Turning email into actions: send-to-omnifocus@omnigroup.com
 

One of the most-requested features for the iOS editions of OmniFocus is a way to process information from other apps into OmniFocus action items. (Email, for example.)

One option is to use applications that support the [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=14986"]Send to OmniFocus[/URL] feature, but what if you're using an app that doesn't support it, like the built-in Mail app on your iPhone?

(If you're interested in apps that do support the feature, check [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=18931"]this thread[/URL].)

Starting today, if you can turn the information into an email, you can add it to your OmniFocus inbox. Send an email from your PC, then tap a link on your iPhone to add that email to your database.

To try out the feature, send a message to [EMAIL="send-to-omnifocus@omnigroup.com"]send-to-omnifocus@omnigroup.com[/EMAIL]. Within a few seconds, you'll receive an auto-response from us which includes a "Send to OmniFocus" link.

When you get back to your OmniFocus device of choice, open that mail message and tap or click either "Send to OmniFocus" link. At that point, OmniFocus will launch on your device and add the the subject and text of the original email to your database. (Attachments don't go along for the ride, but that also means that your sync times stay fast.)

(Note that this works best if you use a dedicated mail application - Mail for OS X/iPhone/iPad - as opposed to viewing your mail inside a browser. Web browsers don't seem to handle the custom link type as well as the native apps do, and Gmail blocks non-http URLs.)

We'll probably do more work in this area for future versions of OmniFocus and/or the [URL="https://www.omnigroup.com/sync"]Omni Sync Server[/URL]; this was just a quick/easy way we could improve the experience for folks that do a lot of work on non-Apple platforms. Hope it helps, and as always, we'd love to hear your feedback.

[B]Update on 3/2/2012[/B]:
- Fixed truncated URL via first link;
- We now encode the HTML portion to better support all languages.

[B]Update on 12/3/2012[/B]:

Closing this thread, as we're rolling out a new Omni Sync Server feature that's a significant improvement over this method. See [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=27277"]this thread[/URL] for more info.

This is great! I'd gladly pay a subscription fee for an OF in the cloud type solution (expanded sync server stuff)

[QUOTE=Brian;90557]One option is to use applications that support the [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=14986"]Send to OmniFocus[/URL] feature, [/QUOTE]

Are there any apps yet that support "Send to OmniFocus"?

Very cool! I'm hoping one day for the ability (I'd gladly pay for this) to send an email to $username@omnigroup.com (or whatever) and the items would show up in your inbox on next sync. But for now, this is definitely a great first step.

[QUOTE=shhQuiet;90561]Are there any apps yet that support "Send to OmniFocus"?[/QUOTE]

Instapaper does.

Great!
 

This is one of many reasons who I and I'm sure a lot of folks have decided to use OF and stay with it.

Keep up the great work and looking forward to better things to come in 2011.

[QUOTE=shhQuiet;90561]Are there any apps yet that support "Send to OmniFocus"?[/QUOTE]

Good question! We've got a thread set aside for folks to post about the applications which support the feature. Check [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=18931"]here[/URL] for more info. (I'll edit the original post to include this link, as well.)

Hi OmniGroup,

i'm so far not a customer of your application but i would love to become one! :-)

The biggest issue, why i haven't managed to get OmniFocus so far is the lack of Mac's in my office: At home i'm living the Mac World, but at Work i have to use a PC with Windows & Outlook. Also no chance to get third party apps installed, so my GTD System of choice either needs to have a web client or an easy way to get Tasks from Outlook into it.

This solution sounded like it, but i have some doubts / questions:

- I would only go with the iPad Client for now, as this is the only device i can also use at work
- Does the Sync work free of charge, or is there another service i need to pay for?
- Why do you have to go through the confirmation mail process? I thought you have a Cloud Sync. Could the mail not directly go to your cloud service and is there converted into a task? It seems not very efficent for me to forward a mail to your service, get it on my ipad and confirm it there before i see the task in Omnifocus
- A lot of Web GTD Service such as Toodledo, RTM, Nozbe support additional features with there email services like sending Due Dates, Contexts, Projects etc through some code in the mail. Are you supporting such stuff as well?
- What of the mail body is converted into the task content? I'm working in Online Marketing and my tasks often contains small images, banners, etc. which ideal i would like to see in my Task Application as well. (I'm not speaking about a heavy powerpoint attachment etc.)

Hope you can give me some feedback and might convince me to give OmniFocus a try! :-)

Nice addition to OmniFocus!

It would be great if your new service respected the reply-to email address. That way I could let others send me action items by mailing send-to-omnifocus and setting reply-to to my email address.

Welcome to the forums, waldeis! Answers to your questions below. Hope this helps!

[QUOTE=waldeis;90573]
- Does the Sync work free of charge, or is there another service i need to pay for?
[/QUOTE]

Yep, access to the sync server is free and will remain so. See [URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showpost.php?p=86152&postcount=1"]this post[/URL] for more info.

[QUOTE=waldeis;90573]
- Why do you have to go through the confirmation mail process? I thought you have a Cloud Sync. [/QUOTE]

Yep, we do. We just want to try and ensure that the people that are using it are actually, you know, people. The confirmation is only required during the account set-up stage.

[QUOTE=waldeis;90573]
Could the mail not directly go to your cloud service and is there converted into a task?[/QUOTE]

We've discussed something like this and may do it in the future. It's more work than the feature we added yesterday, but we figured a feature available now was better than no feature until we finish something better at some point in the future. :-)

[QUOTE=waldeis;90573]
- A lot of Web GTD Service such as Toodledo, RTM, Nozbe support additional features with there email services like sending Due Dates, Contexts, Projects etc through some code in the mail. Are you supporting such stuff as well?
[/QUOTE]

Not supported yet, but something we've discussed adding in the future!

[QUOTE=waldeis;90573]
- What of the mail body is converted into the task content? I'm working in Online Marketing and my tasks often contains small images, banners, etc. which ideal i would like to see in my Task Application as well. (I'm not speaking about a heavy powerpoint attachment etc.)
[/QUOTE]

The subject line of the message becomes the task title, and the text from the body is added to the note field. We don't add attachments because of the effect that could have on sync times. (Imagine a large PDF attachment that had to be synced to all your devices over the cell network, for example.)