Summary

• Don't limit yourself to Microsoft apps. Explore third-party options for better productivity on your Windows computer.
• Essential tools like Obsidian, TickTick, and Milanote can enhance your workflow and organization on your PC.
• Consider apps like Notion, Craft, and Spark for better note-taking, project management, and email handling on Windows.

Windows 11 comes with a bunch of productivity apps from Microsoft. However, you shouldn’t limit yourself to those Microsoft 365 apps only. The broader Windows ecosystem is packed with robust productivity apps from third-party developers, too. Of these, we have picked the top ten apps that deserve a place on your PC taskbar. We will go over some of the best note-taking, to-do, project management, personal Wiki, email, and screenshot apps for your Windows laptop.

10 Obsidian

Essential for critical thinkers

Aimed at personal use, Obsidian is a flexible writing app with several unique features. Its list of features include the ability to link related notes, an infinite canvas to lay out your ideas and brainstorm diagrams, built-in plugins to integrate add-ons like Kanban boards, Calendar, and Dataview, and an option to visualize your related notes through an interactive graph.

Unlike other apps, you can store your notes on the device and work offline without an internet connection. Obsidian is free for personal use. However, add-ons like Sync (allowing you to sync notes across devices for $5 per month) and Publish (which lets you publish notes to the web for $10 per month) do require a paid plan.

9 TickTick

Complete your tasks like a pro

TickTick is a Swiss army knife of productivity apps on Windows. It offers a bunch of small utilities to manage your workflow like a pro. You can keep track of your tasks, create lists, utilize tags, and even explore Kanban or Timeline view to manage your to-do items.

Other add-ons include a calendar view to check your events, a pomodoro with detailed statistics, and a habit tracker. The theming options are also worth checking out. They are thoughtfully designed and neatly divided into season and city series. The TickTick premium subscription is priced at $4 per month.

8 Milanote

Plan your ideas in an infinite canvas

Milanote is basically Microsoft Whiteboard on steroids. Whether you are a creative professional or designer or work with agencies, startups, or product teams, Milanote’s approach can deliver a smooth brainstorming and mind-mapping experience. It’s basically an infinite canvas with different blocks like comments, columns, notes, links, to-do, lines, tables, and more to arrange them on a blank canvas. It's entirely up to you to create and share your vision board with team members. The free plan limit you to 100 notes and 10 file uploads. The subscription plan starts at $10 per month.

7 Craft

All-in-one productivity app

Craft is one of the best OneNote alternatives out there. It allows you to create eye-catching notes and documents with different presets, cover images, background colors, and more. It offers a rich templates library, calendar integration, table of contents, robust sharing tools, a whiteboard, and an AI assistant to help you draft and summarize documents in no time.

The company recently implemented the most requested 'Reminders' function to stay on top of your important tasks. Craft has several paid plans for personal, family, and business use. The pricing starts at $10 per month.

6 Spark email

Perfect alternative to Outlook

Microsoft’s new web-based Outlook app is basic at best. If you are looking for a feature-packed alternative to handle your emails, you can’t go wrong with Spark. It offers a smart inbox to keep irrelevant messages out of your way, a new home screen experience to glance over your unread emails, AI add-ons to help you draft professional emails in seconds, and more.

Spark is free to download and use. However, if you want to unlock Spark + AI, new home screen, priority email, and other features, start a $5 monthly Premium plan.

5 Toggl Track

Keep track of your time

Toggl Track is a time-tracking software for personal and business use. If you frequently hire professionals, freelancers, project managers, or consultants, use Toggl to track their billable hours efficiently.

Toggl shows detailed reports and summaries of weekly data and analytics. You can forecast timelines and budgets, as well as track project progress and tasks right from the app. Compatibility isn’t an issue as it integrates well with third-party apps like Trello, Slack, Notion, Asana, ClickUp, Outlook, and more. The paid plans start at $10 per month. Head to Toggl's official page to learn all the plans in detail.

4 Slack

Have smooth communication with team members

Slack doesn’t require any introduction, does it? It’s a modern workspace communication tool for staying in touch with team members and organizations. It’s ideal for small teams, startups, and businesses and can be an excellent alternative to Microsoft Teams.

Slack uses a channel-based approach to keep specific topics and discussions separate. Slack also works well with third-party apps like Trello, Zoom, Jira, Google Drive, and more to automate your workflow. The company recently introduced Slack AI to summarize your conversations, help you find answers faster, and receive a recap of your missed messages. The Pro plan starts at $7.25 per person per month. You can add Slack AI for $10 per person per month.

3 Snagit

Miles better than the Snipping Tool

The default Snipping Tool on Windows leaves a lot to be desired for power users. Snagit is one of the oldest and feature-packed screen capture and recording tools on Windows. You can take scrolling screenshots, move or remove unnecessary elements from screenshots, recognize text, record videos and audio, and explore custom presets to automate certain tasks. Once you take a screenshot or record the screen, you can use the built-in editing features to add numbers and arrows, blur confidential elements or add shapes.

Snagit works well with third-party apps, too. You can quickly generate a link to content or upload directly to the apps you use frequently. The company offers a 14-day free trial. The one-time license is priced at $63, and it includes a year of maintenance. If you want to go with a subscription plan, be ready to pay $39 every year.

2 PowerToys

Essential productivity tools

Developed by Microsoft, PowerToys is another must-have productivity app for every PC user. It carries a bunch of neat utilities that integrate well within the Windows OS and system apps like File Explorer.

Some of the useful add-ons include the ability to pin your favorite apps, FancyZones for a better multitasking experience, Run to find your apps and files with a central search bar, a color picker, and a keyboard manager. We want Microsoft to integrate some of the PowerToys tools in the next version of Windows.

1 Notion

Create a personal Wiki

Notion can be your ideal personal Wiki to manage your day-to-day tasks, projects, track habits, subscriptions, expenses, books and resumes. It offers a unique user experience design and uses blocks to decorate your Notion page from scratch.

It also has a vast library of first-party and third-party templates to choose from. Whether you want to create a CRM tracker, people directory, company page, issue tracker, journal, subscription tracker, or annual performance review, the built-in templates help you start within seconds.

Notion also works well with third-party apps like Google Drive, Loom, Figma, Framer, Sketch, Trello, and more. The live collaboration tools help you manage any project with team members. Notion AI is another thoughtful addition that can change page tone, summarize a post, fix spelling, simplify language, draft an outline and blog post with a single click. Notion paid plans start at $8 per month.

Elevate your Windows setup

Understandably, the default Windows apps work better with OneDrive and Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Like many, if you aren’t a fan of Microsoft’s offerings, check these tools to take your productivity to the next level. If you are unfamiliar with Windows OS and want to explore other useful apps, check our top recommendations to install on a new PC.