Any hack that allows me to drag-and-drop emails to a folder that syncs with OmniFocus
 

Love Omnifocus, have been using it for about 3 years.

One little unsatisfied feature, though.

Wish that in Mac Mail I could drag an email from my inbox to a folder called "Omnifocus Actions". And it would automatically send that email to my inbox in OmniFocus.

The reason is that about 50 times a day in my inbox I have to go through this whole routine of :

1. Right-click an email I want to make an action in Omnifocus
2. Click on "Services"
3. Click on "OmniFocus: Send to Inbox"
4. Drag and drop that email to a folder I call "Omnifocus Actions"
5. Then when I've completed the action in Omnifocus I have to go back to my Mail folder and delete that original email

Or basically I don't do it 50 times a day -- I just keep separate tasks in Mail and Omnifocus. Messes me up.

Isn't there an easier way? I live in my Mail inbox!

Do you have a clipping shortcut set up? Select a message, invoke your clipping shortcut, message goes to OmniFocus just like in your scheme. Don't bother filing the email somewhere else, just use the Original Message link created when you clip the email to go back and delete it when you finish the action.

Thanks whpalmer4.

Then the original message will remain in my inbox? I try to move items out of my inbox once I've acted on them (i.e. "Inbox Zero").

Is there any way I can drag and drop an email into a specified email folder and have it invoke the Clipping Shortcut?

I know it sounds like I only save a few clicks this way but I do it 50+ times a day -- it gets cumbersome.

So why not save even more clicks by not refiling it, and simply choosing to view Unread messages in your Inbox?

It might be possible to cobble up an AppleScript that refiles the message and then has System Events run the clipping shortcut.

Here's another thought: how immediately do you need those actions to show up in OmniFocus, and how important is it that they have the text of the message with its formatting vs. just having a link to the message? I could imagine a script run periodically from iCal which took all the messages in a given folder (your Mail->OmniFocus "inbox", so to speak), created new actions in OmniFocus with just a link like the Original Message link you get when you clip it, then moved them to another folder where they would await completion. The advantages I see here are you don't have all of the message bodies actually taking up space in OmniFocus, you don't have to fool around with trying to simulate keyboard input from AppleScript, and refiling an email into a folder is pretty convenient, and could even be done automatically by a filter for some messages.

Unfortunately, building an exact replica of the message body via AppleScript is difficult, so if you need to have that in the actions, this scheme won't work (or I won't be the one implementing it, at least!)

Maybe there's some way of abusing the "send-to-omnifocus@omnigroup.com" email thing?
If you forwarded each email that you wanted to turn into a task to there, and had a smart folder set up in mail that would nab anything coming from that address.......
Then I'm lost, but I'm pretty sure there must be a way to get text expander (it'll handle scripts) or quicksilver to scrape whatever's in that folder into omnifocus. Maybe. Not enough of a ninja to work out what last step is between folder and profit though

There is a Curt Clifton script "Add OmniFocus Action without QE" which takes the currently selected Mail message and puts it in the inbox (body included) but also with a link back to the message in Mail. It is very handy to evoke using LaunchBar (few keystrokes like command-space,a,o,f,w or some such which may get shorter in time) and unlike the Send to Inbox script it could be modified to delete the message and not include the link back or move the message to an Archived for OF folder in Mail and then create the link. If you really like mousing, you could attach the script as a Folder Action in finder (there's a step using Automator in there to make the Folder Action, which I don't know off the top of my head but I"m sure somebody here does).

Curt's script only copies the text, not any attachments or rich text formatting. For some people this won't matter, and for others it will.

Send-to-omnifocus email doesn't do attachments or formatting, either, and has some length restrictions that get in the way.

If I understand the question, I may have a possible solution.

To create a to-do in OF from an e-mail, use the clipping services (to activate check preferences and install the clip-o-tron 3000 at the bottom of the menu). I've set the keyboard short-cut to shift+command+comma.

So, highlight the mail, hit your short-cut, and fill out the necessary info in the pop-up window - project, context, start date, and end date.

Then, I use Mail Act-On by Indev to send the e-mail to an archive folder. In my case, I've programmed a keyboard shortcut for that. You can send it to another folder (a folder named "waiting on" or "action needed", if that fits your work flow better.

This workflow in two keyboard short-cuts gets your e-mail out of your inbox (in-box 0) and creates an entry in OF. The original message link in your your OF entry will open the original e-mail, even if you move it to another folder.

Hope this is useful.

I use Mail Tags and Mail Act-on. Use mail Act-On to assign a tag to the email for example "To Reply". Then use the Clip O Tron to add an Omnifocus action. Then archive the email.

I use smartgroups to look for certain tags in mail. For example "To reply" or "Do Today". Then I can actually see what to do out of mail but still keep a zero inbox. Also in Omnifocus I can connect to the original email because it is archived.

I know this is a hybrid between MailTags and Act-On and Omnifocus . However it works for me.