Troubleshooting

Most questions about Slotted come down to access, syncing, or the daily rollover. Here are the common ones and how to resolve them.

Slotted can’t see my tasks, or the list is empty

Work through these in order. The first two cover almost every case.

  1. Check that Things 3 is installed and has been opened at least once. Slotted reads your tasks directly from the Things 3 database on your Mac.

  2. Reconnect the database. Choose File > Change Things 3 Database (the same button appears right in the task list whenever it is empty). The panel opens at your Things 3 database, so you can just click Grant Access. If it opens somewhere else, press ⌘⇧G, paste ~/Library/Group Containers/JLMPQHK86H.com.culturedcode.ThingsMac, select that folder, and click Grant Access. Slotted finds the database inside it automatically, including choosing the current account’s data if you have used more than one Things Cloud account.

  3. Check View > Hide Scheduled Tasks. When it is on, tasks you have already placed on the timeline are hidden from the list, so a fully planned day looks like an empty list.

Still empty? That may be correct. Slotted shows open to-dos only. Completed and canceled tasks, and tasks in trashed projects, never appear.

My tasks aren’t updating

Slotted watches the Things 3 database and picks up changes within a second or two of Things 3 saving, with a 30-second background refresh as a fallback. Two things to know:

  • Changes made on your iPhone or iPad reach Slotted only after Things 3 on your Mac has synced them through Things Cloud. Open Things 3 and let it sync.
  • If updates have stopped entirely, quit and reopen Slotted, or choose File > Change Things 3 Database to reconnect.

Calendar events aren’t showing

Turn on Show calendar events in Settings (⌘,); it is also in the View menu. If macOS calendar access was declined, Slotted turns the setting off and tells you: enable Slotted in System Settings > Privacy & Security > Calendars, then turn the setting back on.

Where did yesterday’s blocks go?

This is Slotted’s daily rollover working as designed. Which of the two behaviors you get depends on Clear schedule at midnight in Settings (⌘,):

  • Clearing on (the default): every day starts with an empty grid, so each morning is a fresh plan. Your recent history is not gone, though. Use Go > Previous Day (⌘←) to look back at roughly the past week before old days are cleaned up for good.
  • Clearing off: your standalone blocks, routines like “Lunch” or “Morning run,” carry forward onto each new day automatically, so you do not rebuild them every morning. Task blocks deliberately do not carry forward: a task you scheduled yesterday but did not finish is still there, ready to be placed where it actually fits today. If you delete a carried-forward routine, it stays deleted. Slotted will not resurrect it.

Two other reasons a block can disappear:

  • The task was completed or canceled in Things 3. Slotted automatically removes blocks for tasks that are no longer open, so the plan stays in sync with reality.
  • You are looking at a different day. Check the date in the header; Go > Today (⌘T) brings you back.

If you use iCloud Sync across Macs, deleting a block on one Mac removes it on the others as well.

Is my Things 3 data safe?

Yes, by two independent mechanisms. The database connection is opened read-only at the SQLite engine level (SQLITE_OPEN_READONLY), and, separately, read-only permission is enforced by macOS itself, so nothing in Slotted can write to Things 3’s files even in principle. Slotted’s own schedule lives in a completely separate database.

What are the requirements?

macOS 26 (Tahoe) or later, and Things 3. Preview with Sample Data on the welcome screen shows you the full app with a sample schedule.