Welcome to OmniFocus

OmniFocus 4 introduces an array of new features and a modernized, unified interface across Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Centered around your task outline, OmniFocus 4 brings a consistent experience, optimized for each device type, to all of your Apple devices.

For a quick introduction, we hope you enjoy watching What’s New in OmniFocus 4!

A Message From Ken

If you’re reading this manual, chances are you already know a little bit about OmniFocus. Here’s how we summarize OmniFocus in our latest press release:

OmniFocus is a powerful and highly-customizable personal task manager for busy professionals. OmniFocus helps busy people to tame the chaos, and focus on the right tasks at the right time.

When you strip down OmniFocus to its essence, you’ll find a few simple concepts:

That big projects can be broken down into smaller tasks to make them easier to tackle.
That those tasks can be categorized to help you tackle them more efficiently.
That our computing devices can take some of the load off our overwhelmed minds by tracking when tasks will become available and when they’re due.
And that this sort of trusted system works best when it can quickly and easily capture whatever is on your mind, while also giving you tools to review your system to regain control and focus.

If you’re familiar with the work of David Allen with his methodology for Getting Things Done®, some of these concepts may sound familiar. That’s no accident! Though knowledge of David Allen’s work is certainly not required to use OmniFocus, GTD® has been an important inspiration for the work we’ve done to develop what David Allen calls a “trusted system.” (And it was personally inspiring to see that many of the speakers at the 2019 GTD Summit in Amsterdam were using OmniFocus!)

OmniFocus 4 strikes a remarkable balance between power and approachability. When we decided to rebuild the app interface with Apple’s new SwiftUI technologies, we took a fresh look at everything and iterated often—based on paying close attention to feedback from thousands of testers. The result is a design which is approachable and easy to use at a light level, while still providing the depth, power, and stunning customizability our customers expect when they need to go deep.

So, welcome! If you’re here because you do need to go deep, we hope this documentation provides you with the information you’re looking for. If not, please don’t hesitate to reach out! We have a team of support humans who are happy to help you out, and by hearing from you we’ll learn where our documentation might have gaps to fill in with future updates.

We’ve been working on OmniFocus for nearly 18 years, and throughout these years I’ve been using it to tame the chaos in my own life — enough years that OmniFocus has reminded me to renew my passport twice, helped me manage several office moves, tracked a multitude of product releases, replace even more lightbulbs and batteries — and help raise two daughters who have now grown into wonderful adults. I hope you’ll find that OmniFocus helps you through the coming years in some of the ways it has helped me.

— Ken Case, CEO

Next Steps

OmniFocus 4 for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch documentation is in the process of being rewritten into a single, unified reference manual. Significant portions of work are still in progress, with several chapters and sections being actively updated and re-written for this version. Expect to see continuous updates over the next several weeks. Please see the reference manual section for information about updates and changes as they are released. Thank you for your patience, and for using OmniFocus 4!

If you’re already familiar with OmniFocus, and would like to keep reading about all the new features and updates in OmniFocus 4, you will find that in the section just below.

If you’re newer to OmniFocus, perhaps using a trial license, and would like to learn more about OmniFocus vs. OmniFocus Pro, that’s in the section right after.

And if you’re eager to jump right into using OmniFocus, but aren’t quite sure where to start, read Getting Started for a quick orientation, and then jump into learning about perspectives.

New in OmniFocus 4

Universal Purchase

Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch:

OmniFocus 4 is a universal cross-platform purchase: get full access to OmniFocus 4 on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch with a single license purchase or subscription.

Outline

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

Fluid outline layout has been redesigned to provide quick access to the item details most relevant to you, and is now fully customizable. By default, items display assigned project, tags, due date, and flag status, and selecting a row provides immediate editing access to these fields as well as the item’s note. With OmniFocus Pro, you can customize the displayed fields on an app-wide or per-perspective basis (including re-ordering visible fields, and selecting fields to display only when selecting or editing an item).

Mac:

Updated Columns layout, including the ability to customize the order of displayed columns.

iPhone and iPad:

Add new items or quickly edit an existing item using inline editing, without ever leaving the task outline.
Action groups can now be expanded or collapsed in the task outline, allowing you to create and view as much (or as little!) structure within a project as you need.

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

When switching perspectives, you now have the option to go back to the perspective you came from using the new “Back” button in the toolbar. If you change your mind, you can go “Forward” again.

iPhone and iPad:

Opening any perspective in OmniFocus 4 for iPhone brings you directly to your list of tasks, avoiding unnecessary navigation through your database structure.
The Perspectives Bar is now available on iPhone and iPad, so your favorite perspectives are always one tap away.
The OmniFocus for Mac sidebar, which displays the full hierarchy for the current view in a single interactive list, has been brought to the iPhone and iPad. Make a selection in the sidebar to filter the content displayed in the task outline, create a multi-selection via Select mode, or edit your projects or tags list in Edit mode. On iPad, the sidebar can be fully collapsed to maximize screen space. On iPhone, the sidebar stays out of view until it is summoned.
Use Quick Open, now supported on iPhone and iPad, to quickly navigate to a perspective, folder, project, tag, or Omni Automation plug-in.

App Appearance

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

Updated OmniFocus 4 interface to feel fresh, familiar, and right at home on macOS Sonoma, iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and watchOS 10.
Select from a collection of alternate app icons, including the new OmniFocus 4 app icon and the original OmniFocus 1 app icons.
Choose from over 100 new custom perspective icons.

App Customization

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

Customize which fields are included in the re-designed Inspector, as well as the order of those fields.
View Options now sync across devices. (Layout customizations, available in , sync between devices of the same type)

Forecast Perspective

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

Forecast items can now be structured as a single flexible list, with new support for manually re-ordering items and displaying group hierarchy.
It is now possible to display flagged items, as well as items on their notification date.

Custom Perspectives

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

New flexible organization options introduce support for manually re-ordered lists and hierarchy preservation in ungrouped custom perspectives.

Apple Watch

OmniFocus 4 for Apple Watch is an autonomous application that can be installed and run independently of OmniFocus for iPhone. Changes made in OmniFocus 4 for Apple Watch sync directly to the server.
OmniFocus for Apple Watch now syncs your full OmniFocus database into the watch app, allowing for access to all items and perspectives from your Apple Watch.
The watch app Home Screen now displays a list of favorite perspectives.
View additional details associated with an item, like notes and attachments, from the watch app. Items can now also be dropped from the watch app, in addition to completed, flagged, or deleted.
Watch face complications have been fully re-written, offering improved functionality over previous versions of the watch application, and support has been added for watchOS 10 Smart Stack widgets.

Nearby Perspective

Mac:

Nearby perspective and tag location Inspector are now available on Mac.

iPhone and iPad:

Location-based tags can once again be viewed on a map in Nearby.

Focus

iPhone and iPad:

Focus is now supported on iPhone and iPad. Use Focus to temporarily narrow the scope of your OmniFocus database across all perspectives to just the selected folders or projects.

Keyboard Support

Mac:

New bare key keyboard shortcuts are now supported when using OmniFocus on any device with a hardware keyboard.

iPhone and iPad:

Hardware keyboard shortcut and navigation support has been fully rewritten and expanded, with support for native keyboard navigation, organized menus of key commands, and a full set of new bare key keyboard shortcuts.

Widgets

Mac:

Complete items directly from updated interactive widgets on macOS Sonoma.

iPhone and iPad:

Configure your Lock Screen or iPhone Standby mode with an array of OmniFocus 4 widgets. Complete items directly from updated interactive widgets on iOS 17 and iPadOS 17. On watchOS 10, view OmniFocus widgets in the brand new Smart Stack.

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

Quick Entry interface is now presented when sharing items to OmniFocus, allowing for immediate capture of additional details, like dates and flagged status.

Supported Languages

Mac:

OmniFocus is localized in English, Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, French, German, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, and Spanish. Arabic and Hebrew localization, in addition to full support for right-to-left text, is coming in a future update.

iPhone and iPad:

OmniFocus is now localized in Arabic and Hebrew in addition to English, Chinese (Simplified), Dutch, French, German, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, and Spanish. OmniFocus for iPhone and iPad interface has been updated to support right-to-left text.

Updated in OmniFocus 4

Accessibility

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

Improved VoiceOver support and compatibility with native OS Accessibility features.

Attachments

iPhone and iPad:

New “Attach File” attachment option allows for selecting arbitrary files from within OmniFocus, or attaching any type of file via the updated Share extension.

Automation

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

Significant updates to Omni Automation; for more information, please see OmniFocus 4: What’s New in Omni Automation?.

Backups

iPhone and iPad:

OmniFocus database backups can now be optionally saved to iCloud Drive.

Menus

iPhone and iPad:

A variety of context-appropriate actions have been added to re-organized shortcut menus (also called contextual menus), offering feature parity with functionality available in OmniFocus for Mac shortcut menus.

Dates

Mac:

Quickly increment dates via shortcut date buttons in the Inspector, or assign a date via the re-introduced outline calendar popover.

iPhone and iPad:

Entering dates as natural language text (i.e. “tomorrow” or “next Thursday”) is now supported. Completion and dropped dates can now be set prior to completing or dropping an item.

Default Perspectives

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

Tags perspective can now be sorted by flagged and due date.
Grouping in the Flagged perspective can now be customized.

Notes

iPhone and iPad:

Full rich text note support is now available in OmniFocus on iPhone and iPad.

Quick Open

Mac:

Omni Automation plug-ins are now included in Quick Open results.

Reference Manual

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

OmniFocus 4 for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch functionality is being documented in a single, unified reference manual. This is a work in progress, and your thoughts and feedback are very welcome.

Repeats

Mac, iPhone, and iPad:

Updated repeat logic for items which complete every period on a custom schedule after completion.

Settings

iPhone and iPad:

Synced settings previously only configurable in OmniFocus for Mac, like default defer and due times, are now available in a new re-organized Settings interface.

Standard vs. Pro

Which set of features are right for you? Took a look, and please let us know if you have any questions!

OmniFocus

What features are included in OmniFocus?

Universal App Licensing — Get full access to OmniFocus 4 on your Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch with a single license purchase. Prefer to subscribe to OmniFocus on a monthly or yearly basis? An OmniFocus subscription unlocks OmniFocus Pro on all supported Apple devices, and includes access to OmniFocus for the Web from any web browser.
Free, Encrypted Syncing — Keep your data the same on all your devices by using Omni’s free sync service — or use your own sync server. Because your data is protected with end-to-end encryption, it’s safe in the cloud. (OmniFocus for the Web requires syncing via Omni’s Sync Server.)
Quick Entry — Add new actions the instant you think of them, from anywhere.
Quick Open — Use Quick Open to quickly navigate to a perspective, folder, project, tag, or Omni Automation plug-in.
Inbox — Quickly add items to your Inbox — save them when you think of them, then set a due date, assign a project, and add tags whenever you want to.
Projects — Organize actions into projects, the way you would normally think of them. Then organize related projects into folders, if you like.
Tags — Create tags for things like location, person, energy level, priority, and so on. Any action can have a project and multiple tags.
Flags — Flag items of importance, then view those items in the Flagged perspective, or alongside time-sensitive items in Forecast.
Dates — Assign due dates for items with hard deadlines, set items which are not available yet as deferred until a future date, and schedule additional reminder notifications for items as needed.
Repeat Schedules — Set up items to repeat on real-world schedules. Every Monday and Thursday. The last weekend day of the month. The first weekday of the month.
Notes — Add notes — even long notes — to your items, so you have the information you need when completing an action. Format complex notes with rich text styling, and attach relevant files.
Forecast — Know what’s coming up in your day with the Forecast, which shows your actions and calendar events in a reorder-able list. (Calendar event integration is not available in OmniFocus for Web.)
Nearby — View items assigned to location-based tags on a map or in a list so that you know what you can get done where you are right now.
Review — Let the Review feature periodically remind you to go through your projects and actions and make sure everything is on track. Mark projects as reviewed as you go along.
Customizable Views — Customize OmniFocus to display the information most relevant to you (some customization options require , not all customization options are available in OmniFocus for the Web).
Batch Editing — Select multiple actions and edit them all at once in the Inspector. Set tags, due dates, defer dates, and more.
Notifications — Let OmniFocus notify you when an action is coming due, when it becomes available after a defer date, at a scheduled time, or when it’s tagged with your current location.
Widgets — Configure your device with an array of OmniFocus 4 widgets. Complete items directly from updated interactive widgets on iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma. On watchOS 10, view OmniFocus widgets in the brand new Smart Stack.
Apple Watch — Sync your full OmniFocus debase to the independent OmniFocus for Apple Watch application. Changes made in OmniFocus 4 for Apple Watch sync directly to the server.

OmniFocus Pro

What features are included in OmniFocus Pro?

Focus Mode — Select what to concentrate on, and make OmniFocus temporarily hide all other items. Concentrate on work when you’re on the job — or forget about work when you’re at home.
Custom Perspectives — Create new ways to see your data by filtering and grouping projects and tags. Use the intuitive and powerful perspective editor to set up different rules for your personal perspectives. A perspective might show everything tagged with “Grocery Store” and “Birthday” — so you pick up everything needed for the party. Another perspective might show everything in a Work project tagged with “High Energy” in a reorder-able list — for things to do right after that cup of coffee.
Additional Forecast Features — Optionally display items assigned to a designated Forecast tag, items with scheduled notifications, and items in On Hold projects, alongside your calendar events and due and flagged items in Forecast.
Automation — Automate OmniFocus with cross-platform Omni Automation plug-ins or Mac-only AppleScripts. Enhance your workflows, integrate with other apps and data sources, and create projects from a template. For more information about updates to Omni Automation, be sure to read OmniFocus 4: What’s New in Omni Automation?
App Icon — Select from a collection of alternate app icons, including the new OmniFocus 4 app icon and the original OmniFocus 1 app icons.
View Options — Per perspective layout customizations, which sync between devices of the same type.

Getting Started

OmniFocus allows you to capture the sometimes endless series of ideas, action items, and projects that come to mind as you wander through the world… and then provides you with the tools to Accomplish more every day — anywhere you go!

If you have used earlier versions of OmniFocus, you may want to watch What’s New in OmniFocus 4, or read the New in OmniFocus 4 section of Welcome to OmniFocus, and then start exploring… for everybody else, let’s get to know OmniFocus!

Before we dive in, please feel free to watch Getting Started in OmniFocus 4, and then come on back.

This documentation can certainly be read from start to finish, but it is intended to serve as a reference manual, allowing you to learn more about topics that catch your interest, when needed. If you find there’s something you’d like to know more about, that isn’t covered here, or that just isn’t clear, please let us know.

OmniFocus 4 for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch documentation is in the process of being rewritten into a single, unified reference manual. Significant portions of work are still in progress, with several chapters and sections being actively updated and re-written for this version. You can expect to see ongoing updates; please see the reference manual section for information about updates and changes as they are released. Thank you for your patience, and for using OmniFocus 4!

A Trusted System

Life is complicated. We each have a mix of plans, commitments, goals, priorities, and ideas jumbled up in our heads, all competing for time and attention. Sometimes these ideas push to the forefront unbidden, or fall out of our mind just when we need them most.

Many of us are pretty good at managing our lives in our heads most of the time. But what if we didn’t have to?

What if we had a trusted system where we could capture flashes of inspiration, sketch out long term goals, build healthy habits, and house a literally photographic memory?

OmniFocus is that trusted system: a “second brain” that is as powerful as you choose to make it. It’s designed to rapidly capture ideas on the fly, then help you organize and connect them, building multistep projects or grouping common themes using tags.

OmniFocus can let you know when you’re near the grocery store, and remind you of your party plans and all the ingredients that go into that cake. Or prompt you to check the weather and get out the telescope for next month’s full moon viewing. Or if you’re feeling creative, suggest a list of tasks that require your artistic attention.

Whether you’re most comfortable with an unsorted checklist, a complex set of nested steps that are part of a multistep project, or somewhere in the middle, OmniFocus is there to support the way you think. It sticks with the pieces you need to help you get stuff done, unfolding new functions along with your changing workflows — all with powerful, end-to-end encrypted data syncing to help you keep trust in the system.

Before we look at the road ahead, it’s sometimes useful to glance behind us, to see where we’ve come from.

OmniFocus started life as a series of OmniOutliner scripts, before becoming a native Mac application, and then making its way to the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and even the Web. Though the original inspiration was David Allen’s Getting Things Done®, OmniFocus has since evolved into a system with a tremendous amount of flexibility, able to adapt to a wide variety of productivity approaches… while still feeling familiar to long-term customers.

Capturing Ideas

OmniFocus 4 is intentionally built for you to be able to move easily between devices, so your data is ready for you wherever you are. When you sync your data with the Omni Sync Server (or another WebDAV-enabled server), the latest changes you make are available on all of your devices. Start capturing a thought on an iPhone, flesh it out on an iPad, and really get into the details of organizing on your Mac… then get reminders on your Apple Watch!

For OmniFocus to effectively serve as a trusted system for your plans, first you’ll need to get that knowledge out of your head and into the app. OmniFocus makes this as straightforward as possible by presenting an intuitive interface with just the things you need to get started. Would you like a quick orientation? When you first install OmniFocus, you will be given the option of adding a tutorial project, which will help acquaint you with the current version of OmniFocus. There are slightly different versions for Mac, iPhone, and iPad — we encourage you to install each version, and begin exploring!

Items in OmniFocus represent things that you’d like to do, pieces of larger plans, or really any sort of data that’s actionable in some way. It can be helpful to use a consistent syntax in naming your items, but don’t let that get in your way — for now, the goal is to get as many ideas, plans, and to-dos out of your head and captured in OmniFocus as you can.

You’ll notice as you add items to the Inbox that there are additional details you can set, such as due date, note, and flag, that can provide more information about the work that each item represents. These bits of additional information are purely optional; don’t feel like you have to fill them all out for every item you add. (In the future, you’ll be able to experiment with even more rich data associated with your tasks, but for now we’re keeping it simple.)

After you’ve spent some time capturing items in the Inbox, you’ll probably find yourself coming to a natural pause, as you run out of quick ideas to capture. That’s okay! You can return to the Inbox to add more items, or add more ideas later, using Quick Entry.

Organizing Your Thoughts

You will likely discover that some of the ideas you have captured are quick and straightforward (“make lunch for tomorrow”), and some are more complex (“budget for next year”). You can choose to leave some of these in the Inbox and treat them like a simple checklist, tapping the status circle to mark them complete when they’re finished… or you could venture out of the Inbox, and see what OmniFocus holds in store.

Organize your ideas further in the Projects perspective, and start adding all the related actions and projects.
Easily see all related actions or projects in the Tags perspective, so that you can see all actions that need to be completed in a specific place, agenda meeting topics that require a certain person to attend, or projects you should only tackle when you’re feeling high energy.
Plan the days and weeks ahead using Forecast, so that you’re never surprised, or forget something on your schedule.
And so much more… welcome to your new trusted system!

