the bottom tabs for Today, Upcoming, Inbox, Browse, and Search. Open Browse to reach Projects, Tags, All Tasks, Archive, Settings, and optional workflow lists.
• iPad and Mac: use the sidebar. It contains Today, Upcoming, Inbox, Organize, System, pinned projects, and pinned tags. Organize contains Projects, Tags, and All Tasks. System contains Archive and Settings.
• Apple Watch: use Today, Inbox, and Upcoming from the Watch app.

Add your first task

1. Tap the add button. On Mac and iPad, you can also press Command-N.
2. Type the task.
3. Add a date in plain language if you want, such as Call mom tomorrow at 2pm.
4. Save.

If you add a date, Pinwork schedules the task. If you do not add a date, the task lands in Inbox so you can organize it later.

Capture now, organize later

You do not need to fill everything in up front. Save a task with just a title, then add dates, tags, or a project later from the task itself. Inbox is the safe place for anything you have not sorted yet.

Use natural language

Pinwork can understand dates, times, tags, projects, recurrence, and calendar commands while you type in supported capture fields.

For example:

Review pitch deck Friday at 2pm #startup

That can become a task scheduled for Friday at 2:00 PM with the startup tag.

Natural-language metadata commands currently use English grammar, even when the rest of Pinwork is localized. Your task title can still be written in any language.

See Natural language for the full syntax and the places where parsing is available.

The first-run guide

The first time you open Pinwork on iPhone, iPad, or Mac, an inline guide can walk you through the basics on Today.

It helps you:

• add your first task
• capture a complete task sentence with a date, time, estimate, or tag
• see how Pinwork separates the clean title from the details it understood

The guide uses the task you create. Deferring and completing tasks can be explored later in the optional Learn Pinwork project.

After you finish or skip, Pinwork confirms that Learn Pinwork was added to Projects. Choose Open Project to see its tasks. Setup does not ask for notification permission.

Pinwork asks about notifications when they become useful: the first time you save a task with a Deadline that is far enough away for a deadline warning, and you have not yet decided about notifications. Choose Enable Notifications to see the system permission prompt, or Not now to continue. Pinwork asks only once. Tasks from the guide do not trigger this question.

Finishing the guide does not open the paywall. Without Pro access, you can open the built-in learning tasks to read their notes and checklists, and mark them done. If this device has never had Pro, you can also save one task of your own: press Add, type it and save it. A task you saved during the guide counts as that task. Afterwards it opens for reading and can be marked done, but not edited. Adding another task, opening other tasks, or any other change shows available plans. You can also view plans in Settings. Project navigation stays available.

Settings > Notifications > Trial reminder starts on for new users. When notification permission and eligibility allow it, Pinwork schedules one follow-up about Pro for the first local 9am at least 24 hours after you finish or skip the guide. Pinwork cancels it when it detects trial or paid access. Existing saved preferences are preserved. You can turn it off in Settings without affecting task or deadline notifications. Calendar permission is requested when you use a Calendar feature.

If Pinwork detects that you already have existing tasks or restored Pro access, it can skip the automatic beginner guide so a fresh device does not feel like a new account.

Learn Pinwork project

After the first-run guide, Pinwork can add a pinned project called Learn Pinwork.

That project is optional. Its nineteen lessons cover:

1. Capturing a task in one sentence.
2. Planning with separate When and Deadline dates, plus deadline alerts.
3. Using the toolbar to choose a day, filter, sort, select tasks and undo changes.
4. Collecting ideas in Inbox and planning with Today and Upcoming.
5. Swiping right and tapping Tomorrow on iPhone/iPad, or choosing Tomorrow from a task’s right-click menu on Mac.
6. Completing a task and finding it in Archive.
7. Repeating tasks while retaining completed occurrences.
8. Organizing work with projects and tags.
9. Breaking work into checklist steps, with a practice checklist.
10. Connecting Calendar and importing Reminders in Settings > Calendar.
11. Temporarily hiding a task from Today, Upcoming and Inbox with Snooze while keeping it available in its project.
12. Capturing tasks across Apple devices.
13. Keeping task contents private and syncing through iCloud.
14. Managing tags: color, name, pinning, windows, and removing a tag without deleting the tasks or projects that use it.
15. Using project controls: Project Info, status, filters, sorting, pinning, windows, and deleting a project with its tasks.
16. Getting comfortable on iPhone, including holding and releasing + to choose where to add a task when you have an active plan.
17. Using expanded task cards, adaptive navigation, and Apple Pencil with Scribble to write task titles on iPad.
18. Moving between lists, opening task details, and finding actions with Mac keyboard shortcuts.
19. Using Today, Upcoming and Inbox on Apple Watch, capturing with system text entry, previewing notes, completing tasks and using swipe actions.

Each task includes an explanation and a practical example or next step. The toolbar lesson distinguishes Choose a Day from Calendar integration, explains Clear Filters and iPhone Reorder Tasks, and shows how to leave selection mode. Mac selection and Undo instructions use the keyboard and native menus. The privacy and sync lesson’s recap checklist also points to filters, sorting, batch actions, Search, Spotlight, Mac shortcuts, and AppleScript.

The device lessons have #iphone, #ipad, #mac, or #watch tags alongside their learning tag. Open one of those device tags in Tags to find its tips, or use the project’s filter. The tag names stay the same across interface languages. They group lessons; they never automatically hide them on another device. Browse the learning project on iPhone, iPad or Mac. The Watch has no project browser and shows only a preview of task notes.

New lessons are added after your existing tasks when the learning project is updated. Your order, custom edits, tags, dates, completion and checklist progress are kept. Earlier lessons you deleted stay deleted.

You can read the original learning tasks without Pro access and mark them done. Undo right after brings a lesson back. Their notes and checklists explain each feature, but editing, checking off steps, reopening and rescheduling tasks still require Pro. This preview follows each original lesson if you rename or move it. Adding your own task to Learn Pinwork, or giving it a lesson’s title, does not make it a lesson.

You can delete the project when you no longer need it. Deleting a project also deletes the tasks assigned to it.

Replay the guide

You can replay the first-run guide from Settings under Data.

Replaying the guide keeps your existing tasks and projects. It returns you to Today and walks through capture and inspection again, but it does not create another starter project.

If editing is locked after setup

On iPhone, iPad, and Mac, Pinwork can let you finish the first-run guide before asking you to choose or restore access.

If you close the access sheet without active Pro access, your task lists stay visible but editing is locked. Apart from the one free task described above, trying to add or change something opens the access sheet again. Original learning tasks can still open for reading and be marked done; opening other tasks requires access. This applies whether this device never had Pro or its access ended. Your tasks are not deleted.

Restore Purchases and plan management are available from the access sheet and from Settings.

Next steps

• Languages and localization: change the interface language and understand localization boundaries.
• Capturing tasks: every way to add a task.
• Natural language: write tasks with dates, tags, projects, and recurrence.
• Working with tasks: gestures, task details, properties, and actions.
• Sync and privacy: how your data stays yours.