Sending tasks via email

[karlsf]

I need some help working out how to send tasks via email.

I am allowed to send email from where I work, but cannot use a memory stick or other transfer mechanism. Sometimes I think of a task to be done at home and it would be nice to email it directly to OF on my home computer.

Ethan's new video mentions this, but there are no instructions. Can anyone help?

Ideally I would like to send the task name, project, and context and have it drop into my OF automatically.

Thx.

[curt.clifton]

See Preferences --> Mail.

[karlsf]

Thanks, Curt, but I can't get this to work. The rule is added to Mail, but the process seems to stop ther. A properly formatted message, per the examples given, come in as email, but it not transferred to OF. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Karl

[Craig]

Do you use Mail Act-On, and if so, would it help to move the "Send to OmniFocus" rule above the "Act-On: Stop Processing Receive Rules"?

[karlsf]

I do use Act-on, but rearranging the order of the rules seems to have no impact. Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Karl

[helmuthelmut]

See Preferences --> Mail.

Hello,

I managed to send task by mail, but i cannot add any addresses in the " allowed from addresses " menu.

There is a default address there but it is not my work address.

I tried to use the + button but it does not let me enter any address. I tried to copy/paste; drag/drop...nothing will do...

Can anybody help ?

[gg42]

Hello,

I managed to send task by mail, but i cannot add any addresses in the " allowed from addresses " menu.

There is a default address there but it is not my work address.

I tried to use the + button but it does not let me enter any address. I tried to copy/paste; drag/drop...nothing will do...

Can anybody help ?

Adding mail addresses has always worked for me (10.4.11), and it still does, just checked. I would like an option to disable any mail address constraints (is this perceived as a security risk?). In case that never gets implemented, you can disable the address checking by commenting out the appropriate lines in the Applescript. Open the OF package and edit OmniFocus.app/Contents/Resources/MailAction.applescript. Comment out the lines

tell application "OmniFocus"
set AllowedSender to allowed mail senders
if AllowedSender does not contain trimmedSender and AllowedSender does not contain theSender then
return
end if
end tell

Any mail should come through. Big disadvantage: during sneak preview, you have to redo this every time you upgrade OF, in case they changed the script elsewhere.

[omnibob]

I haven't figured out the "+omnifocus" as a recipient part yet myself, but using "A subject starting with --" works fine for me. Syntax is described in the Nov. 2 Release Notes.

Bob

[ext555]

did I misunderstand something ? I can get -- in the subject of the email and +omnifocus works also .. [you just add +omnifocus after your last email address ]

I can't get the single lines for extra tasks to work -new task etc ..
they all just show up in the notes ?

[omnibob]

[you just add +omnifocus after your last email address ]

I must be missing the obvious, but when I enter "+omnifocus" after my last email address, I get:

"The server “smtp.comcast.net” rejected the address “+omnifocus”."

or from a web mail 'app':

"syntax error in the address list"

Bob

[Tim Wood]

Just to be clear, the "after" bit means that if your email address is "foo@bar.com", you would use "foo+omnifocus@bar.com"

Now that I look at it, this isn't clear at all from the preferences pane and is only understandable if you know this is part of the standard for email addresses. I'll make a UI bug to add some explanatory text here.

Still, some mail servers are non-conforming, and will reject or strip the "+" notation. This is one reason there are two options for recognizing mail intended for OmniFocus. If the '+omnifocus' doesn't work for you, you could try switching mail providers if this shortcut is important to you (you can add the +omnifocus address to your Address Book and have it complete in your iPhone's To field), or you can switch to the subject prefix approach.

[prb]

Still, some mail servers are non-conforming, and will reject or strip the "+" notation.

Just to be clear, a mail server rejecting the "+" notation is not non-conforming. The relevant RFCs clearly say that the "local part" of the address (ie everything to the left of the @) can be interpreted in any way the mail system chooses. Many Unix mail servers support the address+suffix syntax as a convention, but it's not in any way a standard.

Aside from that, sending tasks via email is working very well for me... I have no access to my home Macs from work and have been sending myself a steady stream of tasks as I think of them.

But what would be even better would be if I could interact with OmniFocus a little more. For example if I could send a few more commands ... The obvious ones are:-

* Email me a list of all the next tasks I should be doing in context "foo" (and its subcontexts)

* Or Email me a list of tasks in a particular perspective

* Mark some task "foo" as complete and optionally email me the next task in that project (say, if it belongs in the same context).

For bonus points, an option for the level of markup used to make the output "pretty" - consider the following: Desktop PC, iPhone, basic mobile phone email display.