Before You Go

With all of OmniFocus’s features, we recommend giving yourself a chance to get used to this new system. Start simple, use the features that add value to your task management, and feel free to ignore the rest… until more is needed. We wish you the best on your productivity journey, and we’re here whenever you need us — alongside a vibrant community of your fellow OmniFocus users. Good luck, and happy OmniFocusing!

Perspectives

Perspectives are different ways of viewing the actions and projects in OmniFocus. Each perspective has a specific purpose, and when used together they allow you to plan and accomplish your goals. OmniFocus includes seven built-in perspectives to help you organize, prioritize, schedule, and review your actions and projects. There are also two perspectives for viewing completed or changed items. OmniFocus Pro also includes custom perspectives.

Built-In Perspectives

Default Perspectives

The perspectives for planning and completing items are:

Inbox — for quickly capturing and processing actions.
Projects — for gathering actions into projects, and figuring out what comes next.
Tags — for adding information about people, places, things, states of mind, energy level, or anything that affects when or where you work.
Forecast — for viewing all of your actions and projects that have related due or defer until dates, and viewing them alongside your schedule.
Flagged — for gathering all of your flagged actions in one place.
Nearby — for seeing all actions or projects that have a tag with an assigned location, either in a list or on a map. What can you do where you are, or nearby?
Review — for checking on your progress so far, determining the status of projects, and figuring out what to do next.

Completed and Changed

The perspectives for viewing completed or changed items are:

Completed — for finding completed actions and projects.
Changed — for finding changed actions and projects.

More information about each perspective is below. The easiest way to view a perspective is to click or tap its icon in the Perspectives Bar, or navigate to it using Quick Open.

Perspectives Bar

The Perspectives Bar is a row of tabs down the left side of the screen on a Mac and iPad, or across the bottom of the screen on an iPhone. By default, it is visible when OmniFocus is first installed, with each tab containing an icon and title; tapping on an icon will visit the related perspective. If you’d like to, you can either hide the Perspectives Bar, or just hide the titles.

By default, the Perspectives Bar includes all the built-in perspectives, except for Completed and Changed. You can change the order of perspectives, as well as choose which ones to show (including custom perspectives, when using OmniFocus Pro), using the Perspectives List on Mac, or Quick Open edit mode on iPad and iPhone. If you choose to show more perspectives than can fit across the height or width of your screen, you can scroll the row to reveal additional tabs.

On an iPhone or iPad, you can also tap the current tab to update the view. If you are viewing the Outline, and have scrolled or selected one or more items, the first tap will clear the selection and return to the top of the Outline. The second tap will show or hide the Sidebar on an iPad, and switch between the Sidebar and Outline on an iPhone.

Perspectives Bar Shortcuts

Each tab in the Perspectives Bar is also a button. When long pressing (press and hold) on an iPhone or iPad, or control-clicking on a Mac, a shortcut menu (also called a contextual menu) appears. The shortcut menu may contain some or all of the following menu commands, which apply to the selected perspective:

Edit — opens View Options for the selected perspective, and begins editing.
Unfavorite — removes the selected perspective from the Perspectives Bar and favorites list. Quick Open can be used to favorite it again on an iPhone or iPad, and the Perspectives List can be used on a Mac.
Copy Link — copies a link to the perspective in OmniFocus’s app URL format. Tap this link from anywhere on your device to view the perspective in OmniFocus.
Open in New Window — on a Mac, this opens the selected perspective in a new window, instead of the current window. On an iPad, this will open the selected perspective in a new split screen window. This command is not available on iPhone.

Quick Open

Quick Open is designed to help you quickly navigate wherever you need to go in OmniFocus, whether you are using a Mac, an iPhone, or an iPad.

Quick Open (Mac)

While working anywhere in OmniFocus, use the Quick Open… menu item in the File menu (Command-O), or click on the Quick Open button in the Toolbar (if you have customized the Toolbar).

Navigating:

Enter text into the search field at the top of the sheet to quickly find a perspective, folder, project, tag, or Omni Automation plug-in that matches the text you enter.
The field matches text from the middle of words as well as between them; entering "ho" will turn up both "Get started with OmniFocus" and "Phone", for example.
Click on a result in the list to open it, or use the arrow keys to navigate, and return to select a result.
If you check the Open in a new window option, the item will be opened in a new window.

Quick Open (iPhone and iPad)

On iPhone or iPad, Quick Open can also be used for selecting favorite perspectives, or reordering the perspectives bar. On a Mac, this functionality is located in the Perspectives List

An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. With OmniFocus Pro, Quick Open can also be used to create new custom perspectives.

While working in any perspective’s Sidebar or Outline, tap the Quick Open button in the lower left part of the screen (or type Command-O).

Navigating:

Enter text into the search field at the top of the sheet to quickly find a perspective, folder, project, tag, or Omni Automation plug-in that matches the text you enter.
The field matches text from the middle of words as well as between them; entering "ho" will turn up both "Get started with OmniFocus" and "Phone", for example.
Tap on a result in the list to open it. If you are using an attached keyboard, you can also open the selection using the return key.

Favorites:

Tap on the star icon to favorite or unfavorite perspectives.
Perspectives that are favorites will show in the Perspectives Bar.

Sorting Perspectives:

Tap Edit
Use the drag handles to arrange perspectives in the order you prefer.
Perspectives that are favorites will appear in the order you set here.

Creating Custom Perspectives:

With OmniFocus Pro, tap the Add Perspective button in the bottom right of the Quick Open window.
A new custom perspective will be created and opened, ready for you to edit.
Additional information can be found in Custom Perspectives.

Perspectives List

On Mac, the Perspectives List is used for selecting favorite perspectives, assigning custom keyboard shortcuts, or reordering the Perspectives Bar. An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. With OmniFocus Pro, the Perspectives List can also be used to create new custom perspectives. This functionality is also available on iPhone and iPad, but is part of Quick Open.

The perspective list also serves as a way to navigate between perspectives in the main OmniFocus window: double-click a perspective in the list to open it.

Keyboard Shortcuts:

Click on the Shortcut button (note that it may currently be showing an assigned custom shortcut).
Type the keys that you would like to assign.

Favorites:

Tap on the star icon to favorite or unfavorite perspectives.
Perspectives that are favorites will show in the Perspectives Bar.

Sorting Perspectives:

Click and hold on a row, then drag it into the order you prefer.
Perspectives that are favorites will appear in the order you set here.

Creating Custom Perspectives:

With OmniFocus Pro, click the plus icon in the bottom toolbar, to Add a new perspective.
A new custom perspective will be created and opened, ready for you to edit.
Additional information can be found in Custom Perspectives.

Next to the star icon, there is a More menu (indicated by three dots) which contains additional actions or settings for each row:

Open — opens the selected perspective.
Open in New Window/Tab — opens the selected perspective in a new view.
Edit — opens View Options for the selected perspective, and begins editing.
Copy as Link — copies a link to the selected perspective.
Duplicate — duplicates the selected perspective. (Only available for Completed & Changed and custom perspectives.)
Always Open in a New Window — choose whether to always open the selected perspective in a new view. (Only available for custom perspectives.)
Revert to Default Settings — returns perspectives to their original settings. (Only available for Default perspectives.)
Delete — deletes the selected perspective. (Only available for custom perspectives.)

View Options

View Options can be shown by tapping or clicking the eyeball icon in the toolbar, selecting Show View Options from the View menu, or using the keyboard shortcut Shift-Command-V.

View Options allow you to customize which actions or projects appear in the Outline for the current perspective, based on their status and availability, in addition to perspective-specific options.

This section provides an overview of the options that are common to most perspectives, with each perspective section discussing options that are specific to that perspective.

View Options is generally divided into several sections:

Availability — The first section determines what is included in the view, based on the availability of the items (actions, action groups, and projects) that are shown; the View Options glossary entry has more detail. This section is not included in Forecast or Review, though each of those perspectives have similar components. These settings sync between all devices.
Structure — The second section determines how the view displays, and varies between perspectives. This can include settings that impact visibility (such as whether to display the Inbox in Projects), or the organization of items (such as whether to display Forecast as a unified list, or separated by types of information). This section is not included in the Inbox or Nearby perspectives. These settings sync between all devices.
Layout — The third section contains layout adjustments for the specific kind of device that you are using, including access to Edit Default Layout. These settings sync between devices of the same type.

Custom Layout

An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. OmniFocus Pro allows you to set a custom layout for each perspective. Click on Custom Fluid or Custom Columns (on Mac), or Custom row layout on iPhone or iPad; this will present the same set of options as Layout settings for Mac or iPhone and iPad, but will be applied only to the perspective you are editing.

Inbox

The Inbox is your starting place, where you can capture everything that you want to accomplish: all of your hopes, dreams, and goals. To add an item to the Inbox, navigate there using the Perspectives Bar or Quick Open, and choose New Action (Command-N) from the File menu, click the New Action button (plus icon) in the Mac toolbar, or tap the New Item button (plus icon) in the lower right of your iPhone or iPad.

You can also add items to the Inbox from anywhere in OmniFocus using Quick Entry.

Many people use the Inbox as a landing place for new ideas, allowing them to quickly capture all the thoughts in their mind. While it is possible to work out of the Inbox, it’s often a temporary place for those ideas to live. Adding a project or tags to an item turns it into an action, and converting it into a project allows you to add even more actions… all in the interest of moving towards your goals.

Though every workflow is different, many people try to keep their Inbox empty, processing all the contained items on a regular basis. This practice is often referred to as “Inbox Zero”, and is subtly rewarded in OmniFocus by the appearance of a graphic in the background of the Inbox when no items are present.

Inbox View Options

The Inbox perspective provides the following View Options:

In the Inbox, show: — this is the availability section, though it does not include the First Available option, which is partly determined by project structure, so is not available in the Inbox.
Layout — Unlike the other perspectives, the Inbox View Options always allow customization, whether licensed for Standard or Pro, to make processing your Inbox as easy as possible. More information in the custom layout note.

Inbox Outline

Once you have an item in your Inbox, what do you do next? In the simplest workflow, you can accomplish the action that you have captured in your Inbox, and then mark it complete by clicking or tapping the Status Circle next to the item.

Do you need to do a little more organizing, before tackling that first action? The Inbox Outline contains a list of individual items, which you can choose to organize into action groups. This can be accomplished by dragging one item on top of another (Mac, iPhone, or iPad), selecting an item and using the Add Inside command (Mac, iPhone, or iPad), or dragging the New Action button from the lower right of your screen to hover over an action in the Outline (iPhone or iPad).

You can also add tags to an item, by clicking or tapping into the Tags fields, and beginning to type; you can either select existing tags, or create new ones.

Since the Inbox is most often a temporary place for capturing ideas, it only supports very simple organization. If you need more complexity, or are working on a project with many related actions, then it’s time to either add the Inbox item to an existing project, or convert it into a project, and continue planning. Clicking or tapping into the Project field will allow you to either select an existing project, or create a new project.

Once you have added a project or tags to an Inbox item, it will likely disappear from view, depending on your settings for Clean up inbox items which have. Your items are still safe! They’re now filed, and ready for your next steps. Not entirely sure where your Inbox item just went? Please see read about the default Miscellaneous project.

If you convert an Inbox item to a project, it will immediately reopen in the Projects perspective, ready for further planning.

The Inbox perspective is unique among perspectives, as it doesn’t have a Sidebar. The Sidebar is normally used for navigating to part of the Outline, or filtering to only see a specific section of the Outline. Both navigation and filtering require additional information which Inbox items don’t typically have, such as an assigned project or tags; in the Inbox, adding that information normally removes the item from the Inbox entirely, based on your Clean up inbox items which have setting.

Item Status

As you discovered above, clicking or tapping on the Status Circle next to an item will mark it completed, one of several status options that can be applied to actions, groups, projects, folders, and even tags. Other status options include active (the default), on hold, and dropped. More information about status options can be found in the glossary.

Cleaning Up Resolved Items

When you mark an item complete by clicking its status circle, the item may not immediately disappear from the Outline. If you have set items to clean up when changing perspectives, they remain until you navigate elsewhere or clean up manually by using the Clean Up command. You can choose when OmniFocus cleans up by changing the setting for Clean up resolved items

If a completed item doesn’t disappear even after you’ve cleaned up your current view, check your View Options for the perspective, as you likely have the availability section of View Options set to All. Change to any of the other availability options, to hide completed items.

Worried about accidentally deleting hidden items? If you change an action or project status to one that would hide it from the current View Option setting (such as marking an item Complete in a perspective with View Options set to Available for example) and then later delete the folder, project, or action group that contains it, OmniFocus warns you that you may be about to delete something unintentionally. To see those hidden items, change the current perspective’s View options to All*.

Projects

A project is a collection of related actions and action groups, typically working towards a specific end goal. The Projects perspective displays all of your projects in a list, which can also be grouped into folders, such as Personal or Work.

To add a new project, navigate to Projects using the Perspectives Bar or Quick Open, and choose New Project (Shift-Command-N) from the File menu, or use the Add Project at the bottom of the Projects Sidebar.

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.

Projects View Options

The Projects perspective provides the following 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 items that it includes; see the View Options, Project Type and Project Status sections for further details.
Structure — Choose whether to show the contents of the Inbox at the top of the Projects Outline and Sidebar (this makes it easier to drag and drop between the Inbox and Projects), and choose whether to include folders in the Outline view (folder rows are hidden if this option isn’t selected).
Layout — Settings in this section vary with the device that you are using: Keep Sidebar Hidden (Mac or iPad) or Show Project List first (iPhone). OmniFocus Pro allows you to set a custom layout for this perspective.

Projects Outline

The Projects Outline displays a list of your projects, and the actions they contain, with visibility determined by your View Options. The Outline displays your projects in a list of rows, with each row representing a project, an action group or action that it contains, or (if enabled in your view options) a folder. The relationships between projects, the actions they contain, and any additional structure in the form of action groups, or folders, are represented in the Outline by levels of indentation. The further indented an item is, the deeper in the project view it is nested.

The Projects Sidebar shows the full OmniFocus project structure, including folders and projects, along with an icon indicating Project Type on the leading edge of the row, and project or folder status along the trailing edge. Click or tap the disclosure chevrons to collapse and expand folder rows and show and hide their contents.

Drag and drop can be used to rearrange projects in the Sidebar. If you drop one project on top of a second project, the first project is converted to an action group inside the second project.

You can click or tap a project or folder in the Sidebar to view the selected item and contents in the Outline, or you can select several projects and/or folders to view them together. Tap again or Command-click to remove the selection, and return to the full list in the Outline.

Control-clicking (on a Mac) or long-pressing (on an iPhone or iPad) on an item in the Sidebar will show a selection of Commands in a Shortcut menu, which updates depending on which item(s) you have selected.

At the bottom of the Projects Sidebar on a Mac, there are two buttons: the Add button (plus icon), and the Action menu (gear icon). The Add button allows you to Add Parallel Project, Add Sequential Project, Add Single Action List, or Add Folder. The Action menu contains a selection of Commands in a Shortcut menu, which updates depending on which item(s) you have selected.

At the bottom of the Projects Sidebar on an iPhone or iPad, there are two buttons: the Add button (plus icon), and the More menu (three dots icon, available in Select or Edit mode). The Add button allows you to Add Project or Add Folder. The More menu contains a selection of Commands in a Shortcut menu, which updates depending on which item(s) you have selected.

Miscellaneous Project

Before we move on from the Projects Sidebar, let’s consider a very special project: the default Miscellaneous project, which can appear after cleaning up items from the Inbox.

The Miscellaneous project is a single action list that OmniFocus automatically creates whenever items are cleaned up that don’t have a project assigned. Since removing items from the Inbox requires that they be assigned a project, if your Clean up Inbox items which have are configured to move Inbox items that have an assigned tag, but no assigned project, the Miscellaneous project becomes their home until you assign them another.

Since the Miscellaneous project is automatically created by the app based on how you’ve chosen for clean up to work, it can’t be permanently removed; when needed, it will be re-created. If you’d prefer not to use it, try requiring an assigned project in your Clean up Inbox items which have setting.

The default Miscellaneous project can be renamed, and will continue to function in the same way. Changing the project type from single action list to sequential or parallel project will break the default nature of this special project. If that happens, OmniFocus will create another, when needed.

Project Type

Projects are distinguished by their type, which reflects 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.

Projects may be set to Parallel or Sequential, or they may be a Single Action List. By default, all new projects are created as Parallel, but the Default Project Type can be changed in Settings.

Parallel — Parallel projects contains actions which may be accomplished in any order. By default, all active actions are considered available. View Options set to First Available or Available will show different results, as the topmost action in the project is considered first available.
Sequential — Sequential projects contains actions which must be completed in a specific order, from top to bottom. By default, only the topmost active action is considered available, and all actions below that one are considered blocked. View Options set to either First Available or Available should show the same result.
Single Actions — A single action list contains actions that may (or may not) be related in some way, but that are not part of an overall goal. Unlike with parallel or sequential projects, the position of an action in a single action list does not matter; each action can be thought of as a very small standalone project. For a single action list, View Options set to First Available or Available will show identical results, as all actions are considered first available.

Note that Action Groups also have an Action Group Type, which can be set to either Parallel or Sequential.

Project Status

When planning or reviewing a project, it can be useful to assign it a status to indicate whether work is still progressing, or plans have changed. The statuses for projects are:

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 if you decide to prioritize them again in the future. If you’d like to view an on hold project, change your View Options to Remaining or use Search Remaining.
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 view a completed project, change your View Options to All or use Search Everything.
Dropped — If you have decided not to work on a project any longer, you can set it to Dropped. It will be hidden from the Projects list, along with its actions. You can delete the project instead, but then you won’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 (or not), even if they are part of projects that are no longer relevant. If you’d like to view a dropped project, change your View Options to All or use Search Everything.

Dropped and completed items can accumulate in your database over time. If you would like to trim your database, please read more about Archiving in OmniFocus.

Folder Status

Folders also have a status to indicate whether contained work is still progressing, or plans have changed. The statuses for folders are:

Active — The default status for a folder. This status does not affect any contained projects or folders.
Dropped — If you have decided not to work on projects inside a specific folder any longer, you can set the folder to Dropped. This will result in all contained folders, projects, and actions also being Dropped. All the contents of the folder will be hidden from the Projects list. If you’d like to review a dropped folder or contained items, change your View Options to All or use Search Everything.

Forecast

Forecast helps you keep an eye on your progress, check upcoming due and defer until dates, and schedule OmniFocus actions and projects alongside important events in your calendar.

The Forecast tiles across the top of the Outline (we refer to this set of tiles as the “piano keys”) display a range of dates, with a tile for Past (everything prior to Today), a tile for Future (everything after the last day displayed in the piano keys), and a tile for each day in between, with as many days as fit on the device that you are using. This is a quick way to get a sense of what the next several days hold, what should be rescheduled, or where you have capacity to add work.

