15+ of the best free productivity tools you should know about

Need more time in a day? We all do.

Consider the potential of some of the latest and greatest productivity tools that can help you be more efficient, focused and/or organized.

About 55 percent of retailers believe better technology can positively impact productivity. At the same time, once distracted, it takes 23 minutes for productive workers to get back on track and complete the task they started working on.

Therefore, online tools can potentially help us get more done. The following are at least 15 of the best free productivity tools you should know about, along with what changed on each one's free plan recently, since several of these tools have quietly tightened their free tiers.

(And if you're working from home, check out our 11 tips to be more productive, or if you're managing a distributed team, see our 9 tips to better manage your remote team.)

Time-management productivity tools

RescueTime

RescueTime operates in the background of your device, quietly logging your activity without serving as a distraction. You'll be able to see how much time you spend doing various things, such as visiting a particular website or using certain apps.

This tool also allows you to set targets and alerts to help you curtail poor productivity habits. In other words, it helps you limit wasted time on your devices, especially since it's cross-platform.

The free version of RescueTime offers up to three months of data for analysis. Any paid subscription has no limits on data and also includes additional features.

Todoist

Got a small team in need of time management? Todoist might be for you. The easy-to-use tool bridges time management with traditional to-do lists and a light amount of project management.

Todoist gives you a daily and weekly overview of what work you have to do, appointments scheduled and anything else you're tracking. You can also delegate tasks to others as desired.

It integrates with dozens of apps and services to help you automate your trackable workflow. The free plan has been tightened since this list was first written: it now caps you at 5 active projects with up to 5 collaborators per project, down from the more generous limits it once offered. Paid subscriptions unlock more projects, reminders, and file attachments.

Clockify

Clockify is brilliant in its simplicity and is absolutely unlimited and free to all users. Consider it similar to a stopwatch where you can easily record how long you spend working on different projects.

When you start a timer, you can add labels, descriptions and project details. Then, just hit "stop" when you're finished. This tool allows you to configure timers to start as soon as you open your internet browser (so you don't have to remember to start a timer), so be sure to dig around in those settings to find what works best for you and your work style.

Clockify also integrates with other applications, such as Trello, Asana, Jira and Todoist, among others. If you prefer, you can use it as a browser extension rather than the full application or in its mobile app form instead of the full desktop web application.

Beeminder

Would a bit of gamification help you hit your productivity goals? Or, some other goal? Consider trying Beeminder.

You actually can track almost anything using this tool, whether it's how many contracts you get customers to sign per week, how many hours you work per day or how often you go to the gym. Anything.

Beeminder is considerably flexible and will log your progress once you set your goal. You then aim to stick to the "yellow brick road," which is the progress graph that is supposed to keep you on point with your targets to ultimately reach your goal.

You can even take things up a notch and add your credit card to the tool so that you can be fined when/if you fail to stay on track.

Toggl

Known for its simple time tracking at its core, Toggl works on multiple platforms and synchronizes so that you can move between devices and still track your work.

Features include:

• The availability of manual and automated tracking
• A Pomodoro timer, which is a time management method of working in intervals for 25 minutes at a time
• Automatic detection of idle time
• Reminders
• Integrations with other apps and services
• Highly flexible customizations

While Toggl offers detailed reports, there is no invoicing option within the tool itself.

StayFocusd

A free Chrome extension that restricts the amount of time you are allowed to spend on "time-wasting websites" like Facebook (for example), StayFocusd offers a ton of customizing options, such as which websites to block, how long to block them and so on.

It's still one of the most reliable free focus tools available and remains Chrome-only. Its "Nuclear Option" locks you out of blocked sites entirely for a set period, with no override.

Project-management productivity tools

Asana

Asana aims to help everyone stay on-task and organized together. The team-productivity tool helps you keep all projects and tasks in one spot, where you can assign different users to specific jobs.

