Contents

• Contents
• Glossary
• Home and the Sidebar
  • The Perspectives List
  • Home Tools
  • Sidebar Navigation
  • Multi-Pane Navigation
• The Outline
  • The Anatomy of a Row
  • Outline Tools
  • Contextual Menus
  • Search
  • Edit Mode
  • Drag and Drop
• The Inspector
  • Inspector Tools
  • Title and Status Circle
  • Info, Note, and Attachments
  • Customizing The Inspector
  • Project and Action Attributes
  • Tag Attributes
• Built-In Perspectives
  • Forecast
  • Inbox
  • Flagged
  • Projects
  • Nearby
  • Tags
  • Review
  • Completed and Changed
• The Perspective Editor (Pro)
  • Name and Icon
  • Filter Rules
  • Presentation
  • Upgrade or Downgrade Perspective
  • Delete Perspective
• Settings
  • General
  • Sync
  • Colors
  • Organization
  • Due Dates
  • Notifications
  • Capture
  • Privacy
  • Device Information
  • Database
  • Reset
• Getting Help
  • Release Notes
  • Finding Help Online
  • Videos
  • Email Support
  • Phone Support
  • Online Forums
  • Troubleshooting
• Gestures and Keyboard Shortcuts
  • Useful Gestures
  • Keyboard Shortcuts
• OmniFocus for Apple Watch
  • The OmniFocus for Apple Watch Home Screen
  • Adding Inbox Items
  • Viewing and Editing Tasks
  • OmniFocus on your Watch Face
  • Customizing Today
• Interacting With Siri
  • Adding Actions
  • Adding Projects
  • Marking Items Complete
  • Searching
• iOS Integration
  • Send to OmniFocus
  • Today Widget
  • Spotlight Search
• OmniFocus Extended
  • Email Capture (Mail Drop)
  • Workflow Automation

Action

An item that’s part of a project, or part of a group within a project.

Action Group

Also referred to as a sub-project, an action group is a set of actions nested hierarchically within a parent action (which itself can be part of a project).

Active

The status for an item that’s planned for completion, or a tag that’s currently in use. Active status can be set on projects and tags using the inspector.

Available

An item status (and view option) that includes items that aren’t blocked, deferred, or on hold. Available status is derived from an item’s defer date, project type, and project or tag status.

Blocked

The status of an action in a sequential project that comes after the first available action. Blocked status isn’t set directly; to unblock an action, either change the project to another type or move the action to the top of the project.

Compact

A view width that requires OmniFocus’s multi-pane design to run in a layered stack rather than with the panes side by side (contrast with wide view). iPhone in portrait orientation and iPad in 1/3 split screen are examples of compact views.

Complete

The status assigned to an item when you’ve finished it, or finished all the actions that comprise it (in the case of a project or group). Tap an item’s status circle to mark it complete.

Contextual Menu

Since iOS doesn’t have a menu structure similar to macOS, OmniFocus uses contextual menus to provide a method of interacting with the user interface. Where available, contextual menus appear when you long-press on a row or block of text and then release your finger. Contextual menus appear as a black bar—with menu options specific to the object or interface element you have tapped.

Database

The file that OmniFocus uses to hold all of the information that you add to the app. OmniFocus and its various perspectives act as windows onto your database, interpreting the data there in ways that help you get stuff done. There’s typically no need to interact with your database file directly; there are Settings that can optimize its performance, and you can contact support if it looks like things may be amiss.

Defer Date

A date and time assigned to an item that you don’t want to (or can’t) consider for completion until later. When the defer date is reached, the item becomes available for work. Also referred to as the Defer Until date.

Drag & Drop

Introduced with iOS 11, Drag & Drop is a system-level function that is integrated with OmniFocus and other apps on iOS. You can drag text into OmniFocus from the other apps, reorder items in the outline, and drag rows or selected text from OmniFocus to other apps on your device.

Dropped

The status for a project or tag that is no longer being considered for completion. Use the inspector to set a project or tag as dropped.

Due Date

A date and time assigned to an item by which the item must be completed.

Due Soon

A status for items whose due dates are approaching. Items that are due soon are styled in amber for greater visibility. The exact meaning of Due Soon is configurable in OmniFocus Settings.

First Available

A status (and view option) designating a project’s first action as the only one available. First Available status is derived from an action’s position within a project and the project’s type: for sequential and parallel projects, the first available action is the first action in the project list. For single action lists, all actions are equally available.

Flag

A mark of privileged, eye-catching status bestowed on an item. What this special status denotes is completely up to you, but it’s a great way to keep important things from falling through the cracks. Items that are flagged are styled in orange for greater visibility.

Group

A collection of items nested hierarchically within another item. Groups created from inbox items are item groups, while groups created within projects are action groups (also sometimes called sub-projects).

Hidden

An item that exists in your database but isn’t exposed by the view options of your current perspective. Relevant when the app gives notice that you might be deleting something by mistake.

Home

The top level of hierarchy in the sidebar and central navigation hub to all other perspectives in the app. To return Home from another view, tap the chevron in the upper left (or touch and hold it to return home immediately, without passing through each level of the view hierarchy).

Inbox

The built-in perspective designed to hold tasks and to-dos that you’ve entered into OmniFocus as items, prior to processing them into projects, actions, and groups.

Inspector

A pane that holds the suite of tools for adding and changing the details of an action, project, or tag. The inspector opens automatically when you tap an item in the outline; in wide views or in Edit mode, tap to show or hide it.

Item

Items are representations of tasks and to-dos in an OmniFocus database. Types of items include: inbox items, actions, projects, and groups.

Keyboard Shortcut

A set of keys pressed to invoke a menu command, available when a Bluetooth keyboard is paired with your device. Press and hold command (⌘) to see a list of shortcuts available from your current location in the app.

On Hold

A status for projects and tags that aren’t relevant to your plans right now, but may be in the foreseeable future. Use the inspector to set projects and tags on hold.

Outline

The place where you see and interact with your items in OmniFocus, usually through a hierarchical view of your database. Specific perspectives (such as Tags and Forecast) have specialized ways of showing your data that eschew or modify the typical project hierarchy.

Overdue

A status for items whose due dates are past. Items that are overdue are styled in red for greater visibility.

Parallel

A project or group that doesn’t place particular emphasis on the order in which its actions are completed. All actions are considered available, though the topmost action is still considered the first available action for the purposes of view options.

Perspective

A view on your OmniFocus database that appears in the sidebar’s perspective list and is detailed in the outline. OmniFocus comes with seven built-in perspectives and two transient reference perspectives (Completed and Changed). Custom perspectives can be created in OmniFocus Pro.

Perspective Editor

With OmniFocus Pro, the editor used to create new perspectives or edit existing custom perspectives. To open the Perspective Editor, tap the New Perspectives button in Home bottom bar, or tap View Options in an existing custom perspective.

Project

A to-do item that’s larger in scope or permanence than a simple action, potentially containing several actions and groups within it that must be completed before the project can be marked complete.

Remaining

An item status and view option that shows all items that haven’t been completed or dropped. This status is derived from an item’s attributes and not set directly.

Sequential

A project or group whose actions must be completed in a specific order. The first action in the list is the only one available for completion; all later actions are considered blocked.

Sidebar

A pane that holds the Home view and perspective list, and displays additional levels of hierarchy when navigating deeper into Projects, Tags, and Review. The sidebar appears on the left of the outline in wide views; tap to show or hide it.

Single Action List

A project whose actions are equally available regardless of sequence. Unlike other project types where completion is the goal, single action lists persist regardless of whether they contain available actions.

Sub-Project

A term synonymous with action group; a group of actions nested hierarchically within a project.

Status Circle

A graphical depiction of an item’s status (due soon, overdue, flagged, or repeating), as well as a target to tap to mark an item completed.

Summary Dots

A row of colored dots shown beneath sidebar entries in the Projects and Tags perspectives, used for an at-a-glance view of the number and urgency of items remaining to be completed within them.

Tag

A person, place, thing, state of mind, or other factor relevant to the completion of a given action or project. These exist outside the project hierarchy and represent another axis from which to view the items you’ve accumulated in your database. An item can have as many tags as you find to be useful.

Task

In the context of this manual, a task is something you’d like to accomplish in the real world that you’d capture with OmniFocus (where it would then become an item). To-do is another word with the same meaning.

Toolbar

A region along the top or bottom of the OmniFocus view that contains controls for modifying the contents of that view.

Wide

A view width that allows OmniFocus’s multi-pane design to run with the panes side by side rather than in a layered stack (contrast with compact view). Full-width iPad and the largest iPhones in landscape orientation are examples of wide views.

The Perspectives List

The primary feature of the Home view is the perspectives list: a directory of views on your database that organize your tasks according to specific sets of criteria useful for getting stuff done.

By default, the perspectives list includes OmniFocus’s built-in perspectives along with two Other Perspectives, Completed and Changed, which help track items you’ve been working on that might be harder to find. Tap Show in the Other Perspectives header to display them in the Home view.

Perspective Tile Badges

The Forecast, Inbox, Flagged, and Review perspective tiles are badged with a number corresponding to attributes of the items they contain.

• Forecast—Counts the number of items past due. Items due today or due soon are not counted. (The full-width Forecast tile also includes a calendar row with days badged with the number of due items they contain.)

• Inbox—Counts the total number of items in the Inbox. The parent tasks of action groups are not counted.

• Flagged—Counts the total number of flagged tasks. Items with inherited flags are included in the count.

• Review —Counts the number of projects with pending reviews.

Rearranging Perspectives

With OmniFocus Pro, you can hide default perspectives that you don’t use and rearrange the Home tiles to bring others to prominence.

Tap Edit in the toolbar, or tap and hold a perspective tile until Tile Editing mode is engaged, to rearrange perspectives as you like. Perspectives in the Other Perspectives section are always available by tapping Show in the Other Perspectives header at the bottom of Home.

Home Tools

The following buttons appear in the toolbar and bottom bar of the Home view.

Settings

Tap Settings to open OmniFocus Settings, a menu with controls for customizing many aspects of your OmniFocus experience. See the Settings chapter for details.

