Omnifocus is slow, very slow.
 

Ominfocus is slow. I have many projects and tasks (over 100 projects, 1500 tasks). I have a 2.8 GH core 2 processor, 4GB of ram, so i dont think my machine is the problem. I think it has always been slow: opening a project view...

I don't find OF to be slow, and my database is about twice that big. But that may just be a difference in our expectations. Two things to try:

You can archive function under the File menu to move completed tasks out of your main database.

[URL="http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=7005&highlight=Defaults+write+slow"]This old thread[/URL] mentions a setting that speeds up the display by tweaking what is displayed when opening a view

Thanks, Curt.

I know about archive function and i use it. I didn't know about "rebuild database" mentioned in the thread. It looks like omnifocus works better, but no so better I will expect. It takes 2-3 seconds to change between perspectives (project view to context view for example).

We've made some performance improvements with switching perspectives for the upcoming 1.8 release, have you tried the [URL="http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/download/sneakypeek/"]sneaky peeks[/URL]? (I suspect that's what Curt is running.)

I've started running the Sneaky Peak version about a week ago. I haven't noticed any major changes in performance, but at the same time, I had no issues with performance with 1.7.x either.

[QUOTE=Ken Case;82629]We've made some performance improvements with switching perspectives for the upcoming 1.8 release, have you tried the s[URL="http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/download/sneakypeek/"]neaky peeks[/URL]? (I suspect that's what Curt is running.)[/QUOTE]
good new you are working on performance.

I prefer to wait for a stable version. When will be 1.8 available?

people voting omnifocus is not slow: can you report some information about this?:

+ how many projects/tasks do you have?
+ how many secods take for you to switch from a perspective to another?

I've currently got ~1200 actions and ~180 projects, but I've had as many as 2,500 actions and 250 projects.

As an aside, performance seems about the same for me regardless of action/project count. So either there's little impact, or a difference of ~1,300 action and ~70 projects is not enough to notice a slow down, or the threshold at which performance starts to suffer is higher than I've reached. The person we should talk to is Bill (whpalmer4); he's pushed the limits further than anyone else I know.

Anyway, perspective switching is near instantaneous for me with no sidebar items selected and about one second (or less) for perspectives with something selected in the sidebar.

Note that I have the "LeaveEmptySelectionEmpty" hidden default enabled, so when nothing is selected in the sidebar, the main content area is also left empty.

I'm satisfied with the performance of switching perspectives in the 1.8 sneaky peek, although I wouldn't complain if things were even faster. :-)

-Dennis

On my elderly 2 GHz Core 2 Duo Macbook w/3GB RAM, OmniFocus is definitely sluggish when doing things that require operating on the whole database, such as switching from project view to context view. However, I had an opportunity yesterday to try out my data on a Macbook Pro, 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo w/4GB RAM and was stunned at the performance. I would not have expected such a dramatic performance improvement.

My database currently has about 630 projects (many of them about 3-5 actions in length) and just over 4700 actions. I do use the LeaveEmptySelectionEmpty tweak, and it helps, but not as much as a modern machine apparently would!

Yeah, I'm also on a very recent model MacBook Pro. Perhaps that's making a difference in my case.

Although I see bushi has a fairly recent model as well.

-Dennis

I have a fairly small database, ~75 projects w/~450 actions, but I'm also on an ancient PowerBook G4, 1.5 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM. I can switch from the entire library of projects to context mode in about 1 second, switching back is about 1.5 second. Switching from perspective to perspective in the same window where the entire library is not displayed is almost instant. Perspectives that open in their own window take longer, perhaps two, three seconds tops. I'm using the 1.8SP releases.

any one knows where 1.8 will be released?

It sounds like OF 1.8 will be the next thing out the door. Bug fixes for the iPhone and iPad apps are awaiting approval from Apple, so the development fire power is trained squarely on OF for Mac 1.8 now. That's not a specific answer, but it seems like "soon" is a good guess.

Tested on macbook pro 2.4G core i5
 

A little better, but still slow.

I'm running OF 1.8.1 on an iMac 2.16 GHz Intel processor w/2 GB memory sync to OF on a iPod Touch 32GB 4th Generation.

Currently have 673 projects & 1709 actions as reported on the iPod. (No way to easily count them on the mac side)

Switch between perspectives on the mac takes less than a second for most of them and the longest one takes less than 2 seconds to switch.

I don't consider that particularly slow.

[QUOTE=Oogiem;88420](No way to easily count them on the mac side)

[/QUOTE]
Perhaps we have differing ideas about easy, but the following script gives quite a bit of detail without much effort!

[url]http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=18405[/url]

Easy is built in to the app just select the info section and all the data is there :-)

But that script is also fast, just I hate having to do scripting stuff for what I think ought to be included in the app.

[QUOTE=Oogiem;88427]Easy is built in to the app just select the info section and all the data is there :-)

But that script is also fast, just I hate having to do scripting stuff for what I think ought to be included in the app.[/QUOTE]

Does built in to the system you're running count? In the Terminal app:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Caches/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus/OmniFocusDatabase2 'select count(*) from Task;'

gets you the count of actions + action groups + projects

ls -l ~/Library/Application\ Support/OmniFocus/OmniFocus.ofocus | wc -l

gets you the zip file count. If you have some strongly felt reason not to install the script, there you go.

You can install that script as a toolbar button, and the resulting ease of use leads me to wonder if it really makes any substantive difference if it was coded by someone at Omni or not...sure, they could code it up, but do you really want them spending their time on something you can do yourself, or something you can't? After all, those numbers have very little to do with actually getting things done! If you do care about such numbers, it strikes me as exceedingly unlikely that you'll get a similarly comprehensive set built into the UI, with the resultant need to document what they all mean.

Well on the Ipod/iPhone app there is basic info provided very simply. That's what I would hope was in the Mac version too.

OF slow on quit
 

The above posts focus on the speed of OmniFocus when changing perspectives. My complaint is that it's slow when quitting. I just timed it at 25 seconds! Doesn't seem to me that it should take that long.

I've used the archive function and a pretty small database (only 327 tasks by the query given in one of the recent posts).

Anyone else observe this?

It does do a sync on quit, and may also write a backup, depending on your preferences, which might take even longer if a disk has to spin up. That said, it takes OF about 4 seconds to quit with my 7500+ action, 8.5 MB database if a disk doesn't have to spin up and the sync isn't one that causes a database compaction. The code may be clever enough to not do a database compaction during the sync on quit, I'm not sure, but I know it takes a while to write that much data to the cloud. If it always takes 20+ seconds to quit, I'd say there is something amiss with your setup, and you should have the support ninjas help you figure out what it is and how to fix it. 800-315-OMNI, +1-206-523-4152 or [email]omnifocus@omnigroup.com[/email] should get the ball rolling.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;91115]It does do a sync on quit, and may also write a backup, depending on your preferences, which might take even longer if a disk has to spin up. [/QUOTE]

Thanks! I thought I knew my preferences, but I guess not. Unchecking that "Also back up when quitting" did it for me.

FWIW, a while ago I had a corrupted preferences file that was causing slowdowns. If you've been a long-time OmniFocus user and rebuilding your database doesn't help, you might try trashing

/Users/YOU/Library/Preferences/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus.plist