Tweaks to org-agenda on mobile to save space

Short note on something I was fiddling with today: making org-agenda more usable on my phone, specifically in Termux on Android. Working with limited display space means that the default agenda view is all prefix, not enough headline. But it’s easy to customise it.

Basically you just tweak the prefix string for agenda views. No need to show timestamps, categories, tags, or priorities if they just push the real headline off the right side. I’ve tweaked it in a specific custom agenda command, but you could do it globally across all agenda views too.

For my "Active Projects" agenda view, I landed on this after some fiddling:

(setq org-agenda-custom-commands
      '(("p" "Active Projects – Year from Today"
	 ((agenda ""
		  ((org-agenda-files '("~/org/Personal/projects.org"))
		   (org-deadline-warning-days 30)
		   (org-agenda-span 'year)
		   (org-agenda-start-day "+0d")
		   (org-agenda-overriding-header "Year Ahead from Today – Active Projects")
		   (org-agenda-prefix-format " %i %?-10t %s")))  ;; Icon + maybe time
	  (alltodo ""
		   ((org-agenda-files '("~/org/Personal/projects.org"))
		    (org-agenda-overriding-header "All TODOs in Active Projects")
		    (org-agenda-prefix-format " %i "))))))        ;; Icon only
)

• %i shows an emoji or icon for the category (mine is 🚀 for “active”).
• %?-10t shows the time, only if there is one.
• %s shows “Sched.” or “Dead.” when relevant.

Result: agenda view with just an icon, an optional time, and as much space as possible for the main point - the task description.

I tie the icon to the category like this:

(setq org-agenda-category-icon-alist
      '(("active" (list "🚀"))))

(That relies on %i in the prefix format, or you won’t see it).

Useful notes

• If you want to peek at what the current agenda prefix actually is, it’s handy to do:
  • M-: (pp org-agenda-prefix-format)
  • Or M-x describe-variable on org-agenda-prefix-format.