---
title: How to change many tasks at once
url: https://tideswell.xyz/docs/tasks/change-many-tasks-at-once
description: Tick several tasks in a list, then complete, move, reschedule or reassign the whole selection in one action.
---

> Documentation index: fetch https://tideswell.xyz/llms.txt to discover every page before exploring further.

# How to change many tasks at once



When a launch slips a week, you do not want to open forty tasks. Ticking them in a list gives
you one bar that acts on all of them. This works in the **List** view of a department or a
project, described in <Ref to="tasks/board-and-calendar" />.

## Where does it work? [#where-does-it-work]

In list views, which are the ones with checkboxes on the rows. Tick two or more and a
floating bar appears at the foot of the screen reading **N selected**.

Boards and calendars have no selection, and neither do **My tasks** or the Tasks home screen.
When you want to act in bulk, go to the department or project list first.

Clear the selection with the **X** on the bar.

## What can you do to a selection? [#what-can-you-do-to-a-selection]

* **Complete** every selected task.
* **Move to** a status, sending them all to one column.
* **Reschedule** them to a date, or clear their due dates entirely.
* **Assign** them all to one person, or unassign them.

Up to 200 tasks in one action. Beyond that, split the job.

**Assign** has one extra condition: the whole selection has to be in a single department,
because the roster you are picking from belongs to a team. If it is greyed out, the tooltip
tells you to narrow the selection to one department.

## How do you read the result? [#how-do-you-read-the-result]

The bar reports what actually happened rather than claiming success. A run that partly worked
says so, for example "24 moved, 6 couldn't be", with the reason attached.

Read the reason before you retry, because retrying the same selection gets the same answer.

Two reasons come up. **You can't edit some of these** means part of the selection is in a
department where you do not hold edit rights, since every task is checked individually
against your rights in its own department. See <Ref to="concepts/who-can-do-what" />.

**Some are waiting on an unfinished task** means blocked tasks were refused. Acting on one
task at a time offers a **Complete anyway** override, and acting on a whole selection
deliberately does not, because nobody can review forty overrides at once. Handle those
individually, per <Ref to="tasks/sub-tasks-and-blockers" />.

## What does a bulk move do to card order? [#what-does-a-bulk-move-do-to-card-order]

It sends every moved task to the top of the target column. If the order inside a column
matters to your team, drag the few that need to sit lower afterwards.

## What is the fastest way to reschedule a slipped week? [#what-is-the-fastest-way-to-reschedule-a-slipped-week]

Open the department list, tick the group header rows for the work that moved, and use
**Reschedule** with the new date. That is one action rather than one per task.

Clearing dates works the same way and is the tidier move when work is going back to the
backlog. A task with no due date leaves the calendar and the **Due soon** groups, and stops
producing reminders.