Features include:

• Ability to build a visual Gantt chart quickly
• See and track work on Kanban boards
• Calendar functionality
• Integrates with other apps
• Goal-setting mechanisms
• Real-time reporting
• Automation capability
• View distribution of workload across team members

Asana's free plan has changed significantly: it's now called the Personal plan and caps out at just 2 users, down from the roughly half-dozen it once supported. That still makes it workable for a solo user plus one collaborator, but any team larger than that will need a paid Starter plan. If you need a free tool for a bigger team, Freedcamp (below) is currently the more generous option.

Freedcamp

A central spot for project planning and organization, Freedcamp allows you to add project to-dos, share files and join discussions with team members.

A bonus with Freedcamp is that much of the functionality is included in its free version, and unlike most competitors, it still doesn't cap the number of users on the free plan. Any advanced features (like integrating invoices) can be pay-per-add-on, allowing you to pay for only what you need.

It's cross-platform and integrates with many other applications and services.

Trello

Trello is a project-management tool that at first glance resembles a Pinterest board except without all the photos. Instead, it's a visual presentation of lists, labels, tasks and so on that you can easily drag and drop as you like.

Its features are all geared toward productivity and teamwork, where your team can collaborate. Trello integrates with other apps and services and also offers no-coding automation.

The free plan still supports unlimited cards, but it now caps workspaces at 10 boards and 10 collaborators, so a small team with a handful of active projects will be fine, while larger or more project-heavy teams will want a paid subscription.

Save-for-later productivity tools

Google Drive

Granted, we can't talk about Google Drive without at least mentioning the slate of other tools within the Google universe. But Google Drive still stands on its own as a cross-platform cloud storage and organization tool.

This makes it easy to share (and even edit with Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets) all types of files.

Team-wise, Google Drive offers the ability to chat and share notes within a document, and it's completely free.

Evernote

Evernote enables you to save notes (both audio and text), organize photos, set reminders and upload attachments across all your devices in one place.

One of the common uses of Evernote involves its bookmarklet, where you can easily "clip" web articles and store them to read later on any device.

It also integrates with other apps and services. If Evernote's free limits work for your needs, or you're willing to pay for the Starter or Advanced plan, it's still a capable tool for saving and organizing notes.

Raindrop.io

Need a place to save the great content that you don't have time to read (or watch) in that moment? Raindrop.io can help.

Saved content formats include articles, images, videos, and more, and you can organize saves into collections with tags for easy searching later. Raindrop's free plan supports unlimited bookmarks, browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox, and mobile apps for iOS and Android.

Social media productivity tools

Efficiently managing your social media accounts definitely requires the right tool. Fortunately, there are several free options out there that can work, depending on the platforms you're on and the needs that you have.

Check out these 11 free (or almost free) social media management tools that can help you be more effective with your social media presence.

Miscellaneous productivity tools

Slack

Slack organizes how your team communicates with each other. You can break up conversations into channels so that each channel provides a focus.

In addition, you can connect your team to another collaborating team if desired. Direct messaging and voice/video calls also are available.

Slack integrates with other applications and is cross-platform. The free plan caps message history at 90 days and app integrations at 10, so if your team relies on Slack as a searchable record or uses more than a handful of integrations, one of the paid subscriptions removes those limits.

Bitwarden

The password struggle is real and can be a real time suck. Bitwarden remembers all your passwords and can be used across an unlimited number of devices, even on the free plan.

This tool stores your passwords in an encrypted vault, generates strong new passwords, and will flag weak or reused ones so you can clean them up. It's open source, so its code is publicly auditable, which is part of why it has become the free password manager many security reviewers recommend by default.

We swapped out our previous pick for this list, LastPass, after it disclosed a second security incident in 2026 on top of its major 2022 breach. LastPass may still work fine for casual use, but Bitwarden's free plan is both more capable and carries a cleaner security track record right now.

Right Inbox

A Chrome extension, Right Inbox allows you to set up multiple signatures, email sequences, delayed sends and more.

The idea is to stay on top of the chaos that might be your email inbox.

A bonus feature is built-in email tracking.

While you're looking at boosting your productivity, think about how you can improve your digital marketing process. Is it everything you want it to be? DailyStory features automation, audience segmentation and more. Schedule your free demo with us today.