Troubleshoot the Todoist and Outlook Mail integration

Todoist add-in is missing in the Outlook Mail desktop app

If you're using the Outlook desktop app, and the Todoist add-in isn't visible in your settings, your account may not have Connected Experiences turned on yet. Follow these steps to turn this option on for your Outlook Mail account.

Manage Add-ins option is missing

If you’re trying to set up the Outlook add-in, but the Manage Add-ins option isn’t visible, you’re either using a corporate account where your administration disabled the installation of web add-ins, or you are using an account type that isn’t supported by web add-ins, like an IMAP or POP3 account.

Can't authenticate Todoist using Google login on mobile

Due to security restrictions that Google places upon apps, it's not possible to use Google login to authenticate your Todoist account. As a workaround, add a password to your Todoist account, and use login via email and password to authenticate. 

Open emails in the Outlook app

When clicking an Outlook email in a Todoist task, your default web browser opens a new tab automatically where you can view the email. It's not possible to view the email right in Outlook.

Browser or app may not be secure

If you’re signing in to the Outlook add-in with your Google account, you may see this error message:

This browser or app may not be secure.

To resolve this, open Outlook web app and log in with your Google account.

If you’re using the Outlook desktop app or mobile app, log in with your Todoist email address and password instead. If you don’t have a password, here’s how to add one.

Outlook plugin is unverified

When using the Outlook Add-in, you may see this error message:

Outlook plugin is unverified and needs admin approval.

To resolve this, contact your network admin to grant access to the Integrated Apps option in the O365 admin portal. Then, have them select Add Apps and search for Todoist for Outlook.

From there, your network admin can choose to deploy the integration either for all users or for specific users. They’ll need to agree to the required permissions:

• Read basic email
• Sign you in and read your profile
• Maintain access to data you have given it access to

Todoist only uses Read basic email to link tasks back to their email. This permission doesn’t give Todoist access to message bodies or attachments.

Need admin approval when connecting Outlook

Todoist for Outlook asks Microsoft for the Read basic email permission instead of Read your mail. If your organization only lets admins approve app permissions, you may see a Need admin approval message the first time you connect Outlook.

To resolve this, your Microsoft 365 admin needs to approve the new permission once:

1. Open the Microsoft Entra admin center.
2. Go to Enterprise applications.
3. Open Todoist for Outlook Mail.
4. Select Permissions.
5. Click Grant admin consent.

Microsoft labels the permission Read basic email in all mailboxes, but it only covers the signed-in user’s own mailbox.

Something went wrong: AADSTS

If you're using Todoist on a company network, and you see an error that starts with:

Something went wrong

AADSTS: error description

Contact your IT department or administration and provide the exact AADSTS error code (for example: AADSTS50158) to help with troubleshooting. Here's a full list of Microsoft AADSTS error codes.

No weblink was provided by Outlook

If you’re consistently seeing a message about a missing weblink, there are two likely reasons:

1. Your IT team may be blocking email links from being accessed by our integration through Microsoft. If that’s the case, we recommend reaching out to them to request an exception for Todoist.

2. Microsoft may not be providing the link at all. We’re not sure why this happens. We’ve reached out to them but haven’t received a response. If this is the case for you, unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do on our end to fix it.

Prompts to log in to your Microsoft account

The Outlook add-in needs your permission to access the Microsoft Graph API to fetch a robust link to the email. This link is attached to your Todoist task. This is the only time Todoist requests your permission to access the API, nothing else. 

If you’re using the Outlook add-in, and it keeps prompting you to log in to your Microsoft account when you click the link, the email has likely been moved to another folder.

To open an email that’s been moved to another folder, like your Archive folder, log in to your Microsoft account when prompted and grant permission to use the Microsoft Graph API. After that, the email link works again.

If you choose to log out of your account in the add-in settings, you’ll also log out of both your Todoist account and your Microsoft account.

Broken email links

Email links keep working when you move the linked email to another folder in Outlook. If a link doesn’t open, log in to your Microsoft account when the add-in prompts you, then try the link again. Here’s more about these prompts.

If the link still doesn’t work, use the add-in to create a new task from the email. We recommend deleting the old task with the broken link in Todoist.