Edit

With OmniFocus Pro installed, Tap Edit to switch Home to Tile Editing mode for rearranging your perspective tiles.

New Perspective

With OmniFocus Pro installed, Tap New Perspective to open the Perspective Editor and create a new custom perspective. See the Perspective Editor chapter for details.

Search

The Search button appears in the Home toolbar in compact views. Tap it to open a search on items in your database; you can choose to search from among Remaining items (those not completed or dropped), or Everything—all items that exist in your database.

Undo

The Undo button appears in the Home bottom bar in compact views. Tap it to revert the most recent change to your database. After a change has been undone, this button changes to Undo/Redo and provides the option to restore the undone change.

New Inbox Item

The New Inbox Item button appears in the Home bottom bar in compact views. Tap it to open a new Inbox item for editing. (In wide views, this button appears in the outline’s bottom bar.)

Pin

The Pin button appears in the Home toolbar in wide views. Tap it to pin the sidebar to the left side of the OmniFocus view (if the sidebar isn’t pinned, it will be dismissed when you begin navigating the outline).

Sidebar Navigation

When you tap a perspective tile in the Home view it usually navigates straight to the outline, showing the list of action items associated with that perspective. (In wide views the outline appears in the center of the screen, while in compact views it replaces Home.)

The Projects, Tags, and Review perspectives are a bit different. These perspectives contain items that don’t represent directly actionable tasks: folders with projects inside them in the case of Projects, and nested tags in the case of Tags. (Review contains a flat list of your projects that are due for review.)

When you tap one of these perspectives, the sidebar switches to a top-level view of that perspective’s library, which you can use to navigate deeper into folders or nested tags until you find the project or tag with content that you want to edit.

In wide views, this content appears as rows in the outline alongside the sidebar; in compact views, the outline appears after navigating through the library.

Sidebar Editing

While you’re looking at a list of projects or tags in the sidebar, you can drag and drop to reorder them. You can also swipe left or right on a row in the sidebar to reveal additional controls:

• Swipe left to delete a project or tag, or tap More to reschedule a project’s due, defer, or review date.

• Swipe right to flag a project, or add the Forecast tag if one is set.

In wide views, use the sidebar in tandem with the outline to narrow in on specific sets of tasks. Tap a row in the sidebar and the outline switches to show only that project, folder, or tag, along with anything it contains. Tap the row in the sidebar again, and the outline returns to show everything.

Sidebar Summary

When viewing a list of projects or tags in the sidebar, each row is accompanied by a series of summary dots beneath its title. These represent the number and relative urgency of the tasks within the project or tag, and use the same color coding as status circles.

The summary row beneath a project or tag also displays an icon representing its status: Flagged , On Hold , Completed , Dropped , or Active (no icon; the default state).

Multi-Pane Navigation

OmniFocus 3 for iOS is built on multiple panes with content that can be revealed, hidden, and pinned to create a custom view that best suits whatever you’re working on.

The three panes consist of:

• The sidebar
• The outline
• The inspector

Wide Views

In wide views, the outline is the only pane that is permanently visible. Tap the Sidebar button to show the sidebar, and tap the Inspector button to show the inspector.

Tap Pin to pin the sidebar and/or the inspector in place. Without pinning, these panes hide themselves away when you start working in the outline.

Compact Views

In compact views, Home and the perspectives list are the top level of navigation, replaced by a more specific view when you tap a perspective. When navigating in compact, tap an item to open its detail view, switching panes automatically when necessary.

Tap Back to return to the previous view, or tap and hold it to return Home in an instant.

The Anatomy of a Row

A row in the OmniFocus outline represents an item—a to-do that you captured with OmniFocus—or a piece of your organizational framework like a project, folder, or tag.

Rows display all sorts of information about an item, like the project it belongs to, any relevant tags, due dates, and completion status in the form of the status circle.

The figure below is a breakdown of an item in the Inbox that’s packed with additional information about the task at hand.

1. Project—If the item has a project assigned, its location in the project hierarchy appears here. Since this is an Inbox item (and Inbox items with projects are usually cleaned up), this item is listed with No Project. This row does not appear on items in the Projects perspective or custom perspectives that display project hierarchy, and can be hidden in View Options to increase the number of items on screen at once.

2. Title—The item’s title. Black title text generally indicates that an item is actionable; items that are completed, blocked, on hold, or parents of groups have grey title text instead (unless they are due soon or overdue).

3. Notes and Attachments—These icons indicate whether the item includes notes or attachments .

4. Tags—Any tags assigned to the item appear here. An item can have as many tags as you want; if there are more tags than horizontal space in the row, additional tags are indicated by an ellipsis.

5. Dates—If the item has due or defer dates assigned, they will appear here when relevant (once a defer date has passed it is no longer displayed). The defer date may be hidden if there isn’t enough room in the row.

6. Status Circle—A visual representation of the completion status of the item, along with other important attributes. Tap an active item’s status circle to mark it complete.

Project, Folder, and Tag Rows

In addition to the common attributes of Inbox items, rows for projects, folders, and tags can have a variety of other useful information.

1. Disclosure Triangle—Tap to collapse or expand the folder, project, or tag to hide or reveal its contents.

2. Row Type Icon—Projects, folders, and tags have icons next to them to help remind you of your current perspective and the row’s relation to those around it. Projects are further broken down by type: Sequential, Parallel, and Single Actions.

3. Row Status—Projects and tags with a status other than Active display it here. In addition to Active (no icon), Projects can be On Hold , Completed , or Dropped , while tags can be Active, On Hold, or Dropped.

4. Item Count—The total number of items in the project, folder, or tag.

5. Notes and Attachments—Indicates whether there are notes or attachments associated with the project itself (as opposed to the items within it). Notes and attachments can’t be assigned to folders or tags.

6. Due Summary—When there is enough room in the row, this line shows a breakdown of the due states (due soon and overdue) of items in the project, folder, or tag.

Status Circle

An item’s status circle is the target for checking it off when it is done. Tap the circle , and the item is complete . (What happens next depends on your Clean Up setting.)

Status circles also convey important information about an item: items can be due soon (amber), overdue (red), or flagged (orange). Repeating items are also distinguished by the ellipsis in their center.

If you have an item with more than one status, the circle will take on multiple colors simultaneously to communicate each relevant attribute. Likewise, an item that is nested inside a flagged project or group will inherit the flagged property; when a flag is inherited, its icon is hollow rather than filled.

Outline Tools

The outline toolbar and bottom bar contain a variety of tools for determining what gets displayed in the outline, editing multiple items at once, adding new items to the outline, reverting unwanted changes, and managing projects in the Review perspective.

View Options

Tap View Options to customize which items appear in the current perspective’s outline view based on their completion status, project order, and other perspective-specific features.

Edit

Tap Edit to enter Edit mode, where you can adjust the properties of multiple items at once.

Back

In compact views, tap Back to return to the previous level in your OmniFocus directory. (The button’s label changes to Home when at the top level of another perspective, or to the perspective’s name when a level below that.)

Inspector

In wide views, tap Inspector to open and close the inspector on the right side of OmniFocus. In compact views, the Inspector button appears in the toolbar while in Edit mode. (Both views can use the inspector to batch edit items while in Edit mode.)

Clean Up

In wide views, tap Clean Up to tidy any items in the outline that may belong elsewhere after a change of project, tag, or status. In compact views, drag down on the outline to prompt a clean up.

Sidebar

In wide views, tap Sidebar to open and close the sidebar on the left side of OmniFocus. In compact views, tap Back to return to the sidebar and Home.

New Inbox Item

Tap New Inbox Item to quickly add items to the Inbox, or tap and hold the button’s icon to drag it anywhere in the outline. As you drag the button over the outline, rows around it separate to provide a blank space to drop it. Drop the button to create a new item at that spot in the outline hierarchy, pre-filled with any relevant attributes based on the perspective you’re in.

Create New...

The Create New buttons are available when viewing a relevant perspective in the outline. Tap to add an item of the chosen type (Project , Folder , or Tag ) at the top level of on-screen hierarchy. (If you’re looking at the contents of a folder and tap Create New Folder, for instance, the folder will be created inside the current folder.)

Add Here

The Add Here button is available when viewing the contents of a single project, tag, or other flat list (such as the Flagged perspective or a date in Forecast). Tap it to add an action item at the current location.

Undo

Undo is available wherever you are in the outline. Tap it to revert the most recent change to your database. After a change has been undone, this button changes to Undo/Redo and provides the option to restore the undone change.

Review Buttons

These buttons are available in the bottom bar of the Review perspective, and have specific uses pertaining to the review process.

• Previous—Return to the previous project in the list for review.
• Next—Advance to the next project in the list for review.
• Mark Reviewed—Mark the current project as reviewed, and advance to the next project in the list. The project’s next review date is updated to the present plus its review interval.

Contextual Menus

Contextual menus appear when you tap and hold a row in the outline, and contain commands contextually relevant to your selection.

On Actions

Contextual menus on actions and Inbox items offer the following commands:

• Cut
• Copy
• Paste

On Projects

Contextual menus on projects offer the following commands:

• Go to Project
• Paste
• Review
• New Action

On Folders

Contextual menus on folders offer the following commands:

• Go to Folder
• New Folder
• New Project

On Tags

Contextual menus on tags offer the following commands:

• Go to Tag
• Paste
• New Tag
• New Action

On Disclosure Triangles

Contextual menus on disclosure triangles (regardless of item type) offer the following commands:

• Expand All
• Collapse All

Search

Navigate to the top of the outline and drag down to reveal the Search bar. Tap Search and enter keywords to find matching items from among three different possible scopes on your database.

• Here—The search is limited to the content currently visible in the outline. For many perspectives this includes the entire content of the perspective, but for those with hierarchy it may not—if you’re viewing the contents of a specific project or folder, items in projects outside that scope will not be shown in the results.

• Remaining—The search includes everything in your database with an implicit status of Remaining: all items except those marked Completed or Dropped.

• Everything—The search includes every item in your database, regardless of status or location.

