Add action by sending an email

[amityweb]

Hi

Am new to OF, and am still learning. One issue I have is how to add an action by sending an email... I have come from other task managers that have this facility and in my opinion think its quite necessary to increase productivity, but OF seems to be missing it.

I can see there is support for Mail.app, by using Rules, but I am not using Mail.app, I am using Postbox.

I dont quite understand this mail to OF thing, where they reply back and I click a link, thats worse than my current process, besides I dont have the iPhone app as I dont need it on the iphone.

My current process is I email myself and my Gmail filters put them in a "To Process" label. Then when I am in work I then add my To Process emails to OF. But I want to cut out this middle step, I do not see a need to do it I should be able to just email right into OF like other task managers.

Thanks a lot

[amityweb]

P.S. it would be cool if OF could connect to a POP/IMAP server and get email from there and add as tasks.

[whpalmer4]

You don't have to use Mail as your primary mail app, it just needs to run with the account where you receive the email configured. It is actually advantageous to use a separate account to receive the tasks if you also read your mail elsewhere. Make yourself a separate gmail account, configure that account only in Mail, leave it running on the Mac, and you are set.

Omni says they are working on direct support for email if you use their sync server. That means you'll be able to use that approach at a future date no later than if they were not working on it, quite possibly earlier, but you won't know when until it is ready for external testing.

[amityweb]

thanks... I think I may wait and see what Omni do, I dont particularly want another mail app running in the background for this, aand may be prone to errors, e.g. if it wasnt running, crashed, didnt start (I turn the computer off at night). I use a Macbook Pro AND an iMac in work, so I would need to leave one of them on all the time, or Mail.app in the background on both. I dont think its a "proper" solution to add tasks via emails, and seems to be a work around or something. I am just worried some tasks wont get into OF when using this approach.

[whpalmer4]

I use this approach for 50-100 tasks per week. It's been a supported part of the product for years. Mail doesn't have to be running all the time, you just have to run it when you sit down at the computer to incorporate any email you've sent in. Using this approach in no way hinders you from using Omni's server when it finally sees the light of day; you'll most likely be able to do both simultaneously. If you'd rather wait, my only conclusion is that it must not be a pressing need!

The send-to-omnifocus facility is most useful on mobile devices, especially those not running OmniFocus. You could also use it on desktops where you don't have OmniFocus installed, of course; the key is that you need to be able to send email from one of your accounts, because that's where the return message will go. You come across some web page or document you want injected into OmniFocus, compose a quick email with that content, and send it to the Omni address. You get a response back which you read when on your machine that runs OmniFocus, and when you click the Send to OmniFocus link in the message, OmniFocus is launched (if necessary) and the relevant material added to the Quick Entry form. I use a smart mailbox in Mail to collect all of these messages in one place to make it easy to process them at my convenience (I don't necessarily want all of them immediately added).

[amityweb]

No its not about it being a pressing need. Its about trusting it. I can add them manually as I do, so its not pressing as I can continue doing that. But in order to be more productive emailing it right into OF would be better. Its all about productivity isn't it. With the mail.app approach either I leave it in the background (and therefore I think is open to errors, although I dont know), OR I manually start Mail app and make sure it all goes in. This last point I did not think of before and now you mention that I may try that. BUT I still think its a work around for something that should be the norm. it is 2012 after all, I can email into Evernote and many other apps I use, so I just think OF needs to get with the times and help improve productivity!

Nevertheless in the meantime manually starting Mail.app, making sure it works and they all go in, then closing it, sounds better than sending them over one by one which is what I do now, so will give that a go (and hope OF gets in with the times soon! :) )

[whpalmer4]

You have the same trust issue with Evernote, whether you realize it or not. You send off a bunch of emails, and you have to trust that they all get entered, or you have to check.

Omni's current solution with the Mail app is superior for anyone handling confidential data, because you don't have to use someone else's server (did you read that EULA for Evernote?)

[amityweb]

Yeah but their server is likely more reliable than my work imac or macbook pro. And I am not bothered about the confidentiality because I dont have any, and emailing myself the info is just as not secure, unless its encrypted, so I dont think its worth worrying about the server security (its likely more secure than the sending of the email over 3g is what I mean!).

[amityweb]

Here's an interesting situation where I am now stuck until tomorrow!

I am trying to move thousands of emails from a GMail account to a backup one. Google have just kicked me out (I hope for 24 hours) due to too many connections or something (never had that before).

My To process list has a lot of emails but I cant now easily send them to OF because my email clients cant connect to GMail. I could manually enter but dont know how to make the link to email. So thats disturbed my process until Monday.

Emailing straight to OF would avoid this issue. Yes I know this is VERY rare! and a very picky point :) But its interesting this has happened at this time of asking about emailing into OF.

[whpalmer4]

If you had configured Mail with your gmail account and run it now and then (for example, to process mail into OmniFocus), you'd have an IMAP copy of all your mail, and could be merrily clipping away, even if Google never restored your account.

[amityweb]

Update: I have been using Mail.app for a few weeks now, and I wrote an Applescript to add tasks in a "Follow Up" folder to OF and it works great.

BUT... it is clear that Mail.app has some issues. Its not a great application anymore. I have attachments missing which is the most important issue. I really dont want to use Mail.

Postbox seems like the best, but no Applescript support.

If I run both then I double my bandwidth usage... since using Mail over Gmail I already passed my bandwidth for last month, so I wont be using two email clients together, downloading emails twice. Then because I archive email to another folder it in effect re-uploads it to GMail IMAP. So I already have twice the bandwidth usage for each email due to download and re-upload, then if I use Mail and Postbox then it's 4 x the bandwidth compared to just GMail!

So I will try to stick with Mail and just hope OF get up to speed like other common applications and add tasks via email to the server version we sync with. then I can use whatever mail application I want, and not forced to use Mail.

[whpalmer4]

Did you try my suggestion of setting up a separate account to be used only for mail to OmniFocus? You don't configure Postbox to use that account, and the bandwidth issue goes away, does it not?

Have you been able to characterize the cases where attachments go missing?

[amityweb]

I cant see how this would work as I move mail messages into the "Follow Up" folder that want to action. I suppose on ALL my computers and devices I would need to add this second account so I can move mail into it. I dont want to forward mail to another address my script may not copy the correct details.

No idea when attachments go. They seem to be older emails, maybe emails that have a new attachment (so in a conversation).