Each tile also shows the number of items associated with that date. For Due items, the tile is color-coded according to the most urgent item: yellow indicates that an item is due soon, and red indicates an item is due or overdue.

To create a new action that is due on a particular day, tap the appropriate date tile, followed by Smart Add (on iPhone or iPad), or use New Action (on any device). New actions created in Past will have a due date of yesterday, while new actions created in Future will have a due date of the day after the last date tile.

Forecast View Options

View Options for Forecast are different from the other default perspectives, as they do not contain an Availability section, and the Structure section is unique, but the Layout section should be familiar. The Forecast perspective provides the following View Options:

In Forecast, include: — Enables types of items that will show in Forecast on all days.
- Items on defer date — With this setting enabled, actions and projects with a defer until date will appear in the Outline for all days, either as part of the Flexible list, or in a separate Organized section for Deferred items.
- Items on notification date — With this setting enabled, actions and projects with notifications scheduled for a date before the due date or defer until date will appear in the Outline for all days that have a notification, either as part of the Flexible list, or in a separate Organized section for Scheduled Notifications.
- Calendar events — With this setting enabled, calendar events will appear in the Outline for all days, either as part of the Flexible list, or in a separate Organized section for Calendar Events. See Calendars for more information.
- Choose Calendars — When Calendar events is enabled, this option will appear, allowing you to select which calendar events show in the Outline. See Calendars for more information.
Today includes: — Enables types of items that will show in Forecast only Today.
- Flagged items — With this setting enabled, actions and projects that are Flagged will appear in the Outline for today, either as part of the Flexible list, or in a separate Organized section for Flagged items.
- Items tagged — After selecting a Forecast tag in this field, actions and projects to which you Apply Forecast Tag will appear in the Outline for Today, either as part of the Flexible list, or in a separate Organized section for Tagged items.
Structure: — Choose how Forecast presents events, projects, actions, and notifications. See Forecast Outline for more information.
- Flexible — New in OmniFocus 4, Forecast will present a single unified list which combines all the types of items you have selected from In Forecast, include and Today includes, alongside your Due items. There are also settings for whether you would like to Preserve hierarchy and/or Keep sorted. See Flexible Outline for more information.
- Organized — Forecast will present sections for each type of item you selected from In Forecast, include and Today includes, as well as one for your Due items. This was the default in earlier versions of OmniFocus. See Organized Outline for more information.
Layout — Settings in this section vary with the device that you are using: Keep Sidebar Hidden (Mac or iPad) or Show Calendar first (iPhone). OmniFocus Pro allows you to set a custom layout for this perspective.

Forecast Outline

The Outline can use a Flexible structure (new in OmniFocus 4) or an Organized structure. The same information is presented, regardless of which option you choose, though the difference in appearance may significantly change how you view and interact with your actions and projects.

In each case, the Outline will be filled with actions and projects that have assigned Due Dates, as well as the types of items you’ve enabled in Forecast View Options.

On Hold Projects

Actions that are part of projects that are On Hold, as well as the projects themselves, are hidden in Forecast. This is to ensure that you don’t spend time thinking about projects that you have previously decided to pause. An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. If you would like these actions and projects to show in Forecast, OmniFocus Pro allows you to change this behavior by enabling Include items from On Hold projects in Organization settings.

Forecast Outline: Flexible

The new default structure in OmniFocus 4 is Flexible, which will present a single unified list combining all the types of items you have selected in View Options, alongside your Due items. There are also settings for Preserve hierarchy and Keep sorted.

Preserve Hierarchy

In previous versions of OmniFocus, Forecast displayed a flat list of actions, action groups, and projects, in the order that they needed to be completed (top to bottom, children before parents). This presented two challenges: it could be difficult to figure out which project an action belonged to, especially if you re-use project structures (such as for different clients); the order of tasks was logical, but having parent items (action groups and projects) listed after child items (actions) didn’t work for everybody.

OmniFocus 4 addresses both of those challenges by making the presentation of your OmniFocus data more consistent across all perspectives.

Preserve Hierarchy is enabled by default. This setting doesn’t add or remove items from Forecast, but it does change how those items are presented. Actions will display as part of the containing action groups or projects, and those actions groups or projects can be collapsed for an overview, or expanded for a detailed view.

As an example, if you have a project due today (Icon for new version of application) which has two actions:

Check with client for design feedback
Finalize icon design for client

OmniFocus 3 (and earlier versions) would display three separate due items, with the project listed after the actions, as OmniFocus expects you to complete each action before completing the project:

Check with client for design feedback
Finalize icon design for client
Icon for new version of application

OmniFocus 4 displays those same due items with the hierarchy preserved:

Icon for new version of application
- Check with client for design feedback
- Finalize icon design for client

Which also allows you to collapse or expand the project, depending on the level of detail that you would like to see.

Keep Sorted

When first installed, OmniFocus 4 will sort actions and projects in the Forecast Outline by due date. If you have Calendar events enabled, OmniFocus will do its best to sort the actions, projects, and events into chronological order. With Keep sorted disabled (the default setting), you can re-order items in the Outline using drag and drop or the Move keyboard shortcuts. Once you have begun reordering items manually, new (or previously unseen) items will appear at the bottom of the Outline, and you may move them into your desired location.

With Keep sorted disabled, and Preserve hierarchy enabled, it is possible to use drag and drop to move actions between action groups or projects, if they are in the same Outline view. This can be very powerful, but can also have surprising results, if you aren’t careful where you drop an item.

If you enable Keep sorted, OmniFocus will return to sorting items for you, but will also save the manual reordering that you’ve already done; try toggling the setting in View Options to see what happens.

Forecast Outline: Organized

Previous versions of OmniFocus used a structure that we now refer to as Organized.

The Outline will contain one or more sections, with each section presenting a specific type of item you selected in View Options, as well as one for your Due items. The possible sections include Calendar Events, Due, Deferred, An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. Tagged, Flagged, and Scheduled Notifications.

Items may display in one or more sections, if they match the type for each section. As an example, you may see the same action in Due, An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. Tagged, and Flagged… if it’s due today, has a Forecast tag applied, and has also been flagged.

When using the Organized structure, the Outline displays a flat list of actions, action groups, and projects, in the order that they need to be completed (top to bottom, children before parents). Hierarchy is not presented, nor is manual ordering possible. If you would to see what project an action is part of while using an Organized structure, try enabling Show full project path in the settings for Fluid Layout or Columns Layout (Mac only).

Forecast Outline: Calendars

Forecast can display Calendar events in the same list as your actions and projects when using a Flexible structure, or in a separate section when using an Organized structure.

Calendar events in the Outline are for display purposes, and can’t be edited from OmniFocus. Tap or click the calendar icon next to an event to open it in the Calendar application (or the application chosen in the Open Calendar Events In setting).

To view calendar events in OmniFocus, you need to enable Calendar events in the Forecast View Options, and then tap or click on Choose Calendars to select which calendars to display. OmniFocus will present any calendars that are configured in Apple’s Calendar application on your local device, whether Mac, iPhone, or iPad.

These calendars may be from Apple’s iCloud, Google Calendar, other CalDAV servers to which you have subscribed, or even local calendars. To add to, remove, or modify the calendars available on your device, see Apple’s User Guide articles:

The first time you launch OmniFocus, you will be asked to grant OmniFocus permission to access your Calendar and Contacts, in order to view calendar events in Forecast, and to assign contact locations to tags. Choose Allow to grant access, or Don’t Allow to deny access. If you choose Don’t Allow, and later change your mind, you can update the setting in the Privacy & Security pane in System Settings on Mac, iPhone, or iPad.

Once you have selected calendars to display in OmniFocus, calendar events will display above and below the actions and projects that have assigned due dates, based on the scheduled time for each, as long as you are using a Flexible structure. If you have Keep sorted enabled, this should work as you expect.

With Keep sorted disabled, OmniFocus will do its best to save the order of everything in the Outline, including calendar events, and sync that information between devices. If you are seeing events sort out of order, please read the following note.

There are two situations in which manual ordering of events may not work as expected.

The first is when the calendar event identifier is changed by the calendar server (this can happen when changing an event from one calendar to another), so OmniFocus doesn’t know that it has previously seen an event, and sorts it to the bottom of the Outline.

The second is when you have sorted your Forecast on one device (such as your iPhone), but a second device (your Mac) has a calendar event the first device can’t access; in this case, the event on the second device will be sorted to the bottom of the Outline.

The Sidebar displays a calendar, with a tile for Past (everything prior to Today), a tile for Future (everything after the last date displayed on the calendar), and a tile for each date in the next month. This gives you a higher level overview than the piano keys in the Outline, so you can easily see how many items you have scheduled during the next month, and your anticipated workload.

Each tile also shows the number of items associated with that date. For Due items, the tile is color-coded according to the most urgent item: yellow indicates that an item is due soon, and red indicates an item is due or overdue.

To create a new action that is due on a particular day, tap the appropriate date tile, followed by Smart Add (on iPhone or iPad), or use New Action (on any device). New actions created in Past will have a due date of yesterday, while new actions created in Future will have a due date of the day after the last date tile.

On a Mac, you can:

Click on a single date to view only that date in the Outline.
Click and drag on a range of dates to view them all in the Outline; you can also do this using Shift-click (click on one date, and then click on a second date while holding down the Shift key).
Command-click to select discontiguous dates, such as each weekend day in the coming month, to help plan your weekends.
Drag and drop an item from the Outline onto a date in the Sidebar to assign it a due date that matches that date.
If you hold down the Command key while dragging an item, OmniFocus sets the defer until date when you drop it, instead of setting the due date.
If you hold down Option-Command while dragging, OmniFocus sets both the defer until date and the due date for the item.

On an iPhone or iPad, you can:

Tap on a single date to view only that date in the Outline.
Tap the Select button (the icon with three lines) in the top toolbar, and tap on a selection of dates to view them all in the Outline.
Drag and drop an item from the Outline onto a date in the Sidebar to assign it a due date that matches that date.

Flagged

The Flagged perspective gathers together all projects, action groups, and actions which have been flagged, as well as any children of the flagged items.

To flag an item, tap or click the flag icon on its Outline row, click the flag icon in the Inspector, swipe from left to right (on iPhone or iPad), or choose Set Flag from the Edit menu on Mac or iPad (Shift-Command-L, or F when using bare key editing). You can remove the flag using the same method.

When you flag an item, its status circle changes to orange, and has a small orange flag added to the upper leading edge of the circle, to help you see that it is important.

If you flag a project, or an action group, all the actions within it inherit that flag, and the sense of importance. Inherited flags display as hollow, rather than solid.

Flags that are inherited can’t be directly removed; the parent item must be unflagged, or the action moved to a different parent. Note that it is possible to flag an item which already has an inherited flag; if this happens, the hollow flags will be filled in to communicate the change.

The orange status circle will not show if an item is due soon or overdue. In both of those cases, the orange flag remains in place to communicate the importance, while the status circle color communicates the due soon or overdue state.

Flagged View Options

The Flagged perspective provides the following 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 items that it includes; see the View Options and Flag sections for further details.
Structure — Choose whether to leave Flagged items as a flat list or group them by another field.
Layout — Settings in this section vary with the device that you are using: Keep Sidebar Hidden (Mac or iPad) or Show Tag List first (iPhone). OmniFocus Pro allows you to set a custom layout for this perspective.

Flagged Outline

The Flagged perspective will show actions, action groups, and projects, as long as they match the selected View Option filter. To always hide projects and action groups from Flagged, focusing exclusively on actions, enable Hide projects and action groups in Organization settings.

By default, items in the Flagged Outline are presented as a flat list, sorted first by due date (from oldest to newest), then by project (for items with the same due date). Sorting isn’t affected by whether a flag is inherited or directly applied.

You can choose to group your items by:

Ungrouped — Items are not grouped, and are presented as a flat list.
Tag — Items are grouped by individual tag. If an action has more than one tag, it appears within each of its tags.
Tags (Combined) — Items are grouped by the combination of all assigned tags. Regardless of the number of tags on an action, it appears only once, in a group named with its tag combination. Only items which have identical tags will be grouped together.
Project — Items are grouped by project.
Due — Items are grouped by due date, from oldest to newest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day. Items with no due date assigned are grouped at the bottom.
Defer Date — Items are grouped by defer date, from oldest to newest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day. Items with no defer date assigned are grouped at the top.
Completed — Items are grouped by completion date, from most recently completed to oldest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day. Items with no completion date are grouped at the bottom.
Dropped — Items are grouped by dropped date, from most recently dropped to oldest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day. Items with no dropped date are grouped at the bottom.
Added — Items 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 — Items 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.

The Flagged Sidebar shows a list of your tags, presented in the same order as in the Tags Sidebar.

The list is filtered to show only tags which are assigned to items that have been flagged.

You can use the same methods of organizing in the Flagged Sidebar as in the Tags Sidebar.

Nearby

The Nearby perspective shows you items with assigned tags which have a tag location. Depending on how you’ve configured each tag, you can see nearby actions that are available for work, whether they are in nearby neighborhoods, at nearby businesses (a specific location, or one of multiple locations), or at a nearby address for someone in your Contacts app.

If you didn’t grant OmniFocus access to your location when you first launched the app, you’ll be asked again the first time you use Nearby, as location access is required for Nearby to function.

An active internet connection is also required for Nearby to work. If you are on a mobile device, turning on Wi-Fi in the Settings app (in addition to cellular service) improves the quality and accuracy of location services, even if your device isn’t connected to any Wi-Fi access points.

Nearby View Options

The Nearby perspective provides the following View Options:

In Nearby, Show: — Choose the setting for items that you would like to be visible in the Outline (Available is the default). Each option describes the items that it includes; see the View Options section for further details.
Layout — The default view is set to Map, but can be changed to List. Settings in this section vary with the device that you are using: Keep Sidebar Hidden (Mac or iPad) or Show Tag List first (iPhone). OmniFocus Pro allows you to set a custom layout for this perspective.

Nearby Outline: Map

When set to Map, the Nearby Outline displays a map view of all items that:

Are Available (this can be changed in Nearby View Options)
Have a location-aware tag assigned
Are within 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) of your current location

The initial map view should show all of these items; if they can display in a smaller area than the default, then the map view will show the smaller area. As you change Nearby View Options, the map view will update to reflect your selection.

Once OmniFocus has presented the map, you can zoom out (to show actions on the other side of the city, or even the other side of the country) or zoom in (to see actions in a specific neighborhood, or near another planned errand). There is no limit to how far out you can zoom, or how far away your items can be; they will all be displayed on the map, as long as they have a tag location.

The map shows pins for each tag location, which include a count of the items with that tag assigned. Tapping or clicking on a pin will show a popup which includes the name of the tag, as well as the location assigned to the tag. There are also two icons in the popup:

A list icon, which will open the Tags perspective, and show a list of all items with that tag assigned
An arrow icon, which will open the Maps application, to provide directions to the tag location

If multiple tags are too close together on the map to show as individual pins, then they are presented as a pin group; this group is labeled with one tag name, as well as a note that indicates how many additional tags are included.

Zooming in will allow pin groups to separate into individual pins, while zooming out will group individual pins together. Tapping or clicking on a pin group will open the Tags perspective, and show a list of all items with any tags assigned, that are part of the pin group.

Nearby Outline: List

When set to List, the Outline displays a list view of all items that:

Are Available (this can be changed in Nearby View Options)
Have a location-aware tag assigned
Are within 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) of your current location

Items are grouped by tag, with tags listed from closest to furthest away; within a group, items are sorted in project order. On an iPhone or iPad, tapping on the distance indicator on the right side of a tag row will open the Maps application, to provide directions to the tag location.

If an item is blocked or unavailable it won’t appear, unless you change view options. Tags will not appear in the Nearby Outline unless they have a tag location and are assigned to an action or project.

The Nearby Sidebar shows a list of your tags, presented in the same order as in the Tags Sidebar.

The list is filtered to show tags that either have a tag location directly assigned, or that are part of a tag group with a tag location assigned.

You can use the same methods of organizing in the Nearby Sidebar as in the Tags Sidebar.

When you select a tag with an assigned tag location, the Map view will adjust to show the selected tag. If no tag is selected, the Map will return to showing you the default Map view.

Review

The Review perspective displays a list of projects that are due for review in the Review Sidebar, while allowing you to concentrate on a single project in the Review Outline.

Reviewing your projects helps ensure they are fully captured and planned in OmniFocus, so your actions are ready for work. If you have projects that need actions added, projects that aren’t relevant anymore, or projects you don’t plan to do any time soon, following a regular review process can help keep them from falling through the cracks.

Each project has a Next review date, as well as a setting for Review every, based on how often you intend to review it; both can be viewed and updated using the Review inspector. The default Review every interval for new projects can be changed by adjusting the setting for By default, review projects every in the Dates & Times settings for Mac or iPhone and iPad.

Review View Options

The Review perspective provides the following View Options:

In Review: — By default, Review shows projects that are on hold or deferred, and projects will not show resolved actions. You can choose to hide these projects, or show these actions, using the Hide blocked projects and Projects show resolved actions settings.
Structure — Choose whether the projects Sort by next review or sort in project order. Folders are hidden by default, but enabling Show folders in outline can provide additional context for where each project you are reviewing fits into your overall Projects structure.
Layout — Settings in this section vary with the device that you are using: Keep Sidebar Hidden (Mac or iPad) or Show Project List first (iPhone). OmniFocus Pro allows you to set a custom layout for this perspective.

The default setting for Hide blocked projects (disabled) is similar to setting View Options to Remaining in the other default perspectives; enabling Hide blocked projects is similar to selecting Available.

The default setting for Projects show resolved actions (disabled) is similar to setting View Options to Remaining in the other default perspectives; enabling Projects show resolved actions is similar to selecting Everything.

Review Outline

When you open the Review perspective, the Sidebar displays a list of projects that are ready for review. (Folders are never shown in the Sidebar, but can be shown in the Outline using View Options).

The Review Outline shows one project at a time, allowing you to easily focus on the project you are reviewing. The top project should already be open in the Outline for your review; if not, or if you’d like to start with a different project, select one in the Sidebar to get started.

There are buttons at the top or bottom of the Outline, depending on whether you are using a Mac, iPhone, or iPad:

Previous — The up arrow will show you the previous project in the list.
Next — The down arrow will show you the next project in the list.
Mark Reviewed — Sets Last reviewed date to today, sets the Next review date for the project based on the Review every interval, and then presents the next project in the list.

Reviewing a Project

Open the Review perspective, and select the project you would like to review.
The top of the window will display the number of projects ready for review, the last time this project was reviewed, and how often it is scheduled for review. Tap or click on the Review every portion to quickly change the Next review date (perhaps today isn’t the best day to review this project) or Review every interval (if the project should be reviewed more or less frequently).
Consider whether this project has the proper project status. Has it been Completed, or is it still Active? If you’re not currently working on it, should it be put On Hold, or does it need to be Dropped?
Do you need to update any actions, add new actions, or remove no-longer-relevant actions? Do they need to be organized differently?
Once your review is complete, click or tap on the Mark Reviewed button!

