Two ways to get a to-do out of an email. Microsoft To Do waits for you to flag the message in Outlook and copies its subject line. Pidgy reads the message itself, across Outlook and Gmail, and writes down what you actually have to do.
Choose Microsoft To Do if you want a free checklist that lives inside Microsoft 365 and you are happy to flag emails yourself. Choose Pidgy if the tasks you keep losing are buried in the body of emails, if you split your day between Outlook and Gmail, or if To Do's flagged list (100 flags, 30 days, primary mailbox only) keeps quietly dropping things. To Do costs nothing and takes a minute to switch on. Pidgy is in early access and does more of the work: it reads every message, extracts the real action (including things you promised in your own replies), ranks it, files it under a project, plans it into your calendar, drafts the reply and chases the thread when it goes quiet.
Nobody compares these two because they look alike. People compare them because both promise the same thing, a task that starts as an email.
Microsoft To Do is the checklist that ships with a Microsoft account. It is free, quick, and it has one trick that matters for this page. Flag a message in Outlook and it shows up in a Flagged email list inside To Do, named after the subject, with a preview and a link back to the message in web Outlook.
Pidgy is an AI inbox agent rather than a list. It connects to Outlook and Gmail, treats both as one inbox, and pulls the to-dos out of the mail on its own. Nobody flags anything. So the honest question is not "which app has more features" but "how much of the email-to-task work do you want to keep doing by hand".
The same three emails, handled two ways. This is where the difference stops being abstract.
You open Outlook just before nine. A client asks for a revised quote by Thursday. A partner wants the Q3 numbers before the 12th. A supplier mentions, in the fourth paragraph, that two contracts are still unsigned on your side. You flag the first two. The third one you miss, because the subject line only said "catch-up".
In To Do you now have two tasks called "Revised quote?" and "Numbers". You rename them, add due dates, and pull them into My Day. It took four minutes, and the supplier's contracts are not on the list at all.
You open Pidgy just before nine. Three to-dos are waiting: send the revised quote to Priya by Thursday, pull the Q3 numbers before the 12th, chase the supplier for two signatures. The third one came from paragraph four. They are ranked, and each links back to the email it came from.
You drag the quote into a 20-minute block on Tuesday and the Q3 numbers into a two-hour block on Wednesday. Pidgy has already drafted the reply to Priya in your voice. You read it, change one line, click send. Two minutes, nothing missed.
Instead of a feature checklist, here is what each tool does with the jobs an email-heavy day throws at you.
| The job | Pidgy | Microsoft To Do |
|---|---|---|
| Getting a task out of an email | Happens on its own, for every message |
You flag it in Outlook first |
| Knowing what the task actually is | The action is written out from the body |
You get the subject line and a preview |
| Remembering what you promised someone | Your own replies become to-dos |
Only if you flag your own sent mail |
| Keeping an old follow-up alive | Stays until it is done |
Flagged items age out after 30 days, 100 max |
| Working from a Gmail account too | Outlook and Gmail as one inbox |
Primary Microsoft mailbox only |
| Putting the task on your calendar | Drag into a block, set length, Add to calendar |
No time blocking |
| Seeing how a piece of work is going | Project view with a live percentage |
Lists, no rollup |
| Writing the reply | Drafted in your voice, sent on your click |
Not what it is for |
| Nudging someone who went quiet | Chase queued for you |
A reminder to yourself |
| Knowing if you are on top of things | One Inbox Health score |
Count your unchecked boxes |
| Paying for it | Early-access pricing |
Free with a Microsoft account |
To Do's Flagged email list keeps the 100 most recent flags from the last 30 days, from your primary Microsoft mailbox. Anything older or further down simply leaves the list.
That limit is fine for a week of small favours and a problem for anything with a long tail. A proposal you sent in April, a document a client owes you since May, a supplier who said "next month": those are exactly the follow-ups that fall outside a 30-day window.
Pidgy has no such window. A to-do stays on the list until you close it, and if the thread goes quiet Pidgy queues a chase for you rather than waiting for you to notice. The other difference is what the item says. To Do gives you the subject line, so a task called "Thursday" tells you nothing a week later. Pidgy writes the action in plain words, because it read the message rather than copying its header.
Four steps, none of which need a flag. With Microsoft To Do, each of these is a thing you do yourself.
You do not have to throw it away. Keep To Do for the non-email parts of life and stop using it as an inbox bridge.
Three things change on day one. First, you stop flagging. Pidgy is reading Outlook (and Gmail, if you have one) the whole time, so the habit of marking a message "for later" has nothing left to do. Second, the tasks get longer and more useful, because they describe the action rather than quoting the subject. Third, the list stops shrinking on its own. Nothing ages out.
What you give up is a free, native Microsoft app. My Day is a pleasant nudge and Planner's "Assigned to me" list is handy if your team runs on Planner. Pidgy does not try to replace either of those. It replaces the part where you personally read every email to find out what is in it.
Free beats early access in three real situations, and pretending otherwise would make this page useless.
Stop reading emails to find out what is in them. Pidgy writes the to-do for you.
Request accessOther pages that help with the same decision.
Let Pidgy read your Outlook and Gmail, write the real to-dos, put them on your calendar and chase the ones that stall. Ask for early access below.