Search looks for text matching the keywords in item titles, notes, and tags, and displays results as a list of items in the outline.

Edit Mode

Tap Edit in the outline toolbar to enter Edit mode. In Edit mode, you can select, inspect, and edit as many items simultaneously as you would like. (Tap rows in the outline to select them.)

Any attributes shared by the selected items are displayed in the inspector. When attributes differ, the inspector indicates this as well (items selected across projects display as Mixed, a collection of flagged and unflagged items displays Some Items Flagged, and so on).

Editing an attribute of the selection applies the edit to all items in the selection, overwriting any existing information (in the case of Some Items Flagged, for example, tapping to flag the selection applies a flag directly to all items in the selection).

Any property shared by items in the selection can be edited using the inspector, or tap Delete to delete the selection from your database entirely.

In addition to the inspector’s editing controls, tap More in the outline’s bottom bar for several other batch editing tools (in the widest outline view these appear in the bottom bar side by side).

• Flag—Add Flagged status to the items in the selection.

• Tag—Add a tag to the items in the selection. A sheet appears with a list of existing tags and the option to create a new one from text in the Search dialog.

• Remove Tag—Remove a tag from items in the selection. A sheet appears with a list of tags shared by one or more of the selected items.

• Group—Create a group consisting of the selected items and a new parent item. The group appears in the hierarchy on a peer row of the first item in the selection, directly above it.

• Cut—Cut the items from the database and copy them to the pasteboard. Leave Edit mode and tap and hold a row to open the contextual menu and paste the copied items beneath it.

• Copy—Copy the items to the pasteboard. Leave Edit mode and tap and hold a row to open the contextual menu and paste the copied items beneath it.

• Delete—Delete the items from the database entirely.

When you are finished editing, tap Done in the toolbar to leave Edit mode.

Drag and Drop

Items in the outline can be repositioned within the outline hierarchy, dragged to other projects or tags in the sidebar, and dragged from OmniFocus to other applications (where they are added in plain text Taskpaper format).

To select an item for drag and drop, tap and hold its row in the outline until the item “lifts off the page” and transforms into a mobile selection under your finger.

Once lifted, you can add additional items to the selection by tapping their rows. Additional items animate to join the selection, and the badge count increments to indicate the total number of items being dragged. When you drag a project or tag, the selection includes all of the items inside it.

If you would like to add items to the selection that are off screen, swipe to scroll the outline with a second finger while holding the selection with the first.

Inspector Tools

Several tools for manipulating the current item are available in the inspector’s toolbar and bottom bar.

Pin

The Pin button appears in the inspector toolbar in wide views. Tap it to pin the inspector to the right side of the OmniFocus view. If the inspector isn’t pinned, it will be dismissed when you navigate between perspectives or anywhere that doesn’t involve an item selection.

Previous

Tap Previous to return to the item above the currently selected item in the outline.

Next

Tap Next to advance to the item below the currently selected item in the outline.

Done

The Done button appears in the inspector toolbar in compact views. Tap it to dismiss the inspector and return to the outline.

Move

Tap Move to open the Move dialog and reposition the currently selected item. The Move dialog provides destinations for moving an item to another position within its parent project or group.

Convert

Tap Convert to open the Convert dialog, where you can convert an action to a top level project, or convert it to a project inside an existing folder. (If the selected item is a project, Convert functions in reverse to change it to an action.)

Delete

Tap Delete to remove the selected item or items from your database entirely.

Share

Tap Share to send a selected item outside of OmniFocus using the iOS Share dialog. The item is added in a format relevant to its destination, with a link back to the original item in OmniFocus (or to add the item in OmniFocus, if sent via Mail).

Title and Status Circle

Beneath the inspector’s toolbar are two of the more important components of tasks you capture with OmniFocus: the title and the status circle.

Every item or tag you add to OmniFocus has a title. Tap the title text in the inspector to edit it.

Directly actionable items (Inbox items, actions, and groups) have a status circle opposite their title, useful for getting an at-a-glance summary of the status of the item and serving as a tap target to mark it complete.

Info, Note, and Attachments

Inbox items, projects, actions, and groups can be further enriched by adding information across three tabs in the inspector: Info, Note, and Attachments.

• The Info tab includes a list of configurable item attributes, described in detail in Project and Action Attributes. The Info tab can be customized to feature the attributes you use most frequently.

• The Note tab offers a blank canvas to add as much information about the item as you like. URLs added here become interactive once the note is saved, making it possible to refer back to websites or other apps that use URL syntax.

• The Attachments tab lists any attachments included with the item, and offers controls for adding image attachments (either from Photos or using the device camera) and recording audio attachments right within OmniFocus.

Customizing The Inspector

You can customize the inspector for items you edit. The inspector starts by showing a default set of commonly used attributes; tap Show More to view all of the attributes available for that item type.

If there are attributes you rely on more frequently, tap Customize Inspector and use the reordering handles on the right to promote those attributes to the Always Show category above the separator bar. Likewise, if there are attributes that you don’t use, you can drag them to the Hide By Default category here.

Changes you make to the inspector are shared between item types (Inbox items, projects, actions, and groups), but not all attributes are relevant to each item. Those that don’t apply to a given item do not appear in that item’s inspector.

Project and Action Attributes

Because rows in the inspector can have their default order changed, the following attributes are listed alphabetically for ease of reference.

Complete with Last Action

Appears For: Sequential and Parallel Projects

A row labeled Mark Complete with a switch to choose between two options:

• Manually—The project status must be changed to Completed manually, regardless of the completion status of actions within the project.

• With Last Action—The project status automatically changes to Completed when the last action in the project is completed.

Projects of the Single Actions type do not display this attribute, since they have no last action and are not conventionally considered complete.

Defer Until

Appears For: All Items

A row labeled Defer Until followed by a date and time (or None, if no defer date is set). Tap to set or change the item’s defer date.

When a defer date is set on an item, it is not considered available for action until that date is reached.

If a defer date is set on a project or group, items within it inherit that date. (A defer date set directly on the item will override the inherited date, if it is later.)

Due

Appears For: All Items

A row labeled Due followed by a date and time (or None, if no due date is set). Tap to set or change the item’s due date.

When a due date is set on an item, it is considered due at that date (and due soon based on the Due Dates settings).

If a due date is set on a project or group, items within it inherit that date. (A due date set directly on the item will override the inherited date, if it is sooner.)

Estimated Duration

Appears For: All Items

A row labeled Estimated Duration followed by an amount of time (in minutes or hours). Tap to set or change the item’s time estimate for completion.

Estimated duration is particularly useful when setting up custom perspectives with OmniFocus Pro, where you can use this value to create perspectives for tasks that require a certain amount of time to complete.

Flag

Appears For: All Items

A row labeled Flag followed by a flag icon: either empty (unflagged), filled orange (flagged), or with an orange dotted outline (inherited flag). Tap to set or remove flagged status on the item.

When a flag is set on an item, it appears in the Flagged perspective. If a flag is set on a project or group, the items within it inherit the flag.

Notifications

Appears For: All Items

A row labeled Notifications followed by a count of the notifications on the item (or None, if no notifications are set). Tap to view a list of notifications on the item and create new custom notifications.

If any notifications were created automatically for the item based based on your preferences in Sounds and Alerts settings, these appear in the list here.

Tap +Custom Notification (or +Before Due Notification, if the item is due in the future) to add a notification. To delete a notification, swipe its row in the inspector from right to left and tap Delete.

You can set as many notifications on an item as you like; when multiple notifications are set, they are listed from earliest to latest.

Project

Appears For: Inbox Items, Actions, and Groups

A row labeled Project followed by the project name and the Go To Project button (or None, if no project is set). Tap to assign or change the item’s project, or tap Go To Project to open the project in the outline.

The project picker can also be used to create new projects: enter an unused project title and tap Create “New Project”, and the new project will be assigned to the item.

Projects are tasks composed of the action items required to complete them. Unlike tags, an item can only be assigned to a single project at a time.

Project Status

Appears For: Projects

A row labeled Status with buttons for choosing the project status: Active, On Hold, Completed, or Dropped.

Projects have the Active status by default. For more on the meaning of each status and how it affects availability of items within the project, see Project Status.

Project Type

Appears For: Projects

A row labeled Type with buttons for choosing the project type: Sequential, Parallel, or Single Actions.

Projects have the Parallel type by default. For more on the meaning of each status and how it affects availability of items within the project, see Project Type.

Repeat

Appears For: Items other than Single Action Lists

A row labeled Repeat followed by a summary of the repeat interval (or None, if the item doesn’t repeat). Tap to set or change an item’s repeat interval.

Tap the Repeat switch to turn on repeating for an item. Items can be set to repeat based on a variety of criteria that are progressively disclosed as you make changes in the repeat editor:

• Interval—Choose a number hours, days, weeks, or months which elapse for every repeat cycle. When weeks or months are chosen, additional custom options become available.

• Custom: Days of Week—With an interval of weeks, the option becomes available to repeat every weekday chosen here (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, for example). With an interval of months, the option becomes available to repeat every first through fifth (or last) weekday of the month.

• Custom: Days in Month—With an interval of months, the option becomes available to repeat on the chosen calendar dates of the month (or the last day of the month).

• Schedule the Next—Choose whether completing the item will schedule the next occurence as a:

  • Due Date—The item must be completed again by that date. Or;
  • Defer Until Date—The item becomes available again on that date.

• Repeat From This Item’s—Choose whether completing the item will schedule the next occurence from:

  • Completion—The repeat interval begins when the item is completed. Or;
  • Assigned Dates—The repeat interval begins at the originally assigned date.

Review

Appears For: Projects

A row labeled Review followed by the date of the project’s next scheduled review. Tap to edit a project’s review details.

Use the Review editor to change the frequency with which the project comes up for review (the default is every week, beginning a week from the project’s creation), and edit the date of the next scheduled review.

Tags

Appears For: All Items

A row labeled Tags, containing the Add Tag button as well as any tags assigned to the item.