If you would like to review a project before its Next review date, you can either select it and use the Review inspector to set the Next review date to today, or drag and drop the project onto the Review perspective tab in the Sidebar, which also sets Next review date to today. Either way, the project will appear in the Review perspective, ready for you to consider.

When you open the Review perspective, the Sidebar displays a list of projects that are ready for review. (Folders are never shown in the Sidebar, but can be shown in the Outline using View Options).

The Review Sidebar presents those projects in a flat list, intentionally ignoring any structure that you have created in the Projects perspective.

By default, those projects are presented in order of their Next review date, from oldest at the top, to newest at the bottom. If you would like them sorted in project order, to match the Projects perspective, uncheck Sort by next review in the Nearby View Options.

Completed

The Completed perspective helps you quickly find items that have been completed, whether you are looking for an item that you accidentally tapped, want to look back on your week with satisfaction, or are preparing a report for stakeholders.

Completed can be opened from Quick Open on all devices, from the Perspectives menu on Mac or iPad, or from the Perspectives List on Mac.

This perspective is intended to be a temporary view of your OmniFocus data, so switching away from it removes the tab from your Perspectives Bar. If you would like to keep it in your Perspectives Bar for quick reference, you can favorite it using the Perspectives List on Mac, or Quick Open on iPhone or iPad.

Completed View Options

The Completed perspective is designed to show only completed items, so provides limited View Options:

Layout — Settings in this section vary with the device that you are using: Keep Sidebar Hidden (Mac or iPad) or Show Tags List first (iPhone). OmniFocus Pro allows you to set a custom layout for this perspective.

Completed Outline

The Completed Outline displays all completed actions, action groups, and projects, grouped and sorted by completion date, from most recently completed to oldest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day.

The Completed Sidebar shows a list of your tags, presented in the same order as in the Tags Sidebar.

The list is filtered to show only tags which are assigned to items that have been completed.

You can use the same methods of organizing in the Completed Sidebar as in the Tags Sidebar.

Changed

The Changed perspective helps you quickly find items that have been changed, and is an excellent way to find items that you have misplaced, or get a sense of where the most movement is happening in your OmniFocus data.

Changed can be opened from Quick Open on all devices, from the Perspectives menu on Mac or iPad, or from the Perspectives List on Mac.

This perspective is intended to be a temporary view of your OmniFocus data, so switching away from it removes the tab from your Perspectives Bar. If you would like to keep it in your Perspectives Bar for quick reference, you can favorite it using the Perspectives List on Mac, or Quick Open on iPhone or iPad.

Changed View Options

The Changed perspective is designed to show only changed items, so provides limited View Options:

Layout — Settings in this section vary with the device that you are using: Keep Sidebar Hidden (Mac or iPad) or Show Tags List first (iPhone). OmniFocus Pro allows you to set a custom layout for this perspective.

Changed Outline

The Changed Outline displays all changed actions, action groups, and projects, grouped and sorted by changed date, from most recently changed to oldest. The granularity of the grouping increases as it nears the present day.

The Changed Sidebar shows a list of your tags, presented in the same order as in the Tags Sidebar.

The list is filtered to show only tags which are assigned to items that have been changed.

You can use the same methods of organizing in the Changed Sidebar as in the Tags Sidebar.

Custom Perspectives (Pro)

This chapter needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

With OmniFocus Pro, you can create custom perspectives: filtered views of your OmniFocus data, that allows you to quickly surface actions and projects for specific situations.

Custom perspectives offer tremendous flexibility in how they display your work, so you can tailor them to the specific aspects of your professional or personal life that you want to highlight — a weekly work meeting, a home renovation project, or a tax preparation period, for example.

This chapter describes how to create and edit custom perspectives, and details the various rules you can adjust to get the perfect view on your actions and projects.

Related information can be found in the OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for macOS and iOS.

This chapter currently focuses on Custom Perspectives on iPhone and iPad; the updated Mac experience still needs to be integrated into this chapter.

Please note that perspectives created in OmniFocus 4 use the editor described in this chapter. You can still sync perspectives created in earlier versions of OmniFocus, but you will need to upgrade them.

Creating Custom Perspectives

To make a new custom perspective, tap Add Perspective in the Quick Open bottom bar. This opens the perspective editor, ready for you to start customizing.

When creating or editing a custom perspective, the perspective editor provides tools to customize your view settings in nigh-countless ways. The options in the perspective editor are identical whether setting up a new perspective or editing an existing one.

Editing and Deleting Custom Perspectives

To edit an existing custom perspective, navigate to it and open the editor by tapping View Options and then Edit Perspective Rules. Alternatively, touch and hold the perspective in Quick Open and choose Edit from the shortcut menu that appears.

To delete an existing custom perspective, touch and hold the perspective in Quick Open and choose Edit from the shortcut menu that appears.

To delete a custom perspective, scroll to the bottom of its editor and choose Delete Perspective.

Name, Icon, and Color

Tap the name field to enter a name for a new perspective or change an existing one.

Tap the icon to open the icon picker, where you can choose from among a set of Omni-designed icons included with OmniFocus. You can also tap Custom to open the Files browser and choose your own icon from any image you have stored locally or in the cloud, or tap Use Image From Clipboard to use a copied image from elsewhere.

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 are set up in a hierarchy, with All of the following, Any of the following, or None of the following at the top of the list. This indicates that all, any, or none of the rules inside it must apply to items for them to be included in the perspective. (This forms the root of the hierarchy, 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, tap on the three dots in the row, and then either Disable or Delete it. You can also modify the existing rule; in this case, Availability: Remaining can be changed to

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

When adding a filter rule, note that it will apply based on its position in the hierarchy. All rules added beneath the root use its logic: either Any, All, or None of them must apply for items meeting those criteria to appear in the perspective.

The bottom of the filter rule list contains options for further refining the hierarchy by nesting additional operations. As with the root operation, you can choose the condition that applies to rules in the group:

All of the following: Each of the rules in the group must be true for an item to appear in the perspective (or for it to be considered by the rules above it in the hierarchy). This corresponds to a Boolean AND operation.
Any of the following: If an item meets even one of the rules nested below Any of the following, it will be included in the perspective (provided it also meets conditions described elsewhere in the tree). This corresponds to a Boolean OR operation.
None of the following: If an item meets one of the rules nested below it, it will be excluded from the perspective regardless of any other rules applied. This corresponds to a Boolean NOT operation.

To reorder a rule in the list, touch and hold to lift it, then drag and drop it elsewhere. This is particularly useful in perspectives with multiple levels of hierarchy, since moving a rule to a different position in the hierarchy can change its effect on how items are displayed. (Reordering rules that are peers has no effect on how they apply to the rule structure.)

Structure

This section will be revised, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

This section of the editor defines how the perspective’s items are displayed in the outline. You can choose from Flexible or Organized, with further options available once you’ve chosen the primary approach.

Layout

Custom perspectives can either use the default Layout settings, or be individually customized, as in View Options for the default perspectives.

Upgrade Perspective

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

Older versions of OmniFocus do not support all the features of perspectives created with the most recent versions. If you are syncing a perspective created with an older version of OmniFocus, 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.

Chapter is next to be revised.

The outline is where you add, view, and edit tasks in OmniFocus. The items you see in the outline depend on the perspective you are viewing: you can narrow your concentration on just a few things you’d like to accomplish in the near term using Forecast, tackle things contextually with Tags, or get a broad overview of the work ahead across a number of Projects.

The sidebar appears on left side of the OmniFocus window, and controls what is displayed in the outline.

Related information can be found in the OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for macOS and iOS.

In wide views, such as on a Mac or iPad in a non-compact view, the outline is the center pane and backdrop of all your activity in OmniFocus, with the sidebar available to the left and the inspector to the right.

In compact views, the outline fills the screen, and is the default pane that appears when you navigate to a new perspective. As with wide views, the sidebar lives to the left and the inspector lives to the right, tucked just out of sight and available with a swipe.

The Perspective Header

The items you see in the outline depend on the perspective you are viewing. You can narrow your concentration on a few things you’d like to accomplish in the near term with Forecast, tackle things contextually with Tags, or get a broad overview of the work ahead across a number of Projects, for example.

The name of your current perspective appears at the top of the outline, along with a count of the items currently visible.

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 can 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.

When you first install OmniFocus, a subset of all of an item's optional information is shown for each row. Default rows display a badge indicating whether the item has a note, an attachment, or both, and the item's due date (if any).

When a row is selected for editing, it includes additional default controls:

Flag
Collapse
Note
Attachment

You can choose which information is visible app-wide with the Layout options in OmniFocus Settings, or change it on a per-perspective basis using the view options for each perspective; see Customizing Row Layout.

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 resolved items setting.)

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

Structure and Layout

The item attributes you choose to show are further divided into display fields, which appear for all items as you browse a perspective, and editing fields, which appear when you select an item for editing.

When a row is selected, a few attributes are always visible regardless of other layout changes you've made:

Item title
Status circle
Flag
Collapse
Note
Attachment

Organizing the Outline

Grouping Items

Action Groups — Individual actions can be organized into action groups. When you create an action group you’re creating a parent-child relationship between an action and the actions within it. (Action groups are sometimes referred to as subprojects.) Once you’ve created a group, you can use the inspector to change the action group type, and determine whether the group auto-completes when the last action within it is marked complete.

If two actions exists, this can be accomplished by:

Dragging one item on top of another (Mac, iPhone, or iPad). On a Mac, a line displays to indicate if the drop will be in line with the parent action, or placed as a child action. On an iPhone or iPad, rows will highlight or move out of the way as you drag a child action, to indicate where it will be dropped.
If the intended child action is directly below the intended parent action, select the child action, and use the Indent command.

If the parent action already exists, but the child does not, this can be accomplished by:

Selecting an item and using the Add Inside command (Mac, iPhone, or iPad).
Dragging the Smart Add button from the lower right of your screen to hover over an action in the Outline (iPhone or iPad).

If the child action exists, but the parent action does not, this can be accomplished by:

Selecting an item (or items), and using the Group command. A new untitled action is created to represent the group, and the selected items are indented to become its children.

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.

Note that hierarchy (projects nested within folders and tags within other tags) appears by default in the outline on wide devices; on compact, tap Show Projects Contents or Show Tags Contents to browse the full perspective hierarchy. Otherwise, each level of hierarchy is represented sequentially as you navigate through it.

Disclosure Triangle — Tap to collapse or expand the folder, project, or tag to hide or reveal its contents.
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.
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.
Item Count — The total number of items in the project, folder, or tag.
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.
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.

The toolbar at the top of your OmniFocus window contains a customizable set of buttons for commonly used app functions that you’d like to have accessible at a single click. This chapter describes the controls available in the toolbar, and also explains the notice bars that appear beneath it when your OmniFocus window is in an unusual state.

In wide views, tap Sidebar to open and close the sidebar on the left side of OmniFocus. In compact views, tap it to navigate back and forth between the sidebar and the outline.

Back, Forward Buttons

Tap Back to return to your previous location in OmniFocus. Tap Forward to return to your next location, if you've navigated back to a previous one.

View Options Button

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. See View Options for more information.

In wide views, tap the Sidebar Menu button to open a menu with controls for collapsing, expanding, and selecting items in the sidebar hierarchy. These controls are in the sidebar's More Menu in compact views.

In wide views, tap Edit to switch the sidebar to edit mode. In compact views, this button replaces the Inspector button when viewing a perspective's sidebar.

More Button

Tap to open the More menu.

Inspector Button

In wide views, tap Inspector to open and close the inspector on the right side of OmniFocus. In compact views, tap it to navigate to the inspector for the current selection in the outline.

New Action Button

Quick Entry Button

Complete Button

Clean Up Button (Broom)

Attach Button (Paper clip)

Flag Button (Orange Flag)

Mark Reviewed Button

Quick Open Button

Focus Button (Pro)

View Options Button (Eyeball)

Inspect Button

Sync Button

Flexible Space Button

Space Button

Custom Perspectives

Omni Automation

The More menu contains an expanded list of useful controls for configuring your OmniFocus experience.

Undo Button

Tap it to revert the most recent change to your database. After a change has been undone, the Redo button also appears in this area of the menu.

Redo Button

Select Button

Tap Select in the More menu to enter the outline's Select mode.

Clean Up Button

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.

Use Clean up Inbox items which have and Clean up resolved items to determine when items are removed from the outline automatically.

Expand All

Collapse All

Tap Share to send a selected item outside 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).

With OmniFocus Pro, any Omni Automation Plug-Ins you have installed also appear as options in the Share dialog. Tap a scripted action in the list to run it.

Help

Tap to open the Help submenu, with entries for:

About OmniFocus —
OmniFocus Help —
Release Notes —
Contact Omni —

Settings

Tap to open OmniFocus Settings.

Select Mode

Tap More, then Select, to switch the outline to Select mode, where 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).

In Select mode, the bottom bar provides a variety of additional controls for quickly editing multiple items at once:

Share —
Copy — Copy the items to the pasteboard. Leave Select mode and touch and hold a row to open the shortcut menu and paste the copied items beneath it.
Delete — Delete the items from the database entirely.
More — Opens the More menu for Select mode, which contains the following controls:
- Edit > Cut — Cut the items from the database and copy them to the pasteboard. Leave Select mode and touch and hold a row to open the shortcut menu and paste the copied items beneath it.
- Edit > Copy as Link
- Edit > Copy as TaskPaper
- Edit > Paste
- Edit > Duplicate
- Organize > 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.
- Organize > Indent
- Organize > Outdent
- Schedule > Due Today
- Schedule > Due Tomorrow
- Schedule > Defer until Tomorrow
- Flag/Unflag — Add or remove Flagged status to the items in the selection.
- Drop
- Inspect
- Focus
- Show in Tags

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

Smart Add and Quick Entry

The Smart Add button floats in the lower right corner of the outline, and is available in every perspective.

The Smart Add button has three primary functions:

Adding Items Here

Tap the Smart Add button to add new items directly to your current location in the outline.

This mode is available when viewing the contents of a flat list in the outline. If the view includes anything else—a folder, or a nested tag—it isn’t specific enough to know what “here” means, so tapping the button opens the Quick Entry sheet instead.

Adding Items with Drag and Drop

Touch and hold the Smart Add button to transform it into a new item that you can drag anywhere in the outline. As you drag the item over the outline, rows around it separate to provide a blank space to drop it. Drop the item 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.

Adding Items with Quick Entry

Touch and hold the Smart Add button to transform it into a new item that you can drag directly to the left, where the Quick Entry target appears.

When positioned on top of the Quick Entry target it becomes highlighted. Drop the item to open Quick Entry and create a new item there.

You can also open Quick Entry by double-tapping the Smart Add button.

The Quick Entry sheet acts like a mini Inbox that you can access from anywhere in OmniFocus, and use to add one or more new items with a customizable set of metadata fields.

Cancel
View Options
Save
New Item

Row Shortcut Menus

Shortcut menus appear when you touch and hold a row in the outline, and contain commands relevant to your selection.

Touch and hold is the same gesture required to lift an item for drag and drop. Instead of moving the item elsewhere in the outline, release it after it lifts and the shortcut menu will appear.

More information about shortcut menus can be found in the Commands, Gestures, and Keyboard Shortcuts chapter.

On Text

On Actions

Depending on their attributes, shortcut menus for actions and Inbox items include the following commands:

Cut — Cut the item from the database and copy it to the pasteboard.
Copy — Copy the item to the pasteboard.
Paste — Add the contents of the pasteboard beneath the selected item.
Share — Open the iOS Share dialog to send the selection to another app or run an Omni Automation Plug-In or other action.
Delete — Delete the item from the database entirely.
Forecast Tag — Add or remove the Forecast tag , if one is set.
Flag/Unflag — Add or remove Flagged status.
Drop/Skip — Set the item's status to Dropped, or skip the current iteration of a repeating item.
Due Today/Reschedule to Today — Set the item's due date to today, or reschedule the current iteration of a repeating item to today.
Due Tomorrow/Reschedule to Tomorrow — Set the item's due date to tomorrow, or reschedule the current iteration of a repeating item to tomorrow.
Defer until Tomorrow — Set the item's defer date to tomorrow.

On Projects

Depending on their attributes and location (sidebar or outline), shortcut menus for projects include the following commands:

Expand All — Expand all items in the outline to show their contents.
Collapse All — Collapse all items in the outline to show only the top level projects and folders.
Share — Open the iOS Share dialog to send the selection to another app or run an Omni Automation Plug-In or other action.
Forecast Tag — Add or remove the Forecast tag , if one is set.
Flag/Unflag — Add or remove Flagged status.
Drop — Set the project's status to Dropped.
Due Today — Set the project's due date to today.
Due Tomorrow — Set the project's due date to tomorrow.
Defer until Tomorrow — Set the project's defer date to tomorrow.
Go to Project — Navigate to the project in the outline.
Paste — Add the contents of the pasteboard as items within the project.
Review — Open the project in the Review perspective.
New Action — Add a new action to the project.
Delete — Delete the project and all of its actions from the database entirely.
Open in New Window (iPadOS only)—Open the project in a new window.

On Folders

Depending on their location (sidebar or outline), shortcut menus for folders include the following commands:

Expand All — Expand all items in the outline to show their contents.
Collapse All — Collapse all items in the outline to show only the top level projects and folders.
Share — Open the iOS Share dialog to send the selection to another app or run an Omni Automation Plug-In or other action.
Go to Folder — Navigate to the folder in the outline.
New Folder — Add a new folder inside the selected folder.
New Project — Add a new project inside the selected folder.
Delete — Delete the folder and its contents from the database entirely.
Open in New Window (iPadOS only)—Open the folder in a new window.

On Tags

Depending on their location (sidebar or outline), shortcut menus for tags include the following commands:

Expand All — Expand all tags to show the nested tags and items within them.
Collapse All — Collapse all tags to show only top level tags in the outline.
Share — Open the iOS Share dialog to send the selection to another app or run an Omni Automation Plug-In or other action.
Go to Tag — Navigate to the tag in the outline.
Paste — Add the contents of the pasteboard as items with the tag assigned.
New Tag — Add a new tag inside the selected tag.
New Action — Add a new action inside the selected tag.
Delete — Delete the tag and its associated items from the database entirely.
Open in New Window (iPadOS only)—Open the tag in a new window.

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.

Chapter is next to be revised.

Related information can be found in the OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for macOS.

Inspector

This chapter needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

The inspector holds tools for editing your actions, projects, folders, and tags.

Related information can be found in the OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for macOS and iOS.

Tap the Inspector button (a lower case i in a circle) in the outline toolbar to open the inspector. On compact devices, you can also swipe in from the right edge of the screen.