Do it correctly and you have a workable (if clunky) mobile interface that the iPhone users have been clamouring for. And once that's in place, someone else can wrap it in a simple application (iPhone or Java ME) to make it more presentable...

Pete.

[murphtron]

[sigh] i wish i could get the Mail rule to work, but i cannot. i turned the rule off, closed omniF, closed Mail, restarted OmniF, activated the '--' rule, and opened Mail. I can see the rule in Mail, send myself an email with a '--' subject prefix, but it never lands in the omniF inbox. any other hints?

i'm on 10.4.10.

[Tim Wood]

Does the From address in the Mail match one of the approved addresses (defaulting to all the address in your card in Address Book)? If not, you can add an explicit address via our Mail preferences pane.

You might also try using the context menu on the message and picking "Apply Rules" to see if there is any problem invoking the rule.

Are there any messages in /Applications/Utilities/Console.app after doing "Apply Rules"?

And of course, if you are using any 3rd party system hacks, it would be worth disabling them and relaunching Mail and OmniFocus to see if they are the culprit.

[protoplasm]

I second Pete's suggestion for more interaction with e-mail, that would be excellent.

Also, I don't know if it's just me, but I changed my prefix from "--" to "TODO: " and it doesn't strip that off the start of the actions it creates... I had hoped it would.

[rsailer@mac.com]

[sigh] i wish i could get the Mail rule to work, but i cannot. i turned the rule off, closed omniF, closed Mail, restarted OmniF, activated the '--' rule, and opened Mail. I can see the rule in Mail, send myself an email with a '--' subject prefix, but it never lands in the omniF inbox. any other hints?

Try checking your current mail rules in Mail Preferences. I found an old rule that said "Stop Processing Rules" from a brief affair with Act-On. Once I disabled this rule (and checked other rules for the same thing), this feature started working (and it seems pretty slick).

Randy

[andrewminer]

The "+omnifocus" thing is using an obscure feature of the email standard called extended addresses. You need to include that along with your username before the @ symbol. For example, if your address is jgalt@gulch.com, you'd need to send email to "jgalt+omnifocus@gulch.com" for OmniFocus's mail rule to pick it up. Unfortunately, not all mail servers support this feature (*cough*exchange*cough*), so your milage may vary.

[pvonk]

Unfortunately, not all mail servers support this feature (*cough*exchange*cough*), so your milage may vary.

Why, Andrew - whatever do your mean? ;-)

[charismatic]

I'm trying to use the +omnifocus task option. The email arrives in my mail.app but it does not show up in my omnifocus. This seems to be a much better option than the "--" catch because for some reason I would pickup on the wrong thing.

Also, my single action box is missing and i'm wondering if that has anything to do with me not getting my taskers I send via email. Any quess on how to make the original "misc folder"

Thanks!

[RobTrew]

To be honest, I am finding it simpler and more robust to use iNik's excellent Twitter hack (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=5871)

When you are at work or an alien machine, you can type one or more actions (with optional notes, due dates, contexts and projects) in a Twitter (http://twitter.com/), and Proxi will automatically pick them up, (the next time you log in to your mac), and transfer them straight into Omnifocus, without any manual intervention.

Note that the script to be placed in Proxi (http://proxi.griffintechnology.com/) (a free download) should now be amended (following a recent change in Omnifocus applescript, and as detailed in one of the posts in the thread) to: (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=29979&postcount=7)

tell application "OmniFocus" to tell default document
parse tasks with transport text ("[Message]") without as single task
end tell

[liaooo]

I can't get the "--" function to work either. The problem seems to be with Mail - no emails sent to myself show up in my Mail inbox. If I send an email with a --subject line, it shows up in my gmail inbox online, but not in my Mail inbox (and it doesn't get to Omnifocus either).

Is this the problem that others (murphtron, karlsf) are having?

Any ideas on how to correct Mail's inability to recieve email from myself?

[omnibob]

I can't get the "--" function to work either. The problem seems to be with Mail - no emails sent to myself show up in my Mail inbox.[...] (and it doesn't get to Omnifocus either).

-- used to work for me but had stopped working. I'd rebuilt the rule from OF, no success.

Here is what I noticed: the first action in the rule created by OF is to delete the message. I just deleted that action and it now works. Delete should be the last action, not the first.

I opened a ticket for this on 12/31, and just updated that ticket.

Bob

[MrBrown]

I can't get the "--" function to work either. The problem seems to be with Mail - no emails sent to myself show up in my Mail inbox. If I send an email with a --subject line, it shows up in my gmail inbox online, but not in my Mail inbox (and it doesn't get to Omnifocus either).

Is this the problem that others (murphtron, karlsf) are having?