Tags represent associations that tasks have to you and the world around them. Tap Add Tag to add an existing tag to an item, or create a new one to add: enter an unused tag name and tap Create “New Tag”, and the new tag is created and assigned.

Unlike projects, an item can be assigned as many tags as you like. When tags are assigned to an item, tap one in the inspector row to either go to or remove it.

If you have more tags on an item than fit in the row, swipe left or right to find the tag you want.

Tag Attributes

Because rows in the inspector can have their default order changed, the following attributes are listed alphabetically for ease of reference.

Location

Appears For: All Tags

A row labeled Location followed by the location set on the tag (or None, if no location is set). Tap to set a tag’s location. The following options appear:

• Here—Use Wi-Fi or cellular triangulation to pinpoint where you are right now, and add that as the tag location.

• Anywhere—This isn’t really a location; instead, it means that this tag contains work you can do no matter where you are.

• Search—Enter a search keyword (“hardware store”, for example). You can either assign the tag a location that appears as a result of the search, or use the search itself: if you use the search, the tag location becomes the location of the nearest search result at any given time.

• Address—Enter a specific address to add as the location.

• Contact—Choose an address from an entry in iOS Contacts. If this is the first time you’ve opted to set a location this way, an alert will pop up asking you to authorize OmniFocus access to your contacts.

• Pin—Touch and hold a spot on the map to drop a pin at a location of your choice.

To removed an assigned location, tap the X next to it in the row.

When a location is assigned to a tag, it shows up in Nearby when you’re close to that location.

Tag Notification Distance

Appears For: Tags with Locations

A row labeled Distance with buttons for choosing the location’s area size.

• Small—Roughly 200 meters or 650 feet. This covers about one city block, and is useful for things such as coming home or leaving the office.

• Medium—Roughly 500 meters or about a quarter mile. This covers something like a small neighborhood or park, and is useful for knowing when you are a few streets over from a certain store.

• Large—About 10 kilometers or 6.2 miles. This is useful for turning on tags that are relevant when you visit a distant city.

Tag Notification Kind

Appears For: Tags with Locations

A row labeled Notification with buttons for choosing the location’s notification type.

• None—You will not be notified when arriving at or leaving from the tag location.

• When Arriving—You will be notified when you arrive at the area of the tag location.

• When Leaving—You will be notified when you depart from the area of the tag location.

Tag Status

Appears For: All Tags

A row labeled Status with buttons for choosing the tag status: Active, On Hold, or Dropped.

Tags have the Active status by default. For more on the meaning of each status and how it affects availability of items the tag is assigned to, see Tag Status.

Forecast

Forecast helps you keep an eye on the progress of your projects, check upcoming due dates, and schedule OmniFocus to-dos alongside important events in your calendar.

The Forecast tile in the Home view shows a range of dates spanning today, the next four days, the past, and the future, letting you know at a glance what’s on your plate.

Each date doubles as a button that shows the number of actions associated with that date. For due items, the count is color-coded according to the most urgent item: amber indicates that an item is due soon, and red indicates an item is due or past due.

To create a new action that is due on a particular day, tap the appropriate date button, followed by Add Here .

Forecast Outline

The Forecast outline displays a chronological list of items due each day, interleaved with events from any calendars you’ve chosen to display in OmniFocus.

A row of dates at the top of the outline mirrors that in the Home perspective tile. Tap a day to view that day’s due items and calendar events.

If you have designated a Forecast tag in view options, items with that tag appear in a separate section of the outline when browsing items due Today.

Forecast View Options

• All Days Show: Calendar Events—With this setting turned on, events from calendars you’ve chosen to display in Forecast will appear alongside OmniFocus items on the dates when they occur. With this turned off, calendar events do not appear in the outline.

• All Days Show: Deferred Items—With this setting turned on, deferred items scheduled to begin on a given day will appear in a separate Deferred section on the dates when they become available. With this turned off, deferred items do not appear in the outline until they are due.

• Calendars—When All Days Show: Calendar Events is turned on, use this submenu to pick the calendars that you would like to appear in OmniFocus. Events from the selected calendars appear interspersed chronologically with your OmniFocus items in the Forecast outline.

  Calendars works with the iOS Calendar app to find calendars you own or have subscribed to across services and devices, including iCloud, Google Calendar, and more. Use Accounts & Passwords settings in the iOS Settings app to connect to your shared calendars.

• Today Includes: Tag—With OmniFocus Pro, choose a tag here to have its items appear in the Today view of Forecast in their own section of the outline. Once set, this Forecast tag can be applied to items from anywhere in the outline: swipe an item row from left to right and tap the Tag button to do so.

• Show Project Paths—With this setting turned on, rows in the outline include their project information above the item title as described in The Anatomy of a Row. Turn this off to reduce the amount of space taken by each row in the outline.

Inbox

The Inbox is the catch-all perspective for depositing everything that you’d like to do. To add an item to the Inbox, tap Add Inbox Item in the toolbar. (You can use this button wherever it appears to add Inbox items from all over OmniFocus.)

Many workflows use the inbox as an initial point of entry, a transient receptacle for ideas big and small. Once you’ve processed an Inbox item (added a project or tag, converted it to a project, or assigned it some other fate), it will likely disappear off to its new location (this depends on your Clean Up settings).

Inbox Outline

The Inbox contains a list of individual items. If you convert an Inbox item to a project it will immediately disappear (you’ll have the option to see it in its new location in Projects).

Inbox View Options

• In The Inbox, Show:—Choose the setting for items that you would like to be visible in the outline (Available is the default). Each option describes the requirements for items that it includes or excludes; see the Glossary for further details on each status.

• Show Project Paths—With this setting turned on, rows in the outline include their project information above the item title as described in The Anatomy of a Row. Turn this off to reduce the amount of space taken by each row in the outline.

Flagged

The Flagged perspective contains a collection of all items you have assigned the Flagged status.

To flag an item, open it for editing and tap the flag icon. Another quick way to flag (or unflag) an item is to swipe it from right to left, revealing the Flag command alongside More and Delete.

When you flag an item, its status circle changes color to orange to help catch your eye and let you know that something important is going on. If you flag a project or an action group all of the actions within it inherit that flag, and the sense of urgency it imparts. Flags on items that are inherited rather than directly applied are noted with a hollow flag icon attached to their status circles.

Flagged Outline

Items in the Flagged outline are sorted first by due date (from oldest to most recent), then by project (for items with the same due date). Sorting isn’t affected by whether a flag is inherited or directly applied, and the only items that appear in Flagged are those that are directly actionable (flagged projects don’t appear).

Flagged View Options

• In Flagged, Show:—Choose the setting for items that you would like to be visible in the outline (Available is the default). Each option describes the requirements for items that it includes or excludes; see the Glossary for further details on each status.

• Show Project Paths—With this setting turned on, rows in the outline include their project information above the item title as described in The Anatomy of a Row. Turn this off to reduce the amount of space taken by each row in the outline.

Projects

A project is a task made up of multiple items. Projects are typically more complex than individual action items, and can include several related actions. The Projects perspective displays all of your projects in a list, which can be grouped into folders to create hierarchy.

Project Type

Projects are distinguished by their type, which varies based on how actions inside the project must be completed. Project type also affects how actions within the project show up according to the perspective’s view options.

• Sequential—Sequential projects have actions that need to be completed in a predetermined order; the first item must be finished before you can move on to the next. In a sequential project, there is only ever one action available at a time. (this is also, by definition, the project’s first available action).

• Parallel—Parallel projects consist of actions that can be completed in any order. In a parallel project, all incomplete actions are available, and the first available is just the first one in the list.

• Single Actions—A single action list isn’t a project in the traditional sense; it’s a list of loosely-related items that aren’t interdependent (a shopping list is an example of this). In a single action list, all actions are considered both available and first available.

Project Status

When planning and subsequently reviewing a project, it can be useful to give it a status to indicate whether work is progressing or plans have changed.

• Active—The default status for a new or ongoing project. It can be useful to review active projects regularly to determine what progress you’ve made, and whether they are still things you want to do.

• On Hold—If you’re not sure whether you want to continue a project, you can change the project’s status from Active to On Hold. If you’ve chosen to show only Available items in view options, the project and its actions are removed from the project list in the sidebar and outline.

  Projects placed on hold are still available for review and reconsideration if you decide to prioritize them again in the future.

• Completed—Eventually you’ll reach the successful end of a project. Select the project and then choose Completed in the Status section of the inspector (this automatically marks any unfinished actions in the project complete). If you’d like to revisit a completed project, change your view options to All or search for the project with the Everything filter.

• Dropped—If you’ve decided not to work on a project any further, you can Drop it completely. It disappears from the Projects list, and its actions are likewise hidden. You could delete the project instead, but then you wouldn’t have any record of it; keeping it around in a dropped state means you can go back and check on actions you’ve completed regardless of whether they’re from still-relevant projects, and so on.

  To find a dropped project in your database, choose All in view options or search for it with the Everything filter.

Projects Outline

The Projects outline displays your projects in a layout based on your view width. On wide views, the outline shows the full hierarchy of projects and folders. Tap a project in the sidebar to view it alone; tap it again to return to the full outline. Drag and drop to rearrange projects in the list.

On compact views, the Projects perspective shows each level of hierarchy in an individual pane, starting with the sidebar and diving deeper into folders and the projects within them. However, you can also view the full hierarchy by scrolling to the bottom of Projects and tapping Show Projects Contents.

Projects View Options

• In Projects, Show:—Choose the setting for items that you would like to be visible in the outline (Remaining is the default). Each option describes the requirements for items that it includes or excludes; see the Glossary and the Project Type and Project Status sections for further details.

Nearby

When you’re out and about, the Nearby perspective shows you items you’ve assigned to tags that are location aware. Depending on how you’ve set up your tags, you can see actions to complete somewhere nearby that matches a business search (for example), or at a specific address associated with someone on your iOS Contacts list.

Nearby Outline

The Nearby outline displays displays all items that are:

• Available;

• With a location-aware tag assigned;

• Within a reasonable distance of your current location.

