OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for macOS

Getting Help

When you’re in need of help—whether you’re trying to figure out how custom perspectives work, how to sync your database with OmniFocus for iOS, or if you’re having some other issue with OmniFocus—it’s good to know that the Support Humans at the Omni Group are always available to lend you a hand.

In addition to contacting Omni support directly, there are several online and in-app resources that exist to help answer your questions about OmniFocus.

Release Notes

For a detailed, comprehensive summary of the latest changes to OmniFocus, choose Release Notes from the Help menu. 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 want to let us know how we’re doing, go ahead and send us an email. Choose Contact Omni from the Help menu to queue up an email message addressed to us, or send us an email with your thoughts. We take support seriously, so you can expect a prompt response actually typed by human hands.

Phone Support

We understand that sometimes you 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

If something is amiss, 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.

  • Check the Attachment List for images or other files that you may have appended to items tucked deep in your database.

  • Open an archive of past OmniFocus work to look for items that may have been lost to time.

  • If all else fails, you can revert to a recent backup for something you know you had access to just a day ago.

Improving Performance

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

  • Compact your database to remove unneeded edit histories.

  • Archive projects long past. Jettison them now for a nimbler database, and future easy retrieval and reference.

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