Any ideas on how to correct Mail's inability to recieve email from myself?
Same thing here.
I looked in the mail rule then spot-lighted the script and it does not seem to exist?! or is it embedded in the actual app?

Any ideas

[mhedstrom]

I'm having a similar, but slightly different issue. I've got the +omnifocus thing set up, and it works in terms of the message gets filed correctly in my "omnifocus" mail folder (like the first part of the rule says it should), but either the Applescript never triggers, or doesn't work, since it stops after the message filing. However, if I select the appropriate messages, and click "apply rules", then they correctly get moved into Omnifocus. Obviously though, that defeats the entire purpose of doing this.

[feliperaul]

I can't get the "--" function to work either. The problem seems to be with Mail - no emails sent to myself show up in my Mail inbox. If I send an email with a --subject line, it shows up in my gmail inbox online, but not in my Mail inbox (and it doesn't get to Omnifocus either).

Is this the problem that others (murphtron, karlsf) are having?

Any ideas on how to correct Mail's inability to recieve email from myself?

I'm having the same problem, and I think its either a problem with Gmail or Apple Mail. None of the e-mails I send myself appear in Apple Mail, they only appear in Gmail Inbox.

I don't know if it's Gmail that's not updating the POP with those messages, or if it's Apple Mail that refuses to download them.

[Lizard]

Mail insists on putting the delete rule up top, but it should still work. The message will go to OmniFocus' inbox, and never show up in Mail.

But we've updated the behavior so it archives your emails instead of deleting them. To get the new behavior, you'll need to turn off the Mail script (in OmniFocus' preferences) and turn it back on again.

[Tim Wood]

(and then enable the archiving option)

[Byron@Bike Hugger]

A'ight, I've tried every possible combination to get the send task via email to work and no go. With a --, the + string in email is kicked back by the server. The mail rule is processing, it's going into the archive mailbox, but not showing up in Omnifocus. Details

10.4.11
Mail 2.1.2
Build details:

Product: OmniFocus
Tag:
Date: 2008-01-02 22:09:37 -0800
Builder: omnibuild
Host: tb104i.private.omnigroup.com
Revision: 96712

[reenhanced]

Just as a note, this has stopped working for me as well.

Curiously, it's only stopped in the past 2 days, as it seems to have worked before then.

However, I left my machine on over the long weekend and came back to find it completely frozen. I'm not sure if OmniFocus is what caused it (I did email a couple tasks to myself during that time).

[Byron@Bike Hugger]

oddly, it worked once . . . then never again. I really want it to work, but alas it's not my job to debug for Omnis, so hopefully it'll get fixed in a new rev. I will say, that + mail syntax will confuse a lot of people when their mail server kicks it back.

[Lizard]

Mail seems to be caching some information about the script, so if you're still having difficulties, please try the following:
1) In OmniFocus preferences, uncheck the "Add Mail Rule"
2) Quit Mail
3) Make sure you're running OmniFocus build 69712 or later.
4) Relaunch OmniFocus
5) Re-check the "Add Mail Rule" in OmniFocus' preferences, and make sure to set the rest of the options on that pane, as they aren't preserved.
6) Quit Mail again (if step 5 launched it)
7) Send yourself an email according to the format you've chosen (-- in subject or +omnifocus in the to)
8) Open mail, make sure it receives mail
9) Look in OmniFocus' inbox for the message

[mhedstrom]

I posted on another thread, but will add it here:

"With our mail system set up with Sendmail, when I send an email to myself using the "blah+omnifocus@blah.com" syntax, it automatically gets filed in my omnifocus folder. The OF rule to move that stuff to the inbox of OF never triggers since I guess the Mail rules only trigger if the mail goes straight to the Inbox (feature, or bug, no idea), however running the rules manually on the omnifocus folder do work."

So is this an Apple problem since it won't process rules outside of the inbox?

[Eleventeen]

OK so, strangely, running this from inside Mail.app (sending the mail to myself and then refreshing to get it back from the server) works and adds the task into OF but sending from the mail acct I'd use basically all the time (from the gMail web interface) doesn't work.

I'm using today's daily version (96726) and basically just started messing with the Mail features tonight (after the current update installed)

So the rule works, in theory, just not when mail is sent in from the outside world.

[techsavvyguru]

OK so, strangely, running this from inside Mail.app (sending the mail to myself and then refreshing to get it back from the server) works and adds the task into OF but sending from the mail acct I'd use basically all the time (from the gMail web interface) doesn't work.

I'm using today's daily version (96726) and basically just started messing with the Mail features tonight (after the current update installed)

So the rule works, in theory, just not when mail is sent in from the outside world.
I just followed the instructions above to try to reset it up and get it working (it had stopped working awhile back) and it did work for me from GMail web based.