This chapter explains the purpose and function of the inspector’s various fields and options for editing your OmniFocus items.

Convert to Project

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 group. (The project becomes the parent action of the group, and its actions are nested inside it.)

Move

Tap Move to open the Move dialog and reposition the currently selected tag, project, action, or folder. The Move dialog provides destinations for moving the selection to another position within its hierarchy.

With a tag selected — Move the tag anywhere within the tag hierarchy.
With a project selected — Move the project anywhere within the project hierarchy (created by nesting folders). Projects live within folders but have no intrinsic hierarchical properties themselves; to move a project inside another project, first use Convert to change it to an action group, then drag the action group inside the destination project.
With an action or parent action selected — Move the action within its project or the Inbox, repositioning it within the action group hierarchy. To move an action to another project, use the Project row in the inspector.
With a folder selected — Move the folder anywhere within the project hierarchy.

The Share button appears in the inspector toolbar in compact views. It works the same here as it does in the Outline.

Show All Inspector Fields

Tap Show All Inspector Fields to turn on the display of all of the available fields of the inspector, overriding other inspector layout settings. Choose this option again to restore the inspector layout to its regular state.

Edit Inspector Layout

Tap Edit Inspector Layout to open Layout Settings, where you can choose which inspector attributes you would like to show, and in which order.

Delete

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

Inspector Tools (Compact)

In compact views, tools are available in the inspector’s toolbar to navigate between items and between the inspector and the outline.

Back (Left Arrow)

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

Previous (Up Arrow)

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

Next (Down Arrow)

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

Setting Dates

Several attributes in the inspector can have dates applied or adjusted. When you tap one of them the date picker appears, presenting a calendar where you can set the date and time.

The date picker has the following controls for adjusting an attribute's date and time:

Attribute — The selected attribute appears here, along with its current date value. Tap the red X to remove the attribute (and its associated date) from the item.
Month and Year — Tap the month to open a scrolling picker for the month and year, or tap the right and left arrows to page through months in the calendar.
Calendar — The current date is colored with the highlight color of the perspective that you are viewing, while the date that is value for the attribute is circled and set in bold. Tap a date in the calendar to change the value.
Time — Tap the time field to scroll through the hour in five minute increments. Tap it again to manually enter the hour, and a third time to enter the minute. Tap the AM/PM switch to choose morning or evening time.
Shortcuts — This row of buttons sets the date either to a fixed increment ahead of the current value (+1 day, +1 week, +1 month, or +1 year).

Inspector Attributes

Attributes in this section are listed in the order they appear in Inspector Layout settings.

Title

Appears For: All Items and Tags

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

Item Status

Appears For: All Items and Tags

Every item and tag in OmniFocus has a status.

Projects can be 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.
Inbox items and actions can be Active, Completed, or Dropped. Inbox items and actions 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 Item Status.
Tags can be 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.
Folders can be Active or Dropped.

The Status row also includes the 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.

Project Type

Appears For: Projects and Groups

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.

Groups can also have a project type. In this case, type selection in the inspector is limited to Sequential and Parallel (groups cannot have the Single Actions type).

The Project Type row also includes a switch to complete the project when the last action in the project or group is complete.

Tap the switch to toggle between two options for completing the project or group:

Manually — The project or group status must be changed to Completed manually, regardless of the completion status of actions within it.
With Last Action — The project or group status automatically changes to Completed when its last action 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.

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.

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.

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.)

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 scheduled notifications.

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

Tap +Scheduled 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.

Scheduled Notifications

Use the Add Notification dropdown menu to create a new notification of one of the following types:

Before Due — Adds a notification that occurs a set amount of time before the item is due. A notification of this type depends on the item's due date, so if the due date is changed or removed the time of the notification is likewise altered.
Scheduled — Adds a notification at a custom date and time that you choose from the calendar that accompanies this option. This is a fixed notification that doesn't depend on any other factors, so its date and time won't change even if you change the item's other dates.

Note that while scheduled notifications are independent of other dates assigned to an item, they do obey the item's floating time zone setting.

Time Zone

Appears For: All Items

A row labeled Use Floating Time Zone. Tap to choose whether dates and times associated with the item are floating (the default for new items) or not.

Using a floating time zone means that your time zone location is ignored: date and time values you assign to the selection remain the same no matter which time zone you are in. (If you indicate an item is due at 5:00 PM, it will always be due at 5:00 PM no matter where you are.)
Choosing not to use a floating time zone means that your dates and times are associated with the time zone where they are entered. When you change time zones, OmniFocus updates the date and time values of the selection to correspond with the new time zone. (An item due at 5:00 PM Seattle time will always be due at 5:00 PM Seattle time—so if you're in New York, you'll see that time as 8:00 PM.)

Completed

Appears For: All Completed Items

A row labeled Completed followed by a date and time. Tap to change the date that the item was completed.

If the item status or project status is changed from Completed, this row disappears and the completion date is removed.

Dropped

Appears For: All Dropped Items

A row labeled Dropped followed by a date and time. Tap to change the date that the item was dropped.

If the item status or project status is changed from Dropped, this row disappears and the dropped date is removed.

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 indicate that an item repeats. 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 occurrence 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 occurrence 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 project’s review interval and next review date are among the few attributes that all projects possess. If project review isn’t part of your workflow, feel free to ignore them.

Use the Review section of the inspector to change how often the project should be reviewed, and edit the date of a project’s next scheduled review. The default is every week, beginning a week from the project’s creation. By default, review projects every can be adjusted in the Dates & Times settings for Mac or iPhone and iPad.

Next review

The top field contains the date of the project’s next scheduled review, and can be manually adjusted, if you’d like.

Review every

Set the interval at which the project comes up for review, expressed in days, weeks, months, or years.

Last reviewed

The date the project was last reviewed. This is derived from your editing history, and can’t be changed directly.

Note and Attachments

The Note field 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 Notes field also lists any attachments included with the item.

Tap Add Attachment to open a menu with controls for adding attachments in the following ways:

Attach File —
Take Photo —
Photo Library —
Scan Document —
Record Audio —

OmniFocus is not intended to replace a dedicated file syncing service.

OmniFocus sync is designed to accommodate a wide range of uses, but slowness and other problems may occur when syncing large volumes of archival attachments or multiple files of great size.

If you make frequent use of the attachments feature, consider using the Attachments List in Database Settings to review the files attached to your database and remove large or unneeded files.

Added and Changed

Appears For: All Items

Two row labeled Added and Changed respectively, followed by dates and times that represent when the item was added to OmniFocus and when it was last updated. These attributes exist for reference and cannot be edited directly.

Tag 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 the Contacts app. If this is the first time you’ve opted to set a location this way, an alert will pop up asking you to grant 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 remove 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.

Setting a tag’s location doesn’t automatically mean you will receive proximity-based alerts for that tag. To receive notifications, make sure location alerts are turned on for your device in Sounds and Alerts settings, and make sure that Tag Notification Kind is set to When Arriving or When Leaving.

When a location is set, two additional attributes appear in the Location section.

A control labeled Notification that determines when the notification occurs:

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.

And a control 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.

Capture Methods

This chapter needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

OmniFocus as a standalone app is an incredibly powerful tool. Beyond what you can do with the app alone, OmniFocus interacts with other apps and services to help you accomplish more, with even greater convenience and efficiency.

This chapter discusses ways that OmniFocus can be used with other software, to achieve your goals.

Related information can be found in the OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for macOS.

Quick Entry

Please note that this section currently discusses the Mac version of Quick Entry; more information about the iPhone and iPad version can be found at Smart Add & Quick Entry.

With an easily configurable keyboard shortcut, you can use Quick Entry from anywhere on your Mac to add items to your database as long as OmniFocus is running. Make sure the shortcut in OmniFocus General settings is what you want, and it’ll open the Quick Entry window no matter which app you’re viewing in the foreground.

When using Quick Entry, a couple of other keyboard interactions are affected by your Outlining choice in General preferences.

If you decide against posting an item with Quick Entry, in Modern mode press Esc to close the window. In Classic mode, use Cancel (Command-.) instead.
Press Return in Quick Entry to save the current item and close the window. To add another item before closing the Quick Entry window, hold down Shift and then press Return — twice if in Modern mode, once if in Classic mode.

An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. With OmniFocus Pro, the option to customize your outline layout extends to the Quick Entry window as well.

Open the View options with the button in the lower left of the window to choose whether to use the default Layout settings, or customize the layout for Quick Entry.

Clippings

You may come across an email message, a web page, or some other piece of information that you’d like to turn into an action. You can use the OmniFocus Clippings service to quickly and easily add it in your OmniFocus database.

To clip content from another application:

Highlight some text, in any application that supports macOS Services (most native Mac applications support Services).
Press your chosen Clippings shortcut, or choose OmniFocus > Services > OmniFocus 4: Send to Inbox.
A new item, with the highlighted content (rich text and embedded images) as its note, and a text-only version as the title, lands in the Quick Entry window for you to revise and save.

Setting Up a Clippings Shortcut

At the bottom of General settings in OmniFocus you’ll find a setting for the Clippings shortcut. Click Clippings shortcut to open a window for the Keyboard Shortcuts window of the Keyboard section of System Settings.

Due to the macOS sandboxing security protocol, apps aren’t allowed to customize the keyboard shortcuts for their own services — such as the OmniFocus 4: Send to Inbox service — which is why you need to do the rest of this on your own. In addition, we are no longer able to directly open the Services pane, but we'll get you as close as possible.

In that window, you’ll see two panes: on the left is a list of shortcut categories, and on the right is an outline of items within that category. In the left pane, click on Services, and in the right pane scroll down until you see the group of Text services. If the Text group is collapsed, click the disclosure triangle to show the contents, and scroll down to find the OmniFocus 4: Send to Inbox item. Make sure that the service is enabled using the checkbox on the leading edge, and click into the keyboard shortcut box on the trailing edge (which starts off labeled none) to set a keyboard shortcut.

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 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 Omni Sync Server and create your first Mail Drop address. After logging in, click or tap on 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.

OmniFocus for the Web

OmniFocus for the Web is a browser-based companion app that works in tandem with OmniFocus for Mac, iPad, and iPhone to provide access to the core features of OmniFocus from any modern web browser. The app is provided as an optional subscription-based add-on to your existing OmniFocus purchase, or as part of an OmniFocus subscription package.

Learn more about subscribing to OmniFocus for the Web here.

Apple Integration

This chapter needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

In addition to interacting with Siri, OmniFocus takes advantage of other iOS features to offer convenient access no matter where you are on your device. This chapter describes how OmniFocus works with other native iOS features to deliver the most productive experience possible.

Related information can be found in the OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for macOS and iOS.

Send to OmniFocus

When you’re in another app, and you’re inspired to add something to OmniFocus — whether it is a webpage in Safari, a picture in Photos, or a file from another app that supports sharing — you can send it to OmniFocus.

Tap Share, or choose Share from the shortcut menu of a selection, and choose OmniFocus from the list of apps that appears. If it’s not there, swipe left on the list 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.

OmniFocus Widgets

This section needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

Spotlight Search

This section needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

Notifications

This section needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

Interacting With Siri

This section needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

Settings

OmniFocus settings can be used to customize the application's behavior and appearance, so that OmniFocus is fully configured for your needs. On Mac and iPad, choose Settings from the OmniFocus menu; on iPhone and iPad, select the More button in the Toolbar, and select Settings.

Please note that there are differences in how Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch use settings and commands. In some cases, items found in setting on non-Mac devices are the same as Mac menu bar commands; when that is the case, this section of the reference manual links to the appropriate part of the Commands chapter.

Syncing Settings Between Devices

If you have enabled syncing, many settings will sync between OmniFocus devices. Settings which change the contents or structure of a perspective are synced across all devices, whenever possible. Settings which impact the level of detail and order of items within a perspective are synced between the same type of device (Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch); this allows you to present information differently, on different types of devices. Settings which only change your local appearance (such as those in Appearance Settings) or rely upon local information (such as choosing calendars in Forecast View Options) do not sync.

We refer to synced settings as having a scope that is global, device-specific, or local.

global — settings which sync between all devices.
device-specific — settings which sync between devices of the same type, such as Mac to Mac, or iPhone to iPhone.
local — settings which do not sync, and are only on the device that you are using.

Groups of Settings

It can be useful to see all related settings in one place, as there are differences between devices. This short list allows you to quickly jump to a specific section of either Mac Settings or iPhone and iPad Settings.

Mac Settings

General (Mac)

General settings control common interactions you’ll have with OmniFocus.

Outlining
Quick Entry shortcut
Clippings shortcut

Organization (Mac)

Organization settings allow you to choose when to tidy up your OmniFocus data, what type of projects you typically work with, and whether to view certain kinds of data when in specific perspectives.

Clean up Inbox items which have
Clean up resolved items
Default project type
In Tags and Flagged: Hide projects and action groups
In Forecast: Include items from On Hold projects

Appearance (Mac)

Appearance settings control font size, colors and styles used by the app, as well as how some information is presented.

Font size
Color palette
Color text for due items
Color text for first available actions
Strike resolved items
Show full item title
Perspectives bar shows titles
App icon

Layout (Mac)

Layout settings control the appearance of the Outline and Inspector. When using OmniFocus Pro, Outline settings can be changed for each perspective using View Options.

Outline

Default row layout
Fluid defaults
Column defaults

Inspector

Inspector Settings

Dates and Times (Mac)

Dates & Times settings control how far in advance items are considered “due soon”, which default times are used for new items, and how often new projects should be reviewed.

“Due Soon” means

Default Times

Default time for defer dates
Default time for due dates
Default time for scheduled notifications

Default Projects Review Schedule

By default, review projects every

Notifications (Mac)

This section needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

Notification settings control alerts that apply to all items in OmniFocus; notifications can also be set on a per-item basis using the Notifications inspector. OmniFocus can work with Mac notifications to provide useful alerts to help keep you focused on your work.

Default notifications
Sounds
App icon badge counts
Perspectives Bar shows badges for
Show sidebar badges

Sync (Mac)

Sync Settings information can be found in the Managing Your Data chapter.

Update (Mac Omni Store)

Update settings control how frequently OmniFocus checks for updates to itself (for non-App Store builds), and offers the option to help Omni improve future versions of OmniFocus by sending us anonymous data about your device.

Check for updates
Send anonymous system information to the Omni Group

System Information (Mac App Store)

System Information settings offers the option to help Omni improve future versions of OmniFocus by sending us anonymous data about your device.

Send anonymous system information to the Omni Group

iPhone and iPad Settings

About (iPhone and iPad)

About OmniFocus

License (iPhone and iPad)

License settings control how OmniFocus is unlocked, and allow switching between Standard and Pro feature sets.

Omni Account or Site License
Enable Pro features

If you have not unlocked OmniFocus, tap the Omni Account row to sign in to an existing Omni Account or site license, or create a new Omni Account. On the next screen, enter the information for your current Omni Account (or tap on Sign Up to create one), or a work email address associated with a site license, and follow the instructions that present.

If you have already unlocked OmniFocus, the first row indicates whether you are licensed using an Omni Account or Site License. If you are using an Omni Account, tap on the Omni Account row for additional options. If you are using a site license, two additional buttons appear, allowing you to either Renew Session or Remove License.

In-App Purchases (iPhone and iPad)

See In-App Purchases

Help (iPhone and iPad)

General (iPhone and iPad)

General settings control common interactions you’ll have with OmniFocus.

Open Calendar Events In
App Lock
Send Anonymous Data

Organization (iPhone and iPad)

Organization settings allow you to choose when to tidy up your OmniFocus data, what type of projects you typically work with, and whether to view certain kinds of data when in specific perspectives.

Clean Up Inbox Items Which Have
Clean Up Resolved Items
Default Project Type
In Tags and Flagged: Hide projects and action groups
In Forecast: Include items from On Hold projects

Appearance (iPhone and iPad)

Appearance settings control colors and styles used by the app, as well as how some information is presented.

Color Palette
Accent Color
Color Text for Due Items
Color Text for First Available Actions
Strike Resolved Items
Show Perspectives Bar
Perspectives Bar Shows Titles
App Icon

Layout (iPhone and iPad)

Layout settings control the appearance of the Outline and Inspector. When using OmniFocus Pro, Outline settings can be changed for each perspective using View Options.

Outline

Set Display Fields
Set Editing Fields

Inspector

Inspector Layout

Dates and Times (iPhone and iPad)

Dates & Times settings control how far in advance items are considered “due soon”, which default times are used for new items, and how often new projects should be reviewed.

“Due Soon” Means

Default Times

Defer Until
Due
Scheduled Notifications

Default Projects Review Schedule

Review every

Notifications (iPhone and iPad)

This section needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

Notification settings control alerts that apply to all items in OmniFocus; notifications can also be set on a per-item basis using the Notifications inspector. OmniFocus can work with iPad notifications & iPhone notifications to provide useful alerts to help keep you focused on your work.

Default Notifications

Defer Until
Latest Start
Due
Location Notifications

Sounds

Sounds

Badges

App icon badge counts
Perspectives Bar shows badges for
Show sidebar badges

Sync (iPhone and iPad)

Sync Settings information can be found in the Managing Your Data chapter.

Automation (iPhone and iPad)

Automation settings allow you to manage your Omni Automation Plug-Ins and turn on Developer Mode.

Manage Plug-Ins (Pro)
Developer Mode (Pro)
Reminders Capture
Siri Shortcuts

OmniFocus Data Settings (iPhone and iPad)

This section contains commands that are related to manipulating parts of your OmniFocus data.

Attachments:

Attachment List

Backups:

Automatic Backups
How many backups should be kept?
Backup Folder
Backups
Back Up Now

Exporting:

Export to CSV

These items only appear if your OmniFocus data is in a condition where it could use the help they provide. If you don’t see them here, you’re probably in good shape.

At the very bottom of the Settings screen, there is information about your OmniFocus data: the number of projects and actions in your database, as well as the number of zip files used to contain your data. If you are syncing, the number of zip files will increase as you make edits in OmniFocus, and decrease as all devices receive those changes. Syncing all of your devices frequently will improve performance, as each device has to track on fewer local changes.

Settings Reference

This section lists all settings found in OmniFocus, with links back to where they can be found in the application. If something is missing from this list, or more information would be helpful, please email the documentation team.

Accent Color

Available on iPhone and iPad
Setting has local scope

App Icon

Available on Mac in Appearance settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Appearance settings
Setting has local scope

Select from a collection of alternate app icons, including the new OmniFocus 4 app icon as well as the original OmniFocus 1 app icons. When using a Mac, this only affects OmniFocus while it is running, and does not update the icon found in the Applications folder.

App Icon Badge Counts

Setting has local scope

Choose the options in this section for items you want to include in the badge count number that appears on the OmniFocus app icon (the little red circle laid over the icon’s upper right corner). If nothing is checked, the badge won't appear.