Items are displayed in order, grouped by tag, from closest to furthest away. If an item isn’t available (perhaps because it’s deep within a sequential project, or has another tag that is on hold), it won’t appear; likewise, tags will not appear in the Nearby outline unless they have a location assigned using the inspector.

Tags

In OmniFocus, a tag represents an association that a task has to the world around it. A tag could be a person, place, or thing most relevant to completion of a project, or it could represent a mindset most applicable to execution of an action item.

An item can have as many tags as you find useful, and there is no specific purpose assigned to them; use tags to assign priority, group items by energy level or required equipment, or don’t use them at all.

Tag Status

Like projects, tags have a status that indicates whether they are currently relevant to your work. View options that depend on status apply similarly between projects and tags; however, the implications of tag status vary.

• Active—The default status for a tag. When a tag is active, it exists and is relevant to you in some way.

• On Hold—When a tag is temporarily irrelevant or unavailable for some reason (a required tool is loaned out, a colleague is on sabbatical, or the public library is closed for remodeling), you can change the tag’s status from Active to On Hold. The tag remains in the sidebar, but when viewing Available items its actions are removed from the outline.

• Dropped—If a tag becomes permanently irrelevant or unavailable, you can drop it completely. It disappears from the Tags list, and its actions are likewise hidden. You could delete the tag instead, but then you wouldn’t have any record of it; keeping it around in a dropped state means you can go back and check on actions you’ve completed regardless of whether they’re from still-relevant tags, and so on.

  To find a dropped tag in your database, choose All in view options or search for it with the Everything filter.

Tags Outline

The Tags outline displays your tags in a layout based on your view width. On wide views, the outline shows the full tags list (nested tags are listed in a flat view, with child tags listed after the parent). Tap a tag in the sidebar to view it alone; tap it again to return to the full outline. Drag and drop to rearrange tags in the list.

On compact views, the Tags perspective shows each level of hierarchy in an individual pane, starting with the sidebar and diving deeper into nested tag levels. However, you can also view the full tag list by scrolling to the bottom of Tags and tapping Show Tags Contents.

Tags View Options

• In Tags, Show:—Choose the setting for items that you would like to be visible in the outline (Available is the default). Each option describes the requirements for items that it includes or excludes; see the Glossary for further details on each status.

• Show Project Paths—With this setting turned on, rows in the outline include their project information above the item title as described in The Anatomy of a Row. Turn this off to reduce the amount of space taken by each row in the outline.

Review

The Review perspective contains a flat list of projects that are due for review.

Reviewing helps make sure your projects are accurately portrayed in OmniFocus, leaving them in good shape and ready for action. If you have projects that need items added, projects that aren’t relevant anymore, or projects you don’t mean to do any time soon, following a regular review process can help you keep them from falling through the cracks.

Each project has an interval for how often you intend to review it and a date when the next review is planned. You can change the next review date for a project, as well as its review interval, using the inspector.

To review your remaining projects:

• Open the Review perspective from Home. Your remaining unreviewed projects are listed in in the sidebar in the same order they appear in the Projects perspective.

• For each project, check whether it is in the proper state (Active, On Hold, Completed, or Dropped). Do you need to revise its actions, or add new ones? Should you put the project on hold, drop it, or mark it Completed? Or is everything moving along just fine?

• Once you’re satisfied with the state of the project, make sure it’s selected and tap Mark Reviewed in the lower right. The project’s next review date moves forward and you can go on to review another project.

Review Outline

When you enter the Review perspective the sidebar displays a flat list of your review-ready projects (folders are not included). The first one may already be open in the outline for your inspection; if not, tap a project in the list to get started.

In Review, the outline only shows a single project at a time to facilitate inspection of its contents. Use the arrow buttons in the bottom bar to navigate between projects, or tap Mark Reviewed when you’re ready to move on to the next one.

Review View Options

• In Review, Show:—Choose the setting for items that you would like to be visible in the outline (Remaining is the default). Each option describes the requirements for items that it includes or excludes; see the Glossary for further details on each status.

Completed and Changed

The final two built-in perspectives—Completed and Changed—are listed in the Home view when you toggle to show Other Perspectives. These are a great way to find items in your database that may have been filed away by mistake or otherwise disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Completed and Changed are designed to track movement of items in your database, but have no other specific purpose for helping to get stuff done.

Name and Icon

Tap the name field to enter a name for a new perspective or change an existing one (the default is Untitled Perspective).

Tap the icon to open the icon picker, where you can choose from among a set of Omni-designed icons included with OmniFocus, or tap Custom to choose your own icon from the photos stored on your device.

Tap Color in the icon picker’s title bar to choose a custom color for your perspective and its iconography throughout the app.

Filter Rules

This section of the editor determines which items the perspective includes. Items are included by setting filters with the parameters for specific item attributes: if an item matches the filter rules, it is included in the perspective. If an item doesn’t match the rules, it won’t appear.

Filter rules are set up in hierarchy, with an All of the following operation at the top of the tree. This indicates that all of the rules inside it must apply to items for them to be included in the perspective. (It isn’t a rule itself, and therefore can’t be deleted.)

By default a new custom perspective includes one Availability: Remaining rule as an example. Since it is nested beneath All of the following:, this rule means that the perspective will only show items with an availability status of Remaining (completed and dropped items will not appear).

If you don’t want to include the default rule in your perspective, swipe left on its row to either Disable or Delete it.

Tap Add a new rule to choose from among the list of available rules to apply to items in the perspective.

If your filter rules have several levels of hierarchy, you can tap and hold a row to drag and drop it elsewhere in the rule structure and see how changes to the structure impact the rule’s effect on item visibility in the perspective.

Presentation

This section of the editor defines how the perspective’s items are displayed in the outline. You can choose from two main modes using the Group and sort setting: to view items as a list of Individual Actions, or as items hierarchically grouped within Entire Projects.

Grouping and Sorting by Individual Actions

When displayed as individual actions, the outline contains a flat list of all items that meet the filter rule criteria. Further refinement of grouping and sorting within the perspective offers additional options, and the option to Show project paths can be turned on or off to show or hide the project row above each item.

When grouped by individual actions, actions can additionally be grouped by:

• Ungrouped—Actions are not grouped and presented as a flat list.

• Tag—Actions are grouped by individual tag. If an action has more than one tag, it appears within each of its tags.

• Tags (Combined)—Actions are grouped by tag combination. Regardless of the number of tags on an action, it appears only once (in a group named with its tag combination).

• Project—Actions are grouped by project.

• Due—Actions are grouped by due date, from oldest to newest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day. Actions with no due date assigned are grouped at the bottom of the outline.

• Defer Date—Actions are grouped by defer date, from oldest to newest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day. Actions with no defer date assigned are grouped at the bottom of the outline.

• Completed—Actions are grouped by completion date, from oldest to newest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day. Actions with no completion date are grouped at the bottom of the outline.

• Added—Actions are grouped by the date they were added to OmniFocus, from newest to oldest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day.

• Changed—Actions are grouped by the date they were most recently edited, from newest to oldest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day.

• Flagged—Actions are grouped according to their flagged status, with flagged actions first, followed by unflagged actions.

When grouped by individual actions, actions can additionally be sorted by:

• Projects Order / Tags Order—Actions are sorted within their grouping in the order they appear in the Projects perspective (or the Tags perspective, if the grouping is based on tags.)

• Tag—Actions are sorted by tag. Actions with multiple tags appear only once, alongside other actions in the grouping with the same tag combination.

• Flagged—Actions are sorted by flagged status, with flagged actions appearing first within their grouping.

• Name—Actions are sorted alphabetically by name.

• Due—Actions are sorted by due date. Actions without due dates appear first, followed by actions with due dates from oldest to newest.

• Defer Date—Actions are sorted by defer date. Actions with the soonest defer dates appear first, followed by more remote actions and finally actions without defer dates.

• Added—Actions are sorted by the date they were added to OmniFocus, from newest to oldest.

• Changed—Actions are sorted by the date they were most recently edited, from newest to oldest.

• Completed—Actions are sorted by the date they were completed, with uncompleted actions first, followed by completed actions from newest to oldest.

• Duration—Actions are sorted by estimated duration, from shortest to longest.

Grouping and Sorting by Entire Projects

When displayed as entire projects, the outline contains a list of projects with items that meet the filter rules organized hierarchically inside them. Further refinement of grouping and sorting offers additional options. The Show project paths option is not available for this setting because actions are already displayed within their corresponding projects.

When grouped by entire project, the projects within the perspective can additionally be grouped by:

• Ungrouped—Projects are not grouped and presented as a flat list.

• Folder—Projects are grouped into the folders that contain them. Projects outside of folders are grouped in a No Folder section at the bottom of the outline.

• Due—Projects are grouped by due date, from oldest to newest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day. Projects with no due date are grouped in a No Due Date section at the bottom of the outline.

• Defer Date—Projects are grouped by defer date, from oldest to newest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day. Projects with no defer date are grouped in a No Defer Date section at the bottom of the outline.

• Completed—Projects are grouped by the date they were completed, from newest to oldest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day. Projects with no completion date are grouped in a No Completion Date section at the bottom of the outline.

• Next Review—Projects are grouped by the date of their next scheduled review, from newest to oldest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day.

• Added—Projects are grouped by the date they were added to OmniFocus, from newest to oldest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day.

• Changed—Projects are grouped by the date of their most recent edit, from newest to oldest. (This includes changes to actions within the project.) The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day.

When grouped by entire project, the projects within the perspective can additionally be sorted by:

• Projects Order—Projects are sorted within their grouping by the order they appear in the Projects perspective.

• Name—Projects are sorted alphabetically by name.

• Flagged—Projects are sorted by flagged status, with flagged projects appearing first. The flagged status of individual actions within projects has no effect on this sorting.

• Due—Projects are sorted by due dates of actions within the project, from oldest to newest. (Projects containing actions with the oldest due dates appear first.) This sorting applies regardless of whether the project itself has a due date. Projects containing no due dates appear at the bottom of the outline.

• Defer Date—Projects are sorted by defer date, from oldest to newest. Projects with no defer date appear at the bottom of the outline.

