OmniFocus has some great options for one-way delegation. If you and your intended recipient each have OmniFocus, you can use the following methods to delegate tasks to each other.
Mail Drop
Please read our OmniFocus Mail Drop article on how to set up and use the Mail Drop feature. To summarize, you and your recipient can set up email addresses that, when emailed, drop items directly into your OmniFocus Inbox. The subject line of the email becomes the item title, and any text in the body of the email gets put into the Note field of the item.
We recommend only sharing your Mail Drop email address with people you work with closely and often. It’s the most direct way to delegate an item to someone, as it will automatically be added to OmniFocus on their device the next time that device syncs.
This delegation option can also be used by trusted family members or colleagues who do not use OmniFocus, but would like to delegate items to you. Simply provide your Mail Drop email address to them and they can send items to you via email.
On a Mac: TaskPaper copy & paste
Every task or project in OmniFocus can be copied in TaskPaper format, which is a text format that preserves all the metadata like tags, dates, etc.
Control-click on the item you want to share, and choose from the contextual menu: Copy as TaskPaper. Paste the TaskPaper text into an email or other transfer method, and send it to your recipient.
When they receive the TaskPaper text, direct them to copy the entire line of TaskPaper text and paste it—the OmniFocus Inbox is usually a great place for pasting content.
Keep in mind that any tags or project assignments set for the copied item that do not already exist in your recipient’s database will be auto-created upon pasting the TaskPaper text.
On an iOS device: Share via email
OmniFocus for iOS has a handy Share sheet integration for emailing items. To use this, tap to select the item you want to share, then tap Share. In the Share popover, tap your email application icon. Add your recipient’s email address to the To: field, and send them the email.
When they receive the email, they can tap or click the Add to OmniFocus button in the email from any device that has OmniFocus installed. This will add the item—metadata and all—to their database.
Keep in mind that any tags or project assignments set for the initial item that do not already exist in your recipient’s database will be created upon addition.
If you have any questions about the above delegation options, or if there’s anything else we can assist with, please contact our Support team. Happy delegating!
Last Modified: Jun 4, 2020