App Lock

Available on iPhone and iPad in General settings
Setting has local scope

App Lock is a way to keep your work shielded from casual viewing or editing by someone with temporary access to your device. 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 hidden. The App Lock feature prevents accidental taps and casual glances by adding a password-locked privacy screen that must be dismissed before accessing any of your OmniFocus data or settings.

A Note on Security

App Lock does not encrypt your OmniFocus data, nor does it prevent someone with physical access to your device from connecting it to another device and copying your data file or deleting OmniFocus from your device outright. The Files app can also be used to retrieve your OmniFocus data file regardless of whether App Lock is enabled.

App Lock is intended as a privacy feature to prevent accidental exposure or corruption of data when others are using your device. It is not meant to thwart serious attempts to access or compromise your data. Device-level security measures are recommended for those with additional security needs.

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 either your OmniFocus sync password, or encryption passphrase). If you use OmniFocus on multiple iPhones or iPads, 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.

Warning

If you forget the App Lock password, OmniFocus can no longer be used on your device. If you are syncing your OmniFocus data, the easiest way to get running again is to delete OmniFocus and then reinstall the app from the App Store, log in using your existing sync credentials, and restore your database from the sync server.

If you have chosen not to sync, you can retrieve your OmniFocus data by connecting your device to the Finder or iTunes and copying your OmniFocus data (the OmniFocus.ofocus file) to a safe location. You can also use the Files app to retrieve your database file and share it (via email or other means) to another location.

After saving a backup of your data, delete OmniFocus from your device and reinstall it from the App Store. Once you have reinstalled OmniFocus, you can set a new App Lock password and use iTunes to load your OmniFocus.ofocus file back onto your device.

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.

To minimize interruption when switching between apps, App Lock will not engage for a 90 second “grace period” after switching away from OmniFocus (in case you decide to switch back).

Backups Settings

Backups are handled differently on an iPhone or iPad than they are on a Mac. The settings in this section are currently only on iPhone and iPad. More information is in the Backups of Your OmniFocus Data section of Managing Your Data.

Automatic Backups

Available on iPhone and iPad in OmniFocus Data settings

Choose between having OmniFocus create a new backup every 24 hours, or only making manual backups. Every time OmniFocus creates a new backup, it replaces the oldest backup.

How Many Backups Should Be Kept?

Available on iPhone and iPad in OmniFocus Data settings

Select the number of backups that OmniFocus will store. As each additional automatic or manual backup is made, the oldest existing backup will be replaced; a higher number of backups may provide additional confidence, but will also take more storage space.

Backup Folder

Available on iPhone and iPad in OmniFocus Data settings

By default, OmniFocus will save backups locally, on your device. Though this ensures that only the syncing database, which uses end-to-end encryption, is exposed to a network, it also means that deleting OmniFocus will also delete your backups.

If you would like to store backups in iCloud Drive instead, please select that option. Keep in mind that local copies of the database are not encrypted, nor are backups.

Backups List

Available on iPhone and iPad in OmniFocus Data settings
Available on Mac via Show Backups in Finder

OmniFocus on iPhone and iPad will display a list of backups, up to the number set in How many backups should be kept?. Tapping on one of the backups in the list will show information about the date of the backup, the size of the backup, and whether it was automatically or manually created.

To use this backup, replacing your current OmniFocus data, tap on the Revert to This Backup button.

Back Up Now

Available on iPhone and iPad in OmniFocus Data settings
Available on Mac via Export…

Tap this button to create a manual backup. Keep in mind that this will replace the oldest backup; on iPhone and iPad, the total number is set using How many backups should be kept?, and on Mac, there is a fixed limit of 100 backups.

By Default, Review Projects Every

Available on Mac in Dates & Times settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Dates & Times settings
Setting has global scope

When a new project is created, this will be the value for how often you would like to review your progress. The review period for a specific project can be adjusted using the Inspector.

Change Email

Available on iPhone and iPad in Omni Account screen

Enter your current Omni Account password, and your new email address. You will receive a code at your new email address that you can enter to verify the change; once you have verified the change, the new email address will be updated across our servers.

Change Password

Available on iPhone and iPad in Omni Account screen

Enter your current Omni Account password, a new password, and then verify the new password. Once you have submitted your change, the new password will be updated across our servers.

Check For Updates (Omni Store Only)

Available on Mac in Update settings

OmniFocus is naturally curious about when updates are available for itself. If you’d prefer for the app not to check for updates automatically, uncheck the box for this preference; otherwise, you can choose an interval that suits you best (it’s not a very intrusive or bandwidth-heavy process). You can check for updates manually using the Check Now button, or with Check for Updates in the OmniFocus menu.

Clean Up Inbox Items Which Have

Available on Mac in Organization settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Organization settings

This setting controls when Inbox items are moved from the Inbox to another project. The options are:

A project — assigning a project will move this item to the assigned project; with an assigned project, this item will remain in the Inbox.
A tag — assigning one or more tags will move this item to the default Miscellaneous project, with the assigned tags; without at least one assigned tag, this item will remain in the Inbox.
Both a project and a tag — assigning both a project and one or more tags will move this to the assigned project, with the assigned tags; with both a project and at least one tag, this item will remain in the Inbox.
Either a project or a tag — assigning either a project or one or more tags will move this to the assigned project or the default Miscellaneous project, with the assigned tags; without either a project or at least one tag assigned, this item will remain in the Inbox.

Note that items will not move out of the Inbox until you either switch to another perspective, or clean up.

Clean Up Resolved Items

Available on Mac in Organization settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Organization settings

If you prefer that items be cleaned up, updating their visibility to match the current View Options selection, as soon as they are completed or dropped, choose Immediately. Otherwise, resolved items will be cleaned up when you switch between perspectives or when you manually clean up.

Clippings Shortcut

Available on Mac in General settings

Use the Clippings shortcut button to open System Settings and set up your system-wide keyboard shortcut for Clippings.

Color Palette

Available on Mac in Appearance settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Appearance settings

Choose between three color palette options for OmniFocus:

Automatic — Follows the Appearance selected in System Settings, which may also be set to update based on time of day. More information can be found in the Apple User Guides articles Use a light or dark appearance on your Mac, Adjust the screen brightness and color on iPhone, or Adjust the screen brightness and color on iPad.
Light — Uses the Light color palette, regardless of your device’s Appearance settings.
Dark — Uses the Dark color palette, regardless of your device’s Appearance settings.

Color Text For Due Items

Available on Mac in Appearance settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Appearance settings

Choose whether to use color for the title of projects, action groups, or actions that are Due Soon or Overdue. Due Soon items will use yellow text, and Overdue items will use red text.

It is possible to adjust Due Soon using “Due Soon” Means.

Color Text For First Available Actions

Available on Mac in Appearance settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Appearance settings

Choose whether to use color for the title of actions that are First Available. First Available items will use purple text.

Columns Layout

Available on Mac in Layout settings
Setting has device-specific scope

Columns layout is designed to display all items in a single row, which allows for easy scanning of the Outline. It is only available on Mac; if you would find it helpful on iPad, please email us.

By default, all items display the assigned project, tags, due date, and flag status. Clicking on Set Columns allows you to choose columns to be displayed, as well as rearrange the columns by dragging and dropping.

Possible fields include:

Project — Display the assigned project.
Flag — Display the flagged (or unflagged) status.
Tags — Display some or all assigned tags. See note below regarding the Tags shown setting.
Estimated Duration — Display the estimated duration.
Defer Until Date — Display the defer until date.
Due Date — Display the due date.
Completion Date — Display the completion date.
Repeat — Display the configured repetition.
Note Icon — Display the note icon, which also indicates whether the item note contains any text.
Notifications — Display any notifications.

Additional options include:

Tags shown — Display the number of tags chosen, or choose the infinite symbol to show all assigned tags.
Show full project path — By default, project display includes only the name of the project. Enabling this will also show any folders above the project in the hierarchy.
Hide project when redundant — By default, the assigned project is not displayed when in Projects, or in a custom perspective which is organized by projects. Enabling this setting will force all perspectives to respect the setting from Display Fields.

Default Notifications

This section needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

Default Notification for Deferred

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

Latest Start Notification

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 Notification

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

Location Notifications

This setting is only available on iPhone and iPad:

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

Default Notification Sounds

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

Default Row Layout

Available on Mac in Layout settings
Setting has device-specific scope

Choose between using Fluid or Columns as the default layout for all your perspectives.

This will be the default layout for all Macs, as it has a device-specific scope. When using OmniFocus Pro, Outline settings can be changed for each perspective using View Options.

Default Project Type

Available on Mac in Organization settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Organization settings

Select the default type when creating a new project or action group. Sequential projects and action groups require actions to be completed in a specific order, while parallel projects and actions groups can have actions completed in any order.

This setting does not apply when creating a new Single Action List project, or when choosing to create a specific type of project; it only applies when the type is not specifically chosen.

Default Time For Defer Dates

Available on Mac in Dates & Times settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Dates & Times settings
Setting has global scope

When you create an action or project with a defer date but without choosing a specific time, this default time will be used.

Default Time For Due Dates

Available on Mac in Dates & Times settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Dates & Times settings
Setting has global scope

When you create an action or project with a due date but without choosing a specific time, this default time will be used.

Default Time For Scheduled Notifications

Available on Mac in Dates & Times settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Dates & Times settings
Setting has global scope

When you create a scheduled notification for an action or project with a date but without choosing a specific time, this default time will be used.

Delete Old Items

Available on iPhone and iPad in Settings

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 Archive Old Items… instead. More information about archiving can be found in Archiving in OmniFocus, and we also have a Find and reduce the size of your database in OmniFocus 4 support article, for help keeping your database size manageable.

Developer Mode (Pro)

Available on iPhone and iPad in Automation settings

Turn the Developer Mode switch on to add the Omni Automation menu to the top Toolbar. This also enables access to the Automation Console and Automation Reference, both of which are tools that you can use to create your own Omni Automation automations.

“Due Soon” Means

Available on Mac in Dates & Times settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Dates & Times settings
Setting has global scope

OmniFocus displays actions and projects that are due soon with an amber status circle. Choose when you would like OmniFocus to consider items due soon: Today, 24 hours, 2 days (default), 3 days, 4 days, 5 days, and 1 week. Except for 24 hours, all options are based on full calendar days. With 24 hours selected, only the part of tomorrow within the next 24 hours will be included.

Enable Pro Features

Available on iPhone and iPad via License settings

This allows you to choose between the Standard or Pro feature set when running a trial license, Pro license, or site license.

A similar function is available on Mac in the OmniFocus menu, using the Free Trial Mode sub-menu.

Export to CSV

Available on iPhone and iPad in Data settings
Available on Mac via Export….

As part of our commitment to your complete ownership of your data, we offer the ability to export your OmniFocus data 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.

Fluid Layout

Available on Mac in Layout settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Layout settings
Setting has device-specific scope

Fluid layout is designed to always show the information that is most important to you in a row under the title, with the additional flexibility of quickly editing other fields. This is accomplished by having two sets of fields: one for display, and another for editing. By default, all items display the assigned project, tags, due date, and flag status. Selecting a row allows you to edit those fields, as well as the item’s note.

Clicking or tapping on Set Display Fields allows you to choose fields that are always displayed for each item, whether or not they are selected. Fields can also be rearranged by dragging and dropping into your desired order.

Possible fields include:

Project — Display the assigned project.
Tags — Display some or all assigned tags. See note below regarding the Tags shown setting.
Estimated Duration — Display the estimated duration.
Defer Until Date — Display the defer until date.
Due Date — Display the due date.
Completion Date — Display the completion date.
Repeat — Display the configured repetition.
Notifications — Display any notifications.

Additional options include:

Preview notes in Outline — Display all notes. (iPhone and iPad only)
Tags shown — Display the number of tags chosen, or choose the infinite symbol to show all assigned tags.
Show full project path — By default, project display includes only the name of the project. Enabling this will also show any folders above the project in the hierarchy.
Hide project when redundant — By default, the assigned project is not displayed when in Projects, or in a custom perspective which is organized by projects. Enabling this setting will force all perspectives to respect the setting from Display Fields.

Clicking or tapping on Set Editing Fields allows you to choose additional fields that are displayed only when an item is selected, to allow editing of fields that are not always visible. This set will automatically include all Display Fields, and disabling Mirror Display Fields allows you to add fields to the set. Field order is based on that set for Display Fields.

Show note automatically — When selecting an item, the note will automatically be shown. (Mac only)
Notes — When selecting an item, the note will automatically be shown. Note that this overrides the Preview notes in Outline setting above, but only for the selected note. (iPhone and iPad only)

Hide Projects And Action Groups

Available on Mac in Organization settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Organization settings

By default, the Tags and Flagged perspectives will show flagged projects and action groups, when they match the selected View Option filter. To always hide projects and action groups from these perspectives, focusing exclusively on actions, enable Hide projects and action groups.

Include Items from On Hold Projects

Available on Mac in Organization settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Organization settings

By default, the Forecast perspective will hide projects that are On Hold, as well as any actions or action groups that are part of that project. If you would like these items to show in Forecast instead, to help with your planning, enable Include items from On Hold projects.

Available on Mac and iPad in View Options for most perspectives

On a Mac or iPad, navigating to a different perspective via Perspectives Bar or Quick Open will show the Sidebar in the most recent state. If during your last visit to a given perspective you left the Sidebar showing (such as showing the Calendar in Forecast), then the next time you visit that perspectives, the Sidebar will still be showing; the same is true if the Sidebar was hidden. By default, OmniFocus will respect the Show/Hide Sidebar command.

Enabling this setting will change the behavior, but only for that perspective: instead of respecting the most recent state, you will always start with the Sidebar hidden.

When using an iPad, this setting only impacts Regular view; when using Compact view (iPhone width, displayed on an iPhone) you will always visit the Outline first.

This setting does not affect the use of Forward or Back navigation, which should always show you the most recent view of whichever perspectives you visit.

Show Sidebar First is the related setting on an iPhone.

Layout Settings for Inspector

Available on Mac in Layout settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Layout settings
Setting has device-specific scope

By default, the Inspector displays the item title, item status, project or action group type, assigned project, assigned tags, defer until date, due date, repeat schedule, last and next review dates, note, and tag location fields, when appropriate for the selected item.

These settings allow you to enable or disable fields to show by default, as well as rearrange them by dragging and dropping.

Select which of these fields show in the Inspector:

Omni Account

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in License settings

Log in to or sign out of your Omni Account, unlock OmniFocus (if you have a current license or subscription), or update your account information.

Options include:

Change Email
Change Password
Close Account

Creating an Omni Account is free, and is required for syncing with the Omni Sync Server, or using OmniFocus for the Web.

Open Calendar Events In

Available on iPhone and iPad in General settings
Available on Mac in the Calendar application

Choose whether tapping the calendar icon next to events in Forecast opens Apple Calendar or Fantastical.

Please feel free to request support for your favorite calendar application.

When using a Mac, OmniFocus will read this setting from Apple’s Calendar application. More information is available in the Calendar User Guide article Change General settings in Calendar on Mac.

Outlining Mode

Available on Mac in General settings

Choose between two different styles of outlining, which change the behavior of common keyboard actions when items in the outline are selected.

When in Modern Mode:

Tab begins editing
Return confirms editing
Escape cancels editing
Press return twice to create a new item

When in Classic Mode:

Escape begins editing
Escape confirms editing
Return always creates a new item

This setting only applies when using a Mac, as iPads and iPhones use a different style of keyboard navigation. More information about that style of navigation can be found in Use shortcuts on an Apple external keyboard with iPad.

Perspectives Bar Shows Badges

Available on Mac in Notifications settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Notifications settings

The Perspective Bar badge count for each default perspective is focused on the intended purpose of the perspective:

Inbox — items which are available.
Forecast — items which are overdue or due soon.
Flagged — items which are available and flagged.
Review — projects which are due for review.

Neither Projects nor Tags use Perspectives Bar badges, but they can both Show Sidebar Badges.

Perspectives Bar Shows Titles

Available on Mac in Appearance settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Appearance settings

Choose to show or hide titles in the Perspectives Bar. Showing titles (the default setting) provides more information, while hiding titles fits more items in the Perspectives Bar.

Quick Entry Shortcut

Available on Mac in General settings

Set a custom keyboard shortcut for Quick Entry here (the default is Control-Option-Space).

Reminders Capture

Available on iPhone and iPad in Automation settings

Enabling this setting allows you to choose a specific Reminders list to continuously import into the Inbox.

Earlier versions of OmniFocus relied on this for communication with Siri, and the feature is still available for customers that find it useful. Please note that Reminders Capture is no longer the preferred method for OmniFocus to interact with Siri. Instead, use Siri terminology to add items to OmniFocus directly.

Reset OmniFocus

For more information about global, device-specific, or local settings, please see the notes regarding scope at the beginning of this chapter.

You can reset parts of OmniFocus using these options:

Reset iPad/iPhone Layout Settings -- This resets device-specific layout and inspector field settings back to default, for all perspectives.
Reset All Settings -- This resets global, device-specific, and local settings back to the default. This will affect all syncing Macs, iPads, iPhones, and Apple Watches, but does not affect layout settings on different kinds of devices.
Reset Database -- This removes your local OmniFocus data, and starts OmniFocus back at First Launch. If you are not syncing your database, be aware that this will erase your data. Depending on your Backups settings, you may not be able to recover your data.

Send Anonymous System Information To The Omni Group

Available on iPhone and iPad in General settings
Available on Mac in Update settings or System Information settings

If you’d like to help us improve future versions of OmniFocus, for you and others, you can choose to send us anonymous information about your OmniFocus data and device. All the information that will be shared is visible in this Settings screen on iPhone or iPad; click on Learn more about what kind of information is sent if you are using a Mac.

Show Full Item Title

Available on Mac in Appearance settings

Always — Titles are always displayed at full length in the Outline, whether or not it is selected. This is the default setting, and allows you to see all relevant information.
When Selected — Titles are truncated to the first link in the Outline, unless they are selected. This setting allows you to see more items at the same time.

Show Perspectives Bar

Available on Mac and iPad via View menu.
Available on iPhone and iPad via Appearance settings.
Option-Command-P on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Show or hide the Perspectives Bar. This is available as a setting on iPhone and iPad, as well as a keyboard command.

Available on Mac in Notifications settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Notifications settings

Show badges for the number of items which are overdue (red badge) or due soon (yellow badge), in the Projects, Tags, or Review Sidebars.

Available on iPhone in View Options for some perspectives

This setting will be displayed as Show Project list first, Show Tag list first, or Show Calendar first, depending on which perspective you are viewing.

On an iPhone, navigating to a different perspective via Perspectives Bar or Quick Open will always show the Outline first. Enabling this setting will change the behavior, but only for that perspective: instead of always starting with the Outline, you will always start with the Sidebar.