• Completed—Projects are sorted by the date they were completed, with uncompleted projects first, followed by completed projects from newest to oldest.

• Next Review—Projects are sorted by the date of their next scheduled review, from oldest to newest.

• Added—Projects are sorted by the date they were added to OmniFocus, from newest to oldest.

• Changed—Projects are sorted by the date they were most recently edited, from newest to oldest. (This includes changes to actions within the project.)

• Duration—Projects are sorted by estimated duration, from shortest to longest. Projects without an estimated duration appear at the bottom of the outline.

Upgrade or Downgrade Perspective

Custom perspectives you create, as well as names, icons, and colors assigned to them, are synced between all of your devices that sync with your OmniFocus database.

Older versions of OmniFocus do not support all the features of perspectives created with OmniFocus 3. (These perspectives will still sync provided the database version is compatible, however they will be hidden.)

To make a perspective created with OmniFocus 3 visible in earlier versions of OmniFocus, choose Downgrade Perspective. Choosing to downgrade a perspective may remove some advanced filter rules or other features of the perspective.

Alternatively, if you are syncing a perspective created with an older version of OmniFocus to OmniFocus 3, you can choose to Upgrade the perspective to take advantage of the features described in this chapter. Existing perspective rules and presentation settings will be converted to the newer perspective format.

Delete Perspective

Choose this to remove the perspective from your database entirely. Deleting a perspective also removes it from any other synced OmniFocus devices. Since a perspective is simply a view on your data, removing one doesn’t affect the tasks in your OmniFocus database in any way.

General

The first section of Settings contains general information about the version of OmniFocus that you’re using, and links to additional resources that can enrich your OmniFocus experience.

About OmniFocus

Tap to see details about your version of OmniFocus for iOS, including the version number, Omni contact information, and any in-app purchases you have unlocked.

In-App Purchases

Tap to unlock OmniFocus features by purchasing either the Standard or Pro edition of the app, or restoring a previous purchase.

Trial Mode

Tap the switch in this section to enable or disable Pro features while using the Free Trial edition of OmniFocus (this edition is available for 14 days upon first use of the app).

Help

Tap to open the in-app version of this reference manual.

News

Tap to view the latest information from Omni about changes to OmniFocus or iOS that affect your use of the app. (This item only appears when there is news to share.)

Release Notes

Tap to read the release notes for the current version of OmniFocus.

Contact Omni

Tap to send us feedback about OmniFocus or request assistance.

Sign Up for the Omni Newsletter

Tap to visit the Omni website, where you can subscribe to our email newsletter. You’ll get nothing but the latest news and tips for OmniFocus and the other apps in the Omni Group family.

Sync

This section contains settings for keeping your database up to date on all your devices (or backed up on a single device) by syncing it with a cloud server.

Several of the options described here will not appear until you set up syncing.

Sync Method

Choose a sync method and configure the sync settings for OmniFocus. If you chose not to set up sync when you first installed OmniFocus, this is where you can create a new sync account (or switch to another one).

Encryption

Check whether your OmniFocus database is encrypted on the server, and optionally choose a separate passphrase (distinct from your sync password) for decrypting it.

Push

Check the status of push-triggered sync on your sync account (it’s set to On by default). This feature offers faster, more frequent syncs; for more information, see this support article and this blog post.

Last Synced

View the timestamp for your last database sync at a glance here, or tap to view the log of all recent syncs and the reasons for them.

Registered Devices

Tap to view a list of devices registered to sync with your cloud database.

The Registered Devices screen shows a few useful bits of information: The entry for your current device is highlighted in purple, and the day a device last synced is shown adjacent to it (if a device hasn’t synced in over a week, its last sync date is highlighted in yellow).

From the Registered Devices screen, you can also Edit the list to remove any devices you no longer want to sync with.

Colors

This section controls the palette of colors used throughout the app, including the option to switch to the Dark Mode color scheme.

Switch Automatically

If you’d like OmniFocus to switch color schemes automatically, this sets a threshold of screen brightness that the app uses as a tipoff to make the change. When the screen dims below the threshold—either automatically because your screen is set to adjust dynamically based on ambient light, or by manually changing the screen brightness—OmniFocus will switch to Dark Palette on its own. Likewise, when the screen brightens above the set threshold, OmniFocus reverts to the lighter default palette.

Dark Palette

Choose to use the Dark Palette color scheme throughout the app persistently, regardless of your iPhone’s brightness setting.

Organization

This section controls how items are treated after they have been edited in a way that would cause them to move elsewhere in your database. (This is referred to in OmniFocus as “cleaning up”.)

Clean Up

This setting controls the conditions that cause items to leave your Inbox, and dictates whether completed items should be cleaned up (have their status applied to the view) immediately upon completion, or when changing away from the current view.

You can choose to clean up Inbox items which have:

• A Project
• A Tag
• Both a Project and a Tag
• Either a Project or a Tag

You can choose to clean up completed items:

• Immediately
• When Changing Views

Due Dates

This section includes options for when items should appear as due soon. Items that are due soon have their status circles styled in amber wherever they appear.

“Due Soon” Means

Tap to set the timeframe for how you would like OmniFocus to define items that are due soon. Options include 24 hours, 2 days (the default), 3 days, 4 days, 5 days, and 1 week.

Notifications

This section holds options for customizing the alerts OmniFocus displays on your iOS device, and what you’d like to see in the Today screen of Notifications Center.

Sounds and Alerts

Tap to set alerts and sounds for due and location-based notifications.

• Sounds—This includes controls for setting sound notifications for items based on due date, custom notifications, and location-based notifications.

• Date and Time: Notify on this Device—Turn this on to have date and time-based notifications appear on this device. With this turned off, the following three settings do not appear.

• Deferred—Turn this on to automatically schedule a notification for when a deferred item becomes available.

• Latest Start—Turn this on to automatically schedule a notification for an item’s latest possible start time (its due date minus its estimated duration).

• Due—Turn this on to automatically schedule a notification for when an item becomes due.

• Location: Notify on this Device—Turn this on to have location-based notifications appear on this device.

Badges

Tap to choose the items that are counted in the badge attached to the OmniFocus app icon (the little red circle laid over the icon’s upper right corner).

This section also offers the option to show a summary breakdown of items included OmniFocus’s badge count in the Today widget. With Show Explanation in Today Widget turned on, the badge count appears in the Today widget and contains a summary of the item types that comprise it.

Today

Customize the items you’d like to see in the Today view of iOS Notification Center via OmniFocus’s Today widget. With the OmniFocus Pro upgrade, you can also choose a custom perspective in Today.

Capture

Use the settings in this section to have OmniFocus capture reminders that would otherwise be directed to the iOS Reminders app.

Reminders

This setting offers the ability for OmniFocus to capture items sent to a list in the iOS Reminders app. Earlier versions of OmniFocus relied on this for communication with Siri, and the feature is still available for workflows that require it.

Privacy

This section contains controls for App Lock, a way to keep your work shielded from casual inspection or alteration by someone with temporary access to your device.

App Lock

If you use OmniFocus on a device that you occasionally share (with your children, coworkers, or clients, for example), there may be times when you would prefer that your OmniFocus data be out of reach.

The App Lock feature prevents accidental taps and casual glances by adding a password-locked privacy screen that must be dismissed before any of your data or settings can be accessed.

App Lock is turned off by default. To turn it on, tap App Lock.

When you turn on App Lock, you will be prompted to choose and confirm a new App Lock password (this is distinct from and unrelated to your OmniFocus sync password). If you use OmniFocus on multiple iOS devices, you need to configure and set an App Lock password on each device. App Lock passwords are device-specific and do not sync across devices.

After choosing a password, App Lock is turned on. The App Lock Settings screen offers the option to turn App Lock back off, change your password, or enable Touch ID or Face ID as an alternative means of unlocking OmniFocus on devices that support it.

To change your password, Tap Change Password.... You are prompted to enter your old password, and then to choose and confirm a new one.

With App Lock turned on, the next time you open OmniFocus you will see a privacy screen with a field to enter the password you chose. Enter the password, and work resumes unimpeded.

If you choose to use Touch ID or Face ID, a prompt for your fingerprint or face will appear instead. You will still have the option to enter your password, or you can tap the fingerprint icon next to the password field to unlock with Touch ID or Face ID if you dismissed the prompt initially.

Device Information

Use this section to contribute to future OmniFocus development efforts by sending us your anonymous usage data.

Send Anonymous Data

If you’d like to help us improve future versions of OmniFocus, you can choose to send general data about your device and OmniFocus app usage by turning this on. Before choosing whether to share your data anonymously, you’ll get a preview of exactly what we’ll receive (it’s technical information that helps us reproduce and fix bugs). We’d love it if you’d like to help us out!

Database

This section contains several useful tools for troubleshooting or resetting your database, exporting it for retention in the Comma Separated Values format, and checking the status of your database and OmniFocus app version.

Attachments

Tap to open the Attachments List, a view that displays all of the files attached to your OmniFocus database and links to their corresponding tasks. Sort attachments by file size or date added and delete any unwanted ones here.

Tap an individual attachment for a detail view which lists the attachment file size, the number of references to the file in your database, and a list of associated database items. Tap one of those items to go straight to where the file is attached, or tap Delete in the upper right to remove the file from your database.

To remove multiple attachments at once, tap Select in the main Attachments List view and tap all of the files you would like to delete. Use the controls above the attachment thumbnails to sort the files by size or date added (largest and most recent files are shown first by default; tap Sort to switch the ordering).

With the unwanted files selected, tap Delete in the upper left to remove them from the database.

Backups

OmniFocus for iOS can create and store a backup of your database locally on your device. With Automatic Backups turned on, the backup is replaced every 24 hours with a new copy; otherwise, you can back up manually at any time by tapping Back Up Now.

Restore from your most recent backup by tapping it and choosing Revert to This Backup. Unlike a remotely synced database that’s kept identical to the one on your device, this backup database is only available on the specific iPhone or iPad with OmniFocus installed. If you remove OmniFocus from your device the backup is deleted as well.

