>Just found out that there is org-checklist which takes care of clearing the checkboxes, using the RESET_CHECK_BOXES property.
>org-checklist used to be in the contrib/ directory that was bundled with Org mode, but all of the contrib/ stuff has now been moved to its own separate repo.
org mode - clear checkbox when repeating a todo task - Emacs Stack Exchange
https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/70718/clear-checkbox-when-repeating-a-todo-task
– TomoeMami 2025-07-08 01:11 UTC
Hi,
Here’s an alternative idea in case you also want to keep the history and minimize your effort:
You can use https://karl-voit.at/2017/01/15/org-clone-subtree-with-time-shift/ with a yasnippet or even better yankpad template.
The process would look like that: You clone your tasks (or capture using a capture template). The “body” of this heading is a snippet name like mytask42 which gets replaced by the snippet definition content using yasnippet (or yankpad).
This method would have multiple advantages: you do get to keep your history (for compliance or other checks) and you may maintain your task template within your central yankpad templates. This template might evolve over time without losing the previous iterations.
HTH
Greetings from Graz
– Karl Voit 2025-07-10 08:07 UTC
Thanks for your comments!
I knew about org-checklist but it doesn’t fully work in my case - I have several checkbox lists in the same file, and I don’t want to reset them independently, but all at once when the whole file is “done”.
The idea with templates is also cool, but seems an overkill in my situation. I don’t use templates that much, and I definitely don’t want to clobber my Org files with history. (I keep all my important Org files in Git anyway.)
– mbork 2025-07-14 06:48 UTC