This setting does not affect using an iPad in Compact view (iPhone width, displayed on an iPhone); when using Compact view on an iPad, you will always visit the Outline first.

This setting does not affect the use of Forward or Back navigation, which should always show you the most recent view of whichever perspectives you visit.

Keep sidebar hidden is the related setting on a Mac or iPad.

Siri Shortcuts

Available on iPhone and iPad in Automation settings

Tap to open a list of your OmniFocus perspectives, then tap a perspective to open the Siri Shortcuts recording dialog. Record a custom phrase here that can be used with Siri to open the perspective directly from anywhere on your device.

Learn more about Siri Shortcuts in Interacting With Siri.

Strike Resolved Items

Available on Mac in Appearance settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Appearance settings

Choose whether to strike through the title text for resolved projects and actions.

Support Center

Available on iPhone and iPad in Help settings

Tap to open a web view containing the official OmniFocus support page, with a search field for troubleshooting articles and links to the online reference manuals and other resources.

Commands and Shortcuts

This chapter collects useful commands and shortcuts found throughout OmniFocus into one place, while linking back to where you might find a given command in the app.

Bare Key Editing

When using a Mac, or an iPad with hardware keyboard, it is now possible to begin editing a specific field. (Note that this also works with an iPhone when using a hardware keyboard.)

There are some difference between using this with a Mac or iPad, that are worth keeping in mind.

When using a Mac, it is possible to tab through the fields on a row. As you might guess, using a bare key editing shortcut while you’re in a field will simply type the character into the field. If you’d like to use a bare key editing shortcut to jump to a specific field, you first need to end editing of the current row, which you can do using either Return or Command-Return. When using a Mac, the bare key editing shortcuts will only work on visible fields, as set in Layout Settings.

When using an iPad, it is not possible to tab through fields, as OmniFocus 4 uses Apple’s new Focus system for keyboard navigation (not to be confused with our Focus, which can be enabled using a keyboard!). Tabbing will move between parts of the screen (such as the Perspectives Bar, Sidebar, and Outline), instead of through fields in a row. Once you have selected a row in the Outline (by tabbing to the Outline, and then using up and down arrow keys to navigate), typing any of these bare key editing shortcuts will begin editing the field. When using an iPad, it is also possible to edit fields that are not currently visible, as set in Layout Settings. One final tip on an iPad: if editing a field presents a pop-up menu, tabbing will get you to the next part of the menu (such as when navigating from the search field to the list of tags), and typing Command-. (or using your esc key) will end editing, saving the current information.

Mark Complete/Active (Space bar)
Mark Dropped/Active (Option-Space bar)
Mark Flagged/Unflagged (F)
Edit Title (E)
Edit Note (N)
Edit Project (P)
Edit Tags (T)
Edit Due (D)
Edit Defer Until (Shift-D)
Edit Repeat (R)
Edit Estimated Duration (Shift-T)
Edit Notifications (Shift-N)
Edit Completion Date (C)
Delete (Command-Delete)

Below is a list of all the menu bar items or commands on a Mac.

If you’re using OmniFocus on a Mac, or on an iPad or iPhone with an external keyboard, you can take advantage of the app’s built in keyboard shortcuts for many common tasks. When using an iPad, press and hold the Command key on your connected keyboard to view a list of available shortcuts. The same keyboard shortcuts will work on an iPhone with external keyboard, but pressing an holding the Command key does not present the same list of available shortcuts.

If you’d like to set up a keyboard shortcut for a menu item that doesn’t have one, open the Keyboard pane of macOS System Preferences and choose the Shortcuts tab. Pick App Shortcuts from the list on the left, then click the plus button beneath.

Choose OmniFocus.app from the Application drop down list that appears, then enter the exact text of the menu command you’d like a shortcut for in the Menu Title field. Put your cursor in the Keyboard Shortcut field, then press the key combination you want for the shortcut. Finally, click Add to save your new custom shortcut.

Return to OmniFocus and give it a try!

The OmniFocus menu holds commands related to the OmniFocus application itself. Check for updates, view and modify your settings, and license or unlock OmniFocus.

About OmniFocus
Check for Updates… (Omni downloads)
Settings…
In-App Purchases… (App Store downloads)
Unlock OmniFocus… (may be replaced by Manage Omni Account and Purchases… or Site License…)
Free Trial Mode
Learn About Pro
Services
Hide OmniFocus
Hide Others
Show All
Quit OmniFocus

The File menu contains commands related to OmniFocus on a database level. Add new items or Quick Open others; importing, exporting, archiving, and restoring your database also happen here.

The Edit menu contains commands and items related to editing actions, projects, folders, tags, and groups. Cut, Copy, Paste, and Undo are all found here.

The Organize menu contains commands that manipulate items in your database based on their hierarchical position. This is primarily useful when working with nested projects and groups.

The View menu contains options for quickly changing the view of your OmniFocus data. Show and hide various parts of the interface, and expand or collapse the details of items in the outline here.

Go Back
Go Forward
Expand All
Collapse All
Expand Item(s) (hold down option key to show Expand Item(s) Completely)
Collapse Item(s) (hold down option key to show Collapse Item(s) Completely)
Show/Hide All Notes
Show/Hide Note(s)
Focus on Selected Projects/Unfocus (Pro)
Show in Projects/Tags/Inbox
Show/Hide Perspectives Bar
Show/Hide Sidebar
Show/Hide Inspector
Go to Sidebar
Go to Outline
Go to Inspector
Show/Hide View Options
Show/Hide Tab Bar
Show All Tabs/Exit Tab Overview
Show/Hide Toolbar
Customize Toolbar…
Enter/Exit Full Screen

The Perspectives menu holds commands for quick navigation to all things related to both the default, built-in perspectives and the custom perspectives available in OmniFocus Pro. Keyboard shortcuts assigned to perspectives also appear in this list.

Formatting commands only work in note fields.

With OmniFocus Pro, use JavaScript plug-ins to automate task management in OmniFocus.

When you have multiple database windows open in OmniFocus, use the Window menu to choose between them. This menu also allows you to use Quick Entry and the Attachment List.

Access a variety of support resources using the Help menu in OmniFocus, including this documentation, release notes, and contact with our friendly Support Humans.

Shortcut Menus

This section needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

Many of the commands described in the Keyboard Shortcuts section can also be found in both Row Shortcut Menus and Sidebar Shortcut Menus on Mac, iPad, and iPhone. While menu bar menus and commands are always displayed on macOS (though whether or not they are available may change), shortcut menus update depending on your selection. This section will therefore include all possible shortcut menu items, though not all will appear in every situation.

Apply Forecast Tag
Flag
Drop
Inspect
Focus
Show in Projects/Tags/Inbox
Omni Automation (Only shows if plug-ins are installed.)
Share
Delete

Keyboard Shortcuts

The keyboard shortcut table from earlier version of OmniFocus will return in the near future. For now, each command in the Commands Reference should have the appropriate keyboard shortcut(s) listed, to make them easy to find.

Commands Reference

These are listed in alphabetical order, and link back to where they can be found in OmniFocus. That location may be different, depending on whether you are using a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch.

About OmniFocus

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Settings
Available on iPhone and iPad in Help toolbar item
Available on Apple Watch via Settings.

View details about your copy of OmniFocus. This is good for checking exactly which version you’re using, which can be very helpful when contacting our Support Humans. Some versions of this screen also include a link to write a review on the App Store.

Add Action

See new action

Add Folder

Available on Mac in Project sidebar action menu.
Available on iPhone and iPad in Project sidebar more menu.

Creates a New Folder at the selected location in the Sidebar.

Add Inside

Available on Mac and iPad in Organize menu
Shift-Command-] on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Create a new item belonging to the selected item; for instance if you have a project selected, this adds an action to the project; if you have an action selected, it turns that action into the parent of an action group, and adds an additional action inside.

Add Link

Available on Mac in Edit menu.

Create a hyperlink to an item within OmniFocus, or beyond. See also Edit Link.

Add Outside

Available on Mac and iPad in Organize menu
Shift-Command-[ on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Create a new item at the same level as the selected item’s parent; for instance if you have an action selected at the top level of a project, this creates a new project.

Add Perspective (Pro)

Available on Mac in Perspectives menu.

Creates and begins editing a new custom perspective.

Add Project

Available on iPhone and iPad in Project sidebar more menu.

Creates a New Project at the selected location in the Sidebar, with the Default Project Type (Parallel or Sequential) that you have chosen.

Once the project has been created, you can change the Project Type.

Add Parallel Project

Available on Mac in Project sidebar action menu.

Creates a new Parallel project at the selected location in the Sidebar.

This has the same affect as using New Project, following by setting Project Type to Parallel.

Add Sequential Project

Available on Mac in Project sidebar action menu.

Creates a new Sequential project at the selected location in the Sidebar.

This has the same affect as using New Project, following by setting Project Type to Sequential.

Add Single-Action List

Available on Mac in Project sidebar action menu.

Creates a new Single Action List at the selected location in the Sidebar.

This has the same affect as using New Project, following by setting Project Type to Single Action List.

Add Tag

Available on Mac in Tags sidebar action menu.
Available on iPhone and iPad in Tags sidebar more menu.

Creates a New Tag at the selected location in the Sidebar.

Add Tutorial Items

Available on Mac in Help menu.

When you first launch OmniFocus a sample project is added to your database to help you get started. If you want it back, choose this command to recreate it (it’ll be added to your existing projects non-destructively).

Always Open in a New View

Available on Mac in Perspectives List_

On a Mac, this command will display as either Always Open in a New Window or Always Open in a New Tab; please see the note in Open in New View about how this interacts with your System Settings.

Enable this setting to always open the perspective in a new view when you navigate to it, whether you are selecting it from the Perspectives menu, or using the Perspectives List.

Anonymize Database

Available on Mac in Help menu.

Create a copy of your current database with all identifying text and attachments converted to anonymous entities. This is useful for exchanges with Omni support, or for sharing your database with other OmniFocus users without divulging the details of your private goings-on.

API Reference (Pro)

Available on Mac in Automation menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Automation settings.

Item is labeled Automation API Reference on iPhone and iPad

Learn more about what you can do with Omni Automation in OmniFocus by viewing the available classes along with their constructors, functions, and properties.

Apply/Remove Forecast Tag

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in shortcut menus
Control-Command-L on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Add (or remove) the Forecast Tag to the selected action, action group, or project.

Archive Old Items

Available on Mac in File menu.

Move some or all of your completed or dropped items into an Archive.

It is not possible to archive from iPad or iPhone, but it is possible to Delete Old Items from settings.

Attach File

Available on Mac in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in inspector

Choose a file to insert in the note area of the selected item.

Attachment List

Available on Mac in Window menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Attachments settings

Open a list of all attachments in your database.

This list displays all of the files in your OmniFocus data, with links to their corresponding project or action. Note that a single attachment can be linked to multiple projects or actions. Sort attachments by file size, date added, or name (Mac only) and delete any unwanted ones here.

On iPhone, and iPad, tap an individual attachment for a detail view which lists the attachment file size, the number of references to the file in your OmniFocus data, and a list of projects and actions that link to the attachment. Tap one of the linked items to go straight to where the file is attached, or tap Delete in the upper right to remove the file from your database.

On Mac, expand the disclosure triangle to the left of the attachment image to see a list of projects and actions that link to the attachment. Double-clicking on the attachment row, or single clicking on the name of the linked action or project, will open that action or project in a new view. With one or more rows selected, click on the Delete button to remove the attachments, or the Export button to save them outside of OmniFocus.

AutoFill

Available on Mac in Edit menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in editing menu

This is a system-level command, which allows auto-filling either Contacts or Passwords. It is not available on macOS Ventura, but is available on macOS Sonoma, iPadOS 17, and iOS 17.

Automation API Reference

See API Reference

Automation Console

See Show Console

Bigger

Available on Mac in Format menu
Command-+ on Mac on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Increase the size of the selected note text.

Bold

Available on Mac and iPad in Format menu
Command-B on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Embolden the selected note text.

Bring All to Front

Available on Mac in Window menu.

Gather all of your OmniFocus windows up in front of other applications’ windows.

Clear Console (Pro)

Available on Mac in Automation menu.

Clears the Automation Console display.

Clear Style

Available on Mac in Format menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in editing format menu
Control-Command-Delete on Mac

Applies only to selected text in the note field.

Re-formats selected text in notes. Removes all styles, such as bold, italic, underline, bulleted lists, custom fonts, text and background colors, and sizes. Result should be clean text, with no apparent formatting. Attachments and links are preserved.

Contrast with Simplify Style

Clean Up

Available on Mac and iPad in Organize menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in Toolbar
Available on iPhone and iPad when pulling to sync
Command-K on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Make OmniFocus clean up after itself, so that all items obey your View Options filter. Also, move any inbox items to which you’ve assigned projects or tags to where they belong. Note that switching perspectives will also clean up the view, as will pulling down to sync, on an iPhone or iPad.

Changed

Available on Mac and iPad in Perspectives menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Quick Open.

Open the built-in Changed perspective in the current OmniFocus window to view recent changes you’ve made. Unlike other built-in perspectives, Changed doesn’t stay in the Perspectives Bar once closed, unless you favorite it.

Check for Updates

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu. (Direct Download version only)

See if there is a new version of OmniFocus available to download. You can also configure automatic checking in Update settings. Versions of OmniFocus from the App Store use Apple’s process for updates.

Clear Flag

See Set/Clear Flag

Close

Available on Mac in File menu
Command-W on Mac

Close the frontmost window. Even if you close the last remaining OmniFocus window, you can always open a new one.

Close Account

Available on Mac in Manage Omni Account and Purchases… menu item
Available on iPhone and iPad in Omni Account screen

Sends an email requesting to close your Omni Account. You will receive an automatic email response at the registered email address for the Omni Account, which you then need to reply to, in order to actually close your account. Accidentally tapping this button will not close your account.

Collapse All

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Control-Command-0 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Collapse everything in the sidebar or the outline to the top level only.

Collapse Item(s)

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Command-0 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Hide the children of the selected items.

Collapse Item(s) Completely

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Option-Command-0 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Hide all descendants of all currently expanded items in the sidebar or the outline.

Compact Database

Available on Mac in File menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Data settings

Rewrites your OmniFocus into a simple structure, which can be helpful for increasing performance if OmniFocus appears to be slow or unresponsive. This command is only available when not syncing; if you are syncing, compacting happens automatically when all of your devices are up to date.

Completed

Available on Mac and iPad in Perspectives menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Quick Open.

Open the built-in Completed perspective in the current OmniFocus window to view your completed actions and projects. Unlike other built-in perspectives, Completed doesn’t stay in the Perspectives Bar once closed, unless you favorite it.

Configure (Pro)

Available on Mac in Automation menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Automation settings.

Opens Automation Configuration, where you can add, remove, and manage your Omni Automation Plug-Ins, as well as change scripting-related security settings.

Note that this item is named Manage Plug-Ins on iPhone and iPad.

For sample plug-ins and to learn more about scripting OmniFocus, visit the Omni Automation website. For information on installing plug-ins, see the Omni Automation article Installing Plug-Ins.

Contact Omni

Available on Mac in Help menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Help toolbar item
Available on iPhone and iPad in Help settings.

Compose an email to the OmniFocus support team. We’d be happy to give advice, answer questions, or listen to your feedback. This email will also include information about the version you’re running, which operating system you’re running it on, and what type of license you have; leaving this information in place helps us quickly assist you.

Convert to Action

Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in shortcut menus

Convert the selected item(s) from project(s) to action(s). Contrast with Convert to Project

Convert to Project

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in shortcut menus
Command-! on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Convert the selected item(s) from action(s) to project(s). Contrast with Convert to Action

Copy

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in Edit shortcut menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in editing menu
Command-C on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Put a copy of the selected text or item(s) on the clipboard, so you can copy the selection somewhere else.

Copy As Link

Available on Mac in Edit menu
Available on Mac in Perspectives List
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in Edit shortcut menu

Put a link to the selected item(s) on the clipboard; when you paste it, you get links for each selected item, to allow easy reference from another location.

Copy As TaskPaper

Available on Mac in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in Edit shortcut menu

Copy the selected items with the tag syntax used by Hog Bay Software’s TaskPaper to-do list app.

See our OmniFocus TaskPaper Reference Guide support article for more information.

Copy Style

Available on Mac in Format menu
Option-Command-C on Mac

Copy the style of the selected text, so that you can apply it elsewhere with the Paste Style command. This uses a special style clipboard, so you don’t lose the data in the normal clipboard.

Available on Mac in View menu.

Choose which controls appear in the main window’s toolbar.

Cut

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in Edit shortcut menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in editing menu
Command-Z on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Remove the selected text or item(s), while saving them on the clipboard, so you can move the selection somewhere else.

Delete

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in shortcut menus
Command-Delete on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Remove the selected item(s) or text from your database.

Deselect All

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Shift-Command-A on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Clear the selection completely, so that nothing is selected.

Duplicate

Available on Mac in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in Edit shortcut menu
Command-D on Mac

Make another item just like the selected one, immediately after it.

Edit Link

Available on Mac in Edit shortcut menu

Edit a hyperlink to an item within OmniFocus, or beyond. See also Add Link.

Edit Note/Edit Title

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Command-' on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
N on iPad, iPhone to begin editing

Move from the item text to the note area of an item, or move back from the note area to the item title. Using N on an iPad or iPhone will begin editing, but will not toggle between fields.

Emoji and Symbols

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Control-Command-Space on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
Globe key on Mac, iPhone, and iPad external keyboard
Shortcut key set in Keyboard system settings on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Open the Character Viewer to insert emoji or other special characters.

More information about the Character Viewer is available in Use emoji and symbols on Mac, part of the Apple User Guides.

Enter/Exit Full Screen

Available on Mac in View menu
Control-Command-F or fn/Globe-F on Mac

View OmniFocus using your full screen, or return it to single window.

Expand All

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Control-Command-9 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Show all children of all currently collapsed items in the sidebar or the outline.

Expand Item(s)

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Command-9 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Show the children of the selected items.

Expand Item(s) Completely

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Option-Command-9 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Show all descendants of all currently collapsed items in the sidebar or the outline.

Export

Available on Mac in File menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Data settings.

Multiple formats are supported when exporting on your Mac; CSV is supported on Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

More information is availale in Exporting from OmniFocus.

Find (iPhone and iPad)

Available on iPhone and iPad in Edit menu
Command-F on iPhone and iPad

See Search Field

Find (Mac)

Available on Mac in Edit menu.

The Find menu contains the standard Find commands found in many applications: Find (which opens a window where you can use regular expressions and search-and-replace), Find Next, Find Previous, Use Selection for Find (which enters the selected text as the text to search for), and Jump to Selection.