Replace Sync Database

If your data is in conflict with another version stored on your sync server and you are confident that the version on your device is the one you prefer to keep, choose this item and tap Replace Database to overwrite your remote database with the local one.

Clean Database

This tool appears when you have over 1000 items that have been completed for six months or longer. Use this to lighten the load on your database by removing those old items.

If you have OmniFocus for Mac, we recommend using its Archive feature to prune old items instead; see this support article for help on keeping your database size manageable.

Migrate Database

This tool appears if you’re syncing to an older database version that doesn’t support some of the newer features of OmniFocus. See this support article for instructions on getting your database up to date.

Compact

This tool appears if your database is particularly complex, and can be useful in reducing performance issues if OmniFocus appears to be slow or unresponsive. Choosing to compact your database makes it more streamlined by removing redundant transactions; your OmniFocus tasks are unaffected.

Export to CSV

As part of our commitment to your complete ownership of your data, we offer the ability to export your OmniFocus database in the open CSV format. Your data is available this way whenever you need it, presented in a tabular format viewable in just about any text editor.

Database Info

The text beneath this section has statistics about your OmniFocus library: the number of items in your database, and the number of zip files used to contain your data. If you are syncing, you should try to sync all of your OmniFocus databases regularly to keep the number of files down.

Reset

If you want to revert to the default OmniFocus experience, you can reset various parts of the app using the tools here. Tap Reset to choose from among the following options.

• Reset Feature Tips—Reset the display of Feature Tips sheets (shown the first time you visit a new perspective).

• Reset Home Screen—Revert the home screen or sidebar tiles to their original positions (no other settings are affected).

• Reset All Settings—Restore all the preferences here in Settings, as well as view options and other visual customization throughout the app.

• Reset Database—To start over from scratch (are you sure you really want to delete everything?!), tap Reset Database to delete your entire database of OmniFocus projects, actions, and perspectives.

OmniFocus Version—Finally, the text at the bottom of the Settings screen shows the version and build of OmniFocus installed on your device (useful when contacting Support).

Release Notes

For a detailed, comprehensive summary of the latest changes to OmniFocus, tap Settings in the Home toolbar and choose Release Notes. This is a good place to check if something is behaving in a new way after an update.

Finding Help Online

The OmniFocus Support Site provides a wealth of information, including this Reference Manual, as well as How-Tos and Support articles, which go into finer detail on working with OmniFocus.

Similarly, the OmniFocus product page is always a good place to find the latest information about features and updates to OmniFocus.

For inspiration on setting up a workflow to suit your needs and deep dives into some of OmniFocus’s extended features, check out Inside OmniFocus.

Videos

In addition to the online help, we also provide a series of online videos for OmniFocus. These videos range in topics from available features in the latest version of OmniFocus to how-to tutorial videos to help you level up in your OmniFocus skills.

Email Support

If you’re stuck, if you have a good idea for the next version of OmniFocus, or if you just want to let us know how we’re doing, go ahead and send us an email. From Home, tap Settings and choose Contact Omni to queue up an email message addressed to us, or just send us an email with your thoughts. We take support pretty seriously, so you can expect a prompt response actually typed by human hands.

Phone Support

We understand that sometimes you just can’t wait for an email response when you’re knee-deep in a project and you’re stuck or something isn’t working quite right. We get that. When this happens, you can call our Support Humans at 800-315-OMNI or 206-523-4152. Our Support Humans are available Monday-Friday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time (-0700 GMT).

Online Forums

Omni maintains online forums for all of our products, which are available to everyone. Come share your questions and ideas with other users, share tips to show off how you’re using OmniFocus for getting stuff done, and seek help from the OmniFocus community.

Troubleshooting

Here are a few tips you can try with OmniFocus’s own built in self-help features:

Finding Misplaced Items

• Try using the Completed and Changed perspectives to track down errant actions. You can find them by tapping Show in the Other Perspectives section at the bottom of the Home view.

• Drag down on the outline to search for text in the missing items, and use the Here, Remaining, and Everything filters to narrow your results.

Improving Performance

• Sync all the things regularly! This reduces sync wait times and generally improves speed and performance across the board.

• Delete unneeded attachments to lessen the sync load and disc space footprint of your database. We recommend curating your attachments using the Attachments List to help easily spot the ones you don’t need.

Useful Gestures

Most of the interactions in OmniFocus are evident based on what you see on screen, but there are some time-saving shortcuts that aren’t always as easy to find. This section lists gesture-based interactions available throughout the app that make common actions even more convenient.

Pull to Clean Up

• In compact views, pull down from the top of the outline to clean up the current view.

• In wide views, this is replaced by the Clean Up button.

Pull to Sync

• Pull down from the top of the screen (in the sidebar on wide views, anywhere on compact views) to prompt OmniFocus to sync.

Swipe in the Outline

• Swipe an action or Inbox item row from right to left to delete it. Tap More to add a due or defer date, or reschedule.

• Swipe an action or Inbox item row from left to right to flag or unflag it, or to tag or untag it with the Forecast tag .

Swipe in the Sidebar

• Swipe a project from right to left to delete it. Tap More to review it, add a due or defer date, or reschedule.

• Swipe a project from left to right to flag or unflag it, or to tag or untag it with the Forecast tag .

• Swipe a tag from right to left to delete it.

Drag and Drop From the Outline

• Drag and drop items within the outline to reposition them.

• Drag items from the outline to a project or tag in the sidebar to add them to that project or tag.

• Drag items from the outline to a date in the Forecast date row (either in the Home tile or the Forecast perspective outline) to assign that due date to them.

• Drag items from the outline to other iOS apps to add them in plain text Taskpaper format.

Drag and Drop To the Outline

• From outside OmniFocus, drag text rows to add each row as an item.

• Drag rows from OmniOutliner, OmniPlan, and OmniGraffle’s outline view to add them as OmniFocus items.

• Drag images from Photos or Safari to add them as items with the image file attached.

Drag and Drop in Home

• With OmniFocus Pro, tap and hold a tile in the Home view to enter Tile Editing mode. Drag perspective tiles to rearrange them.

Drag and Drop in the Sidebar

• In the sidebar for Projects and Tags, drag and drop rows to rearrange them within the current level of hierarchy.

Drag New Inbox Item

• Drag the New Inbox Item button anywhere in the outline to add an item there, pre-filled with attributes corresponding to the current perspective and item location.

Tap and Hold...

• Items in the outline to open their contextual menus.

• Back to instantly go Home.

Shake to Undo

• On iPhone, shake the device to mimic the effect of tapping Undo .

Keyboard Shortcuts

If you’re using OmniFocus for iOS with an external keyboard, you can take advantage of the app’s built in keyboard shortcuts for many common tasks.

Anywhere in the app, press and hold the Command key on your connected keyboard to view a list of available shortcuts. There are some common shortcuts that work no matter where you are; others are specific to your current view.

Action	Shortcut
Universal Shortcuts (available anywhere in the app)
Cut	⌘-X
Copy	⌘-C
Paste	⌘-V
Undo	⌘-Z
Redo	⌘-Shift-Z
Inspector Shortcuts (when editing item details)
Edit Note	⌘-’
Set/Remove Flag	⌘-Shift-L
Info	Control-1
Note	Control-2
Attachments	Control-3
Save (when adding a new item only)	⌘-S
Save Plus (when adding a new item only)	⌘-Option-S
Cancel	⌘-.
Delete	⌘-Delete
Previous Item	⌘-↑
Next Item	⌘-↓
Projects Perspective Shortcuts
New Project	⌘-Shift-N
New Folder	⌘-Option-Shift-N
Tags Perspective Shortcuts
New Tag	⌘-Control-N
Review Perspective Shortcuts
Mark Reviewed	⌘-Shift-R
Navigation Shortcuts (outside the new item editor)
OmniFocus Settings	⌘-,
New Inbox Item	Control-Option-Space
New Action	⌘-N
Sync	⌘-Shift-S
Search	⌘-F
Favorite Perspectives	⌘-1 through ⌘-10
Collapse All	⌘-Control-0
Expand All	⌘-Control-9
Home	⌘-Shift-H
OmniFocus Help	⌘-?

The OmniFocus for Apple Watch Home Screen

When you open OmniFocus from the Apple Watch Home Screen, the Dock, or a complication, you’ll see the OmniFocus for Apple Watch Home Screen: a succinct overview of your OmniFocus database divided into several sections.

The top row is a condensed version of Forecast, which counts items by due date. The second row counts the items you’ve marked with a flag and the unprocessed items in your inbox.

Tap any count on the home screen to open the list it represents. Each action shows a color-coded status circle—just like on OmniFocus for Mac and iOS—so you can immediately see which items are due, flagged, repeating, or completed.

Turning the Digital Crown (or swiping vertically on the screen) while viewing the OmniFocus for Apple Watch Home Screen changes what is displayed in the Continuity Slot at the bottom of the screen. Up to three views are available, depending on how you have set your Today & Watch settings in OmniFocus for iOS (and whether OmniFocus Pro is installed).

1. Continuity—this view shows the same thing that you’re looking at in OmniFocus on your iPhone. (This mode is blank if you are viewing a screen on the iPhone that is otherwise already represented on the OmniFocus for Apple Watch home screen.)

2. Next Up—this view shows the next item of relevance to you. This is generally the soonest due item (or oldest overdue item, if nothing is due today) in the perspective(s) chosen in OmniFocus for iOS’s Today & Watch settings.

3. Custom Perspective—with the OmniFocus for iOS Pro upgrade installed, this view shows the custom perspective you’ve chosen in OmniFocus for iOS’s Today & Watch settings. If you haven’t chosen one (or if you’re not using OmniFocus Pro), this slot isn’t available.

Adding Inbox Items

Since the Apple Watch doesn’t have a keyboard, you can use your voice to record the titles of new actions. Force Touch anywhere within the app to reveal the menu, then tap New Item and start speaking.

Items added to OmniFocus in this way appear in your inbox, just as if you’d tapped the New Inbox Item button and created a task in OmniFocus for iOS. They’re transferred to your iPhone and tucked away until you have time to review them.

