Getting started
ALT puts your tasks and meetings on one day and counts the hours they take. Here is how to set it up and plan your first day.
What you need
A Mac with macOS 14 Sonoma or later. The beta is on the Mac for now. iPhone and iPad join the beta in December, and an Apple Watch app comes after them.
There's no account to create. Your plan is stored on your Mac, and there's no sync between devices yet.
The window
- Sidebar on the left: the Inbox, All Areas, then your areas with their projects. The gear at the bottom opens Settings.
- Views at the top: List, Day, Week, Month, Year, Completed and Notes. Each shows the list you picked in the sidebar.
- Chat on the right: the assistant. ⌘J shows and hides it.
- "+" in the bottom-right corner adds a task. Drag it into a list, and the new task goes where you let go.
Set it up in five steps
- Connect your calendars. In Settings → Calendars, press Allow Access... and confirm. Your meetings show up on the Day and count as busy time. See Calendars and meetings.
- Set your working hours. Open the Week and press Hours & Busy Time. Until you change them, the hours are Monday to Friday, 08:00‑20:00. See Time blocks and hours.
- Add an area and a project. Press New List at the bottom of the sidebar and choose New Area, for example Work or Health. Then New List → New Project in it. A project can hold another project, two levels deep.
- Add tasks. Press ⌘N or "+". A task without a project or a day lands in the Inbox. Give it an estimate with ⇧⌘E, so ALT can count its hours.
- Plan the day. Open the Day (⌘2) and drag a task from the plan onto the timeline. ALT shows how many hours of the day are planned and how many are left.
Want to plan by talking? Connect your own Anthropic, OpenAI or OpenRouter key in Settings → AI, then tell the chat what's on your plate. See The assistant and your AI key.
Moving around
⌘1 opens the Inbox, ⌘2 to ⌘8 open Day, Week, Month, Year, Completed, List and Notes. ⌘F finds a task, project or area by name, or just start typing. ⌘/ hides the sidebar. Right-click a task, block, meeting, project or area for its actions. The full list is in Keyboard shortcuts.
Every morning
Tasks you didn't finish yesterday move to today by themselves. A line over the Day says how many moved; Review lets you send each one to the week, take it off the day or mark it done.
After an update
ALT shows what changed when a new build opens. To see earlier changes, choose What's New in ALT... in the ALT menu. Settings shows the version and build, ready to copy: add them when you write to us at [email protected].