Moving from Microsoft ToDo to Trello with Power Automate

I know, crazy right!? I thoroughly enjoyed using Microsoft ToDo for quite some time, but as of late, like over the last several months, it’s been nothing but annoying. I’ve conceded that it’s my O365 account, or my Mac, or iPhone, or Fantastical, or COVID, that’s causing the issues. I live my life on my calendar and my task list, both personal and professional, and when tasks don’t save, don’t update, don’t complete, it’s really hard to keep track of everything. Microsoft support has spent a lot of time with me but with no success. So I’m moving on.

I jumped into Trello for a spell, and quickly regretted it, BUT I know Trello works for so many! (another post coming moving from Trello to Things). If you like Trello and want to move from ToDo into Trello, I made a Flow to move all of my lists and tasks!

Migrating with a Flow in Power Automate

Trigger: Recurrence

Since I wanted this to run once, I selected a recurrence trigger, 3 months out, just picking some arbitrary timeframe way out there. I run this once by Testing the flow, it runs, migrates the content, then I disable the flow so it doesn’t run again.

Microsoft ToDo: List all to-do lists

Super simple action, just get us the lists from my ToDo account.

After we get the lists, I added a Condition to only process lists that aren’t Tasks or Later Dated. These are two smart lists in ToDo, and if you include these, you’ll get duplicate tasks added. When you add a field from a list action, Flow automatically adds the Apply to Each actions.

Trello: Create a list

In the Yes option of the above Condition, we can start writing to Trello. First, we create a list in Trello for the list in ToDo:

For Board Id, select whatever board in your Trello account that you want to load all of these into.

Microsoft ToDo: List to-do’s by folder

Next, we want to get all of the tasks from the ToDo list.

For To-Do List, use the Id from the Trello: Create a list action. I also set Top Count to 999, since this will get all completed tasks along with your active tasks.

We then add a Condition to check if the task is completed or not. Since it’s completed, I don’t want to migrate it.

Trello: Create a card

In the Yes option of the above Condition, we then create a card in Trello:

For the fields:

• Board Id: Select the same board you previously created the list in
• Parent List Id: Use the List Id from the Trello: Create a list action
• Card Name: Use the Subject from Microsoft ToDo: List to-do’s by folder action
• Card Description: Use the Body Content from Microsoft ToDo: List to-do’s by folder action
• Due Date: Use the Due Date from Microsoft ToDo: List to-do’s by folder action

Done, now run your flow!

Since this has a trigger with a timeframe, go ahead and save your flow and then test it. Testing is a little bit of a lie, as it runs real data and makes real changes.

Keep Trello open as it’s running, you’ll see things pop in real time, it’s fun to watch ;)

Let me know how it goes! As I mentioned, I didn’t stay long in Trello, like maybe a week. I’ve since moved to Things, and I’ll have a post soon on how I migrated from Trello to Things (not a Flow).