Viewing and Editing Tasks

Just like the rest of OmniFocus for Apple Watch, task views have a scope designed for the customizable display on your wrist.

Viewing Item Details

The greatest amount of detail in OmniFocus for Apple Watch can be found by tapping the title of an action in any of the app’s list views.

1. Screen Title—When navigating deeper in the app, the colored text at the top of the screen—the screen title—tells you which screen you’re viewing.

2. Action Title—When viewing an action in detail, its title is prominently displayed here.

3. Project—If the action is assigned to a project, the related project is shown here.

4. Due Date—Likewise, if the action has a due date, you’ll see it here.

5. Status Circle—Finally, the large status circle provides an easy target for tapping to complete it.

Completing Items

Wherever you see a status circle, tap it to complete the associated item. This is useful for checking off lists viewed from the home screen, or completing items in the individual action view.

Flagging Items

When you’re pressed for time to devote to OmniFocus on your iPhone, flagging important actions on your Apple Watch is a good way to remember that they’ll need some attention soon.

To flag an item, view its details, Force Touch to show the menu, and tap Flag Item.

OmniFocus on your Watch Face

OmniFocus offers several complications so that you can see important data directly on your watch face, no matter which face you’ve chosen. Follow the instructions in Apple’s guide to customizing your watch face to add an OmniFocus complication.

Customizing Today

OmniFocus has a Today & Watch setting to its settings screen that offers the ability to customize what today means to you. On Apple Watch, the setting you choose here governs the items that are displayed in the Next Up view of the continuity slot as well as the OmniFocus Complication on your watch face (if you choose to use it).

The options for this setting include a variety of high priority categories that you can choose to represent items most important to you and your workflow. Due Today is the default selection; however you can choose one or more of the following:

• Overdue
• Due Today
• Due Soon
• Deferred Until Today
• Flagged
• Inbox Items

With the OmniFocus for iOS Pro upgrade, you also have the option of choosing a custom perspective instead of the above presets. The custom perspective count appears in your Complication instead, and can be selected as one of the views in the continuity slot on the home screen of OmniFocus on your Apple Watch.

Adding Actions

One of the most common needs that Siri can address is adding new actions and inbox items to OmniFocus. Siri listens for you to describe these as tasks that you’ll add in OmniFocus—key components of the example phrases you’ll find below.

• “Add a task named ~ in OmniFocus”

  Adds an item named ~ to your OmniFocus inbox.

• “Remind me to ~ at 5:00 PM (on Thursday) in OmniFocus”

  Adds an item named ~ to your OmniFocus inbox with a due date set for today at 5:00 PM. Including additional parameters for the due date (such as on Thursday) can further define the set date.

• “Remind me to ~ when I get home in OmniFocus”

  Adds an item named ~ to your OmniFocus inbox with the location-aware tag Home. If a tag with matching name and location data is not found, a new tag is created with the specified name and location.

  For example, “Remind me to stop at Voodoo Doughnut when I get to Portland, Oregon in OmniFocus” creates a new location-aware Portland (from Siri) tag (assuming one doesn’t exist) and adds the Stop at Voodoo Doughnut task to it.

• Remind me to ~ when I get home at 5:00 PM in OmniFocus”

  Adds an item named ~ to your OmniFocus inbox with the location-aware tag Home and a due date of 5:00 PM today (this example is a combination of the previous two).

• “Add ~ to my * list in OmniFocus”

  Adds an item named ~ to a project or tag named * (“add eggs to my grocery list in OmniFocus”, for example).

  Since Siri’s notion of lists doesn’t distinguish between projects and tags, you’ll be prompted to confirm the destination for this item (or to choose between available options, if you have more than one project or tag with the same name).

• “Remind me to ~ when I get home in my * list in OmniFocus”

  Adds an item named ~ with the location-aware tag Home. If * is a project, the item is added to that project.

• “Remind me to ~ every Thursday at 9:00 PM in OmniFocus”

  Adds an item named ~ set to repeat every Thursday at 9:00 PM to your OmniFocus inbox. Siri understands OmniFocus’s repeat rules pretty well, so feel free to try any repeating items you can think of.

Adding Projects

When OmniFocus listens to instructions you give to Siri, it interprets a command to create a list as a command to create a new OmniFocus project. (Siri sees both projects and tags as lists. Because of this ambiguity, OmniFocus chooses the relatively more common project as the list type to create.)

Some example phrases:

• “Create a list called ~ in OmniFocus”

  Adds a project named ~ to OmniFocus.

• “Create a shopping list with bananas in OmniFocus”

  Adds a project named Shopping and adds the action Bananas to that project in OmniFocus.

Marking Items Complete

Siri can be used to mark OmniFocus items (both actions and projects) as complete using the following example sentence structure.

• “Mark ~ as complete in OmniFocus”

  Marks an action or project named ~ as complete in OmniFocus. (Projects of the single action list type can’t be marked complete in this way.)

Searching

Beyond adding and changing items in OmniFocus, you can also ask Siri about the content of your OmniFocus actions, projects, and tags (what Siri understands as tasks and lists respectively).

Some example searches that you can do on your OmniFocus data are as follows (these don’t make any changes to your actual content):

• “What lists do I have in OmniFocus?”

  Shows a list of all the projects and tags you have in OmniFocus.

• “Show me the ~ list in OmniFocus”

  Searches your OmniFocus projects and tags and shows those with names that match ~. If multiple projects or tags match the name, all are shown.

• “Read me my lists in OmniFocus”

  Shows all of your OmniFocus projects and tags with their included actions, and reads them aloud, 25 at a time.

• “What reminders called ~ do I have in OmniFocus?”

  Shows a list of all items matching ~ that you have in OmniFocus.

• “Read me my ~ task in OmniFocus”

  Shows and reads items matching ~ aloud. (If a due date is set, that is read along with the item’s title.)

Send to OmniFocus

When you’re in another app and you’re inspired to add something to OmniFocus—whether it be a webpage in Safari, a picture in Photos, or a bit of text, image, or audio file from another app that supports sharing—all you have to do is tap Share and choose OmniFocus from the list of apps that appears (if it’s not there, swipe from right to left and tap More to add it).

You’ll get a simple “quick entry”-style form to create a new item, with a field for its title, notes, project, and tag. The item is populated with some information relevant to the data you’re sharing back to OmniFocus (website URLs in the note field and title pre-filled in the title field, for example). Edit these if you want, and then tap Save when you’re ready to send it to your Inbox.

Today Widget

Swipe down from the top of the screen anywhere on your device, then swipe to the right, and you’ll see what’s going on today: a collection of widgets that iOS presents as a curated set of data relevant to your current place and time.

You may see some Calendar entries, perhaps a Reminder or two, and you’ll notice that at the bottom of the screen there’s a button labeled Edit. Tap it and you’ll be brought to the edit screen, where you can add other custom widgets to your Today screen—OmniFocus among them.

Tap the green plus icon next to OmniFocus and it’ll be added to the list of extensions shown on the Today screen. Use the reordering handles on the right to change their order, and when you’re happy, tap Done. From now on you’ll see OmniFocus items that are relevant today alongside events of current interest from other apps, and you can check on their status (or check them off as complete) from anywhere on your device.

The OmniFocus widget shows a single item by default (the one it deems most relevant based on your settings). Tap Show More to see an extended list of upcoming actions as they appear in chronological order.

Just beneath Show More (or Show Less) in the OmniFocus widget you’ll find the New Inbox Item button, which makes it even easier to add a task to your OmniFocus Inbox from anywhere on your device. Tap it to open OmniFocus with a new Inbox item ready for entry.

OmniFocus uses the Today settings to determine which items are displayed in your Today widget. Due Today is the default, but you can choose another (or multiple other) task attributes to suit how you personally describe priority in OmniFocus and put the most important things front and center.

In the Badges section of Notifications settings, you can choose to have a summary of the OmniFocus icon badge count (a badge that displays the number of OmniFocus items deemed important based on your settings) as part of the Today widget. This adds a row beneath your actions that contains the badge count and its breakdown by item type.

If you have an Apple Watch with OmniFocus installed, the display settings you choose for the Today widget apply to the OmniFocus for Apple Watch home screen and Complications as well. See OmniFocus for Apple Watch to get started with OmniFocus on your Apple Watch.

Spotlight Search

Swipe down from the center of of the iOS Home screen to open Search. When you enter a search term, iOS includes results from your OmniFocus database so you can jog your memory about a task that needs doing, or check to make sure you noted that book you wanted to read (at the same time as you look for it online).

Tap a search result from OmniFocus and it opens directly to that item in the app.

If you would rather not include OmniFocus items with your iOS search results, visit iOS Settings > Siri & Search and scroll to the OmniFocus entry there for controls to turn it off.

Email Capture (Mail Drop)

Mail Drop is a feature of the Omni Sync Server that lets you send emails directly to your OmniFocus Inbox. You can create multiple private send-to addresses to give access to third parties, and delete those addresses at any time. In order to use Mail Drop, you’ll need to have an Omni Sync Server account (they’re free), and OmniFocus must be configured to actively sync with that account on our server.

If you’re already using Omni Sync Server to sync OmniFocus, you can log in to the Sync Server web interface and create your first Mail Drop address. After logging in, click or tap Add An Address to automatically generate the email address (a combination of your account name and a random string of characters).

When you send an email message to a Mail Drop address, the subject line of that message becomes the name of the new Inbox item. The body of the message becomes the note, which can contain text and simple HTML; attachments to the email (such as images) are added as attachments to the OmniFocus item as well.

See OmniFocus Mail Drop on the Omni support website for more details on this feature.

Workflow Automation

With some knowledge of programming, you can use callback URLs to automate conversations between OmniFocus and other apps on your iOS device. This offers the ability to set up project templates with custom data fields, for example, along with many other powerful automation possibilities.

This is an advanced feature that requires some tinkering under the hood; for help getting started integrating OmniFocus with the workflow app of your choice, see URL Schemes in OmniFocus on the Inside OmniFocus website.