[reenhanced]

Is there a bug with this script? It seems to me that the rule in mail will move any message starting with '--' to the archive folder and mark it as read, even if it's not from the matched addresses.

That means it would be very easy to miss valid messages from anyone who would send it in the matching format.

[Lizard]

reenhanced: I'm inclined to agree with you. I'll make sure there's a bug filed.

[Eleventeen]

Meh - can't get this to work right.

Is there an issue with gMail that prevents mail from yourself from showing up right?

I send mail to myself from within Mail (using my gMail acct over IMAP), hit the button to get new email, and *pop*, the rule works and dumps the task into OF.

I send the email to myself from the gMail web interface (which is where I'd like to use this most of the time, ideally) and the mail comes in, gets marked as read, but *doesn't* get passed to OF. It's like email from the web just gets borked and doesn't get interpreted.

I dunno, maybe I just need to set up an email acct specifically for OF and just have Mail listen to that.

Edit - I neglected to say that per techsavvyguru's experience I removed and re-added the rule again and have the same issue. And I'm running the Jan 4 update (96750)

Edit 2 - Just because I had the bug up me bum I tried sending email to myself from another client (my phone) and it worked fine. Email from myself to myself, popped into Mail, popped into OF just fine. There's something fishy going on with my gMail web interface...

[Byron@Bike Hugger]

Hey, check the other thread on this topic (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=6550) -- If you remove your sign line, the mailto feature works.

[Eleventeen]

Interesting but I use no sigs on my emails. I'm gonna play with this tomorrow some and see if I can't make this work.

[demos]

I've tried out any possible solution listed here until I finally found that by choosing "plain text" format when sending out the mail it gets OF to work. It's simple but I just overlooked it. Maybe it also helps in some of your cases.

[MrBrown]

I tried the same as 'demos' and it finally seemed actually speak to omni-focus as it called to open the app, so I thought great here we go
but nothing.
The rule is working as it moves the mail out the inbox into the seletced archived but still it does not show in the OF inbox?

I have tried from external gmail accounts other POP accounts
updates to todays version delete the rule
took the sig off
all to no avail?

please help omni?

[Brian]

Sorry, I diagnosed the problem, but I forgot we had multiple threads on this, or I would have posted here, too.

The mail rule cannot handle Rich Text format text: we've got a bug written up on this, but as a workaround, you should set your mail client to send plain text emails to OmniFocus. It'll start working then.

[MrBrown]

Thanks Brian,
Still no luck, I have sent 'text format' mails from both Gmail and to myself in mail with "--" as the subject it fires up the applescript as now the OF is opened by the mal (this did not happen before) but nothing appears in the inbox of OF?? this is so frustrating.

What do you suggest

[MrBrown]

Come on Brian!
I have now bought a licence and installed OF on a machine that has never had it on. and I STILL can't use the mail to feature this is very frustrating for me and I'm sure many others what do you suggest?

[Lizard]

MrBrown: It sounds like you are encountering an additional bug, if the suggestions above did not address your problem. The best way to get more complicated bugs like this figured out and fixed is to email us (mailto:omnifocus@omnigroup.com) directly.

[Brian]

Yep, sorry I didn't see this before now, but I have to remind folks: if you want a guaranteed response, you need to email us.

The first post in this thread applies here:
Please submit bug reports and feature requests via email! (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=3734)

[MrBrown]

I have done Lizard and I still have not had a response.
Sorry to winge but this is really frustrating for me.

MrBrown

[rwik]

I receive email instructions from my boss to my PC at work and want a way to get them into omnifocus without requiring him to use any special characters or syntax and without my having to interrupt my workflow to check email. Here is what I have accomplished so far:

Thunderbird on my PC forwards emails from him by rule to a specific inbox in mail.app on my macbook
the send to omnifocus rule in mail.app has been adjusted so it processes any message coming into that mailbox
allowed senders is set (for now) to him or me to preclude spam
I've inserted code in the script to be sure that all such emails have a subject beginning with "--" even when they don't (although I'm unclear this is necessary)

Of course this process puts these messages into my inbox in OF. But I want these messages to always have the same project and context by default (and I need to add them in the script). I don't know what applescript code I need to get the parsetasks command to do so. If I can get this, I know how to get the script to excecute a "cleanup" in OF so the tasks are properly relocated.
This is the crucial part, but I hope to add one additional tweak: adjust the subject of the message depending on the sender, so that I can tell at a glance which of several people delegated it to me. But I think I can sort that out.
I will probably send this as an email to support, but any suggestions from the community would be appreciated. Thanks