Go to Search Field (Option-Command-F on Mac)
Search Here
Search Remaining
Search Everything
Find… (Command-F on Mac)
Find Next (Command-G on Mac)
Find Previous (Shift-Command-G on Mac)
Use Selection for Find (Command-E on Mac)
Jump to Selection (Command-J on Mac)

Unlike searching using the toolbar (which narrows what you see in the outline), the Find dialog looks through all the fields currently visible in the outline and highlights results instead, providing a theme for them which you can browse through until you find what you need.

The Find dialog supports the use of regular expressions to match more complex text strings and combinations. See the NSRegularExpression developer documentation for technical details on the regex syntax, including a list of supported characters and operators.

Focus on Selected Projects/Unfocus (Pro)

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Shift-Command-F on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

If you’re using OmniFocus Pro and you want to concentrate for a while on a particular project, folder, or combination of items, the Focus feature can get everything else out of your way.

To focus:

Select an action, project, or folder (or any combination of those items) in the sidebar or outline; if you select an action, the containing project will also be considered selected.
Click the Focus toolbar button, or choose Focus on (Selected Items) from the View menu.

Everything outside your selected items is hidden, and a Focus bar appears at the top of the outline, to indicate that you’re in a special view. OmniFocus will continue to show you only the selected items while you move between perspectives.

When you’re done focusing, choose the Unfocus menu item, or click the X in the Focus bar; this will restore the full view of your OmniFocus data.

If you find yourself frequently using the same combinations of tags, focus, or view options you might want to save them as a custom perspective.

Focusing inside a custom perspective that includes a focus as part of its parameters will display the intersection of the two focus areas.

Flag

See Set/Clear Flag

Flagged

Available on Mac and iPad in Perspectives menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Quick Open
Command-5 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Open the built-in Flagged perspective in the current OmniFocus window.

Forecast

Available on Mac and iPad in Perspectives menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Quick Open
Command-4 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Open the built-in Forecast perspective in the current OmniFocus window.

Free Trial Mode

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu

This allows you to choose between the Standard or Pro feature set when running a trial license, in order to see which edition is best for your needs.

A similar function is available on iPhone and iPad in License settings, using the Enable Pro features switch.

Go Back

Available on Mac in View menu
Command-Option-[ on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Go Forward

Available on Mac in View menu
Command-Option-] on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Go to Inspector

Available on Mac in View menu
Option-Command-3 on Mac

Use the keyboard to navigate the inspector (tab, return, esc, and other keys affect fields in the inspector).

Go to Outline

Available on Mac in View menu
Option-Command-2 on Mac

Use the keyboard to navigate the outline (tab, return, esc, and other keys affect items and fields in the outline).

Go to Search Field

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Option-Command-F on Mac
Command-F on iPhone and iPad

This command is named Go to Search Field on the Mac, and Find on iPhone and iPad.

The toolbar at the top of the outline contains a Search field. On a Mac, this field is always visible (unless the toolbar has been customized to hide the field), but on iPad or iPhone, you will need to drag down from the top of the outline, in order to reveal the field.

Click or tap into the Search field and enter keywords to find matching items from among three different possible scopes on your database.

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

Search Here

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Control-Command-1 on iPhone and iPad

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.

See Go to Search Field

Search Remaining

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Control-Command-2 on iPhone and iPad

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

See Go to Search Field

Search Everything

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Control-Command-3 on iPhone and iPad

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

See Go to Search Field

Available on Mac in View menu
Option-Command-1 on Mac

Use the keyboard to navigate the sidebar (tab, return, esc, and other keys affect items and fields in the sidebar).

Group

Available on Mac and iPad in Organize menu
Option-Command-G on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

In the sidebar, group projects and folders into folders or group tags into parent tags. In the outline, group actions into projects or action groups. Compare Ungroup

Hide OmniFocus

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu
Command-H on Mac

Temporarily hide all of OmniFocus’s windows.

Hide Others

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu
Option-Command-H on Mac

Temporarily hide windows of all other applications so you can concentrate on OmniFocus.

Import OmniOutliner Document

Available on Mac in File menu.

Import the content of an OmniOutliner document to your OmniFocus database, with its rows converted to OmniFocus items and columns to metadata fields associated with those items.

It is not currently possible to import an OmniOutliner document on iPad or iPhone, but parts of the document can be dragged and dropped into OmniFocus.

Inbox

Available on Mac and iPad in Perspectives menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Quick Open
Command-1 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Open the built-in Inbox perspective in the current OmniFocus window.

Indent

Available on Mac and iPad in Organize menu
Command-] on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Move the selected item to the right, turning it into a child of the item before it in the outline.

In-App Purchases

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu. (App Store version only)
Available on iPhone and iPad in settings.

Open the In-App Purchases window to unlock OmniFocus features by subscribing, purchasing either the Standard or Pro edition of the app, or restoring a previous purchase. Learn more about OmniFocus subscriptions here.

Insert Time Stamp

Available on Mac in Edit menu.

Automatically insert the current date, time, or date and time, using the format from the system settings.

Short Date
Short Date and Time
Time
Long Date
Long Date and Time

Installed Plug-Ins (Pro)

Available on Mac in Automation menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Automation settings
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in Omni Automation shortcut menu.

Any Omni Automation Plug-Ins that you have installed are displayed in a list at the top of the menu. Choose one of them from the list to run the plug-in.

Italic

Available on Mac and iPad in Format menu
Command-I on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Italicize the selected note text.

Learn About Pro

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu, when using a Standard or Trial license

Opens a feature comparison page for Standard vs. Pro, on the Omni Group’s website.

Main Window

Available on Mac in Window menu.

Foreground the main OmniFocus window (instead of a secondary window like the Attachment List or Preferences). If multiple OmniFocus windows are open, the closest one to the front is considered main for purposes of this command.

Manage Omni Account and Purchases

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in settings.

Open the Omni Account window, where you can manage your Omni Account and your OmniFocus licenses. This command appears after you have signed in to your Omni Account using Unlock OmniFocus.

You can also close your Omni Account from this screen.

Manage Plug-Ins

See Configure

Mark Reviewed

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in shortcut menus
Shift-Command-R on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Indicate that you’ve reviewed the selected project, thus resetting its next-review date.

Merge All Windows

Available on Mac in Window menu.

With OmniFocus open in multiple windows, merge all of them into a single window with multiple tabs.

Migrate Database

Available on Mac in File menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Data settings

This command is only available when an updated OmniFocus data format is released. You will normally be prompted to migrate your database as soon as all of your synced Macs, iPads, iPhones, and Apple Watches are running versions which support the updated data format. If for some reason you aren’t prompted, you can begin a data format migration here. You will be warned if some syncing OmniFocus versions are not compatible with the new format.

More information about Migrating Your Data is in the Managing Your Data chapter.

Minimize Window

Available on Mac in Window menu
Command-M on Mac

Shrink the frontmost window down into the Dock.

More information can be found in Move and arrange app windows on Mac, part of the Apple User Guides.

Move

Available on Mac and iPad in Organize menu.

These commands rearrange the currently selected item in the outline hierarchy without affecting deselected items. Move Up and Move Down change an item’s location in relation to its siblings. Move Right and Move Left increase or decrease an item’s indentation level. When items move, their descendants move with them.

Move Down - Control-Command-Down Arrow on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
Move Right - Control-Command-Right Arrow on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
Move Up - Control-Command-Up Arrow on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
Move Left - Control-Command-Left Arrow on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Move Tab to New Window

Available on Mac in Window menu.

With OmniFocus open in multiple tabs, move the current tab to a new OmniFocus window.

Move to Display

Available on Mac in Window menu.

This sends the frontmost window to the selected display; it only appears if you have an external monitor or iPad connected.

Nearby

Available on Mac and iPad in Perspectives menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Quick Open
Command-6 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Open the built-in Nearby perspective in the current OmniFocus window.

New Action

Available on Mac and iPad in File menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in toolbar
Command-N on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Create a new action in the currently selected project or tag, or create a new action in the inbox.

New Folder

Available on Mac and iPad in File menu
Shift-Option-Command-N on iPad, iPhone

Create a new folder, for organizing projects, in Projects or in a custom perspective An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. that groups by entire project.

See Add Folder for the related Projects Sidebar button.

New Project

Available on Mac and iPad in File menu
Shift-Command-N on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Create a new project in Projects, or in a custom perspective An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. that groups by entire project, with the Default Project Type (Parallel or Sequential) that you have chosen.

Once the project has been created, you can change the Project Type.

See Add Project for the related Projects Sidebar button.

New Single-Action List

Available on Mac in File menu

Create a new list, for keeping track of related actions that don’t fit into projects, in Projects or in a custom perspective An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. that groups by entire project.

Also available by using New Project, and setting project type to Single Action List, on Mac, iPad, iPhone.

See Add Single-Action List for the related Projects Sidebar button.

New Tab

Available on Mac in File menu
Option-Command-T on Mac

Open a new tab in the current window, displaying the same content as the current tab.

New Tag

Available on Mac and iPad in File menu
Control-Command-N on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Create a new tag in Tags, Flagged, Nearby, or in a custom perspective An icon indicating that this feature is part of OmniFocus Pro. that groups by individual actions.

See Add Tag for the related Tags Sidebar button.

New Window

Available on Mac in File menu
Option-Command-N on Mac

Open a new window, displaying the same content as the current window.

News

Available on Mac in Help menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Help settings.

View the latest information from the Omni Group about changes to OmniFocus or Apple’s operating systems that may affect your use of the app. This item only appears when there is news to share.

OmniFocus Forums

Available on Mac in Help menu.

Stop by the official OmniFocus forums to view and share insights with other users.

OmniFocus Help

Available on Mac and iPad in Help menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Help toolbar item
Available on iPhone and iPad in Help settings

View this help documentation.

OmniFocus Product Page

Available on Mac in Help menu.

Visit the OmniFocus page on the Omni Group web site.

OmniFocus Windows

Available on Mac in Window menu.

At the bottom of the Window menu is a list of all of your OmniFocus windows; choose one to bring it to the front.

Open Archive

Available on Mac in File menu.

See your OmniFocus archive.

Open in New View

Available on Mac in Perspectives List
Available on Mac and iPad in Perspectives Bar Shortcut Menu

On a Mac, this command will display as either Open in New Window or Open in New Tab; please see the note below about how this interacts with your System Settings.

On a Mac (by default), this opens the selected perspective in a new window, instead of the replacing the current window. On an iPad, this will open the selected perspective in a new split screen window. This command is not available on iPhone.

This command will either open in a new window or a new tab, depending on how you have configured System Settings. More information about the appropriate setting is available in the Apple User Guide article Use tabs in windows on Mac.

Open Link

Available on Mac in Edit shortcut menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in editing menu

Opens the selected link in a web browser.

Open Scripts Folder (Pro)

Available on Mac in Help menu.

Open the designated Finder folder for storing AppleScript scripts that you want to access from the toolbar.

Outdent

Available on Mac and iPad in Organize menu
Command-[ on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Move the selected item to the left, making it a sibling of what was its parent. This doesn’t change the location of the item’s former siblings; only the selected item’s position in the hierarchy is affected.

Page Setup

Available on Mac in File menu
Shift-Command-P on Mac

Open the standard macOS Page Setup window, where you can change some settings for printing, or exporting to a PDF file. These settings are saved even if you quit OmniFocus.

Paste

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in shortcut menus
Available on iPhone and iPad in editing menu
Command-V on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Inserts a copy of whatever is currently on the clipboard, using a simplified style. If the clipboard contains only text (not whole items, such as actions or projects), and you are editing the text of an item, the text is pasted at the insertion point. Otherwise, the contents of the clipboard are pasted as new item(s).

Paste and Match Style

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Option-Shift-Command-V on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Ignore any styles that have already been applied to text on the clipboard, and match the styles of the location you’re pasting. Styles are only available in notes, so this command is primarily useful there.

Paste with Original Style

Available on Mac in Edit menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in editing menu
Control-Option-Shift-Command-V on Mac

Preserve styles from the original source, ignoring the styles of the location you’re pasting. Styles are only available in notes, so this command is primarily useful there.

Paste Style

Available on Mac in Format menu
Option-Command-V on Mac

Apply the style in the style clipboard (obtained using the Copy Style command) to the selected text.

Print

Available on Mac in File menu
Command-P on Mac

Open the standard macOS Print window, with a variety of options for printing, or creating a PDF file.

Printing is not currently supported on iPad or iPhone. Please contact our Support Humans if you would find this useful.

Projects

Available on Mac and iPad in Perspectives menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Quick Open
Command-2 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Open the built-in Projects perspective in the current OmniFocus window.

Quick Open

Available on Mac in File menu and toolbar
Available on iPhone and iPad in toolbar
Command-O on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Open the Quick Open window; please read the linked section, for more information.

Quit OmniFocus

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu
Command-Q on Mac

Stop using OmniFocus and put it away for now. Your database is automatically saved.

Rebuild Database

Available on Mac in File menu.

Check and consolidate all of your OmniFocus data, to make sure it is consistent and valid. This is almost the same as backing up and then restoring your database, and will also rebuild the local cache. If you are having problems with your database, this may help.

Redo

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Shift-Command-Z on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Re-create the last change, that you just used Undo to reverse. You can keep redoing edits, allowing you to return to a later point in time.

Release Notes

Available on Mac in Help menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Help toolbar item
Available on iPhone and iPad in Help settings.

Read the release notes for the current version of OmniFocus.

Replace Tiled Window

See Tiled Windows

Reset Database

Available on iPhone and iPad in settings
Mac version of this command is Reset Database and Preferences, available via File menu

This command completely removes your existing OmniFocus data, and returns you to First Run for OmniFocus.

Reset Database and Settings

Available on Mac in File menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Reset settings

Hold down option to reveal this menu command, which replaces Rebuild Database. This command completely removes your existing OmniFocus data and preferences, and returns you to First Run for OmniFocus.

iPad and iPhone version of this command is Reset Database, available via settings.

Revert to This Backup

Available on iPhone and iPad when viewing Backup list
Available on Mac when using Show Backups in Finder

After confirming that you want to replace your current OmniFocus data with the backup being viewed, your local OmniFocus data will be replaced. If you are syncing, the server data will also be replaced, which will prompt all of your currently syncing devices to replace their data from the server.

Review

Available on Mac and iPad in Perspectives menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Quick Open
Command-7 on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Open the built-in Review perspective in the current OmniFocus window.

Select All

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in editing menu
Command-A on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Select everything in the outline, or if you are editing an item’s text, all text in the cell.

Services

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu.

Access system-wide macOS services offered by other applications.

Set Flag

See Set/Clear Flag

Set/Clear Flag

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in shortcut menus
Shift-Command-L on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
F on iPad, iPhone

Put flag(s) on the selected item(s), or remove the flag(s) if the selected item(s) already have them.

Settings

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in settings
Available on Apple Watch via settings
Command-, on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Open OmniFocus settings, where you can customize how the application works for you.

Show "OmniFocus.ofocus" in Finder

Available on Mac in File menu.

Hold down option to reveal this menu command, which replaces Show Backups in Finder. Instead of showing the Backups folder, the folder containing your main OmniFocus document (OmniFocus.ofocus by default) opens instead.

This can be useful when troubleshooting with the help of Omni Support. Under normal circumstances you should not interact with your primary OmniFocus document directly.

Show All

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu.

Show all windows of all applications.

Show All Tabs/Exit Tab Overview

Available on Mac in View menu
Shift-Command-\ on Mac

Switch to a view that displays thumbnail views of each tab as a tile in the OmniFocus window, or return to the standard full view.

Show Backups in Finder

Available on Mac in File menu

If you have trouble with your OmniFocus database, you can always go back to an older, backed up version. With this command you can browse to the backup file you want, then open and inspect it. If it looks good, click Revert to This Backup, and your entire database is reverted to how it looked at the time you made the backup.

More information about this, as well as iPhone and iPad backups, is in the Backups of OmniFocus Data section of Managing Your Data.

Show/Hide All Notes

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Control-Command-' on Mac

Show or hide all notes with content.

Show/Hide Colors

Available on Mac in Format menu
Shift-Command-C on Mac

Show or hide the Colors window.

Show Console (Pro)

Available on Mac in Automation menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Omni Automation toolbar item.

Item is labeled Automation Console on iPhone and iPad

Opens the Automation Console.

Show/Hide Fonts

Available on Mac in Format menu. ™ Command-T on Mac

Show or hide the Fonts window.

Show/Hide Inspector

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Toolbar
Option-Command-I on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Show Inspector for the selected items, or hide it again.

Show/Hide Note(s)

Option-Command-' on Mac

Show or hide the note of the selected item(s).

Show/Hide Perspectives Bar

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Appearance settings
Option-Command-P on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Show or hide the Perspectives Bar. This is available as a setting on iPhone and iPad, as well as a keyboard command.

Show/Hide Perspectives List

Available on Mac in Perspectives menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Quick Open
Available on Apple Watch via Settings
Control-Command-P on Mac

Show or hide the Perspectives List, where you can add or modify keyboard shortcuts, rearrange or favorite perspectives, and create or edit new custom perspectives.

Show in Projects/Tags/Inbox

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in shortcut menu
Option-Command-R on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Switch to Projects, Tags, or Inbox and select the same items you have selected in the current perspective.

Show Next Tab

Available on Mac in Window menu.

With OmniFocus open in multiple tabs, navigate to the next tab in the bar.

Show Previous Tab

Available on Mac in Window menu.

With OmniFocus open in multiple tabs, navigate to the previous tab in the bar.

Show Quick Entry/Hide Quick Entry

Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad
Shift-Control-Option-S on Mac
Control-Option-Space on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Show or hide the Quick Entry window.

Mac:

The Shift-Control-Option-S keyboard shortcut only works on Mac, as long as OmniFocus is the frontmost application.
The Control-Option-Space also works on Mac, whether or not OmniFocus is frontmost (as long as it is running), and can be customized in General settings.
The Control-Option-Space keyboard shortcut works on iPhone and iPad, while OmniFocus is the frontmost application but it cannot be customized.

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Appearance settings
Option-Command-S on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Show or hide the Sidebar.

Show Tab Bar/Hide Tab Bar

Available on Mac in View menu
Shift-Command-V on Mac

Show or hide the macOS tab bar on the current OmniFocus window.

Available on Mac in View menu.

Show or hide the toolbar.

Show/Hide View Options

Available on Mac and iPad in View menu
Shift-Command-V on Mac, iPad, and iPhone

Open the View Options for the current perspective.

Smaller

Available on Mac in Format menu
Command-– on Mac on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Decrease the size of the selected note text.

Available on Mac in Help menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in Help settings

Visit the Omni Newsletter web page, 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.

Simplify Style

Available on Mac in Format menu.

Re-formats selected text in notes or text within selected actions or projects. Removes custom fonts, text and background colors, text size, and text alignment, while keeping styles such as bold, italic, underline, and bulleted lists. Result should be clean readable text, that maintains the intent of the original formatting. Attachments and links are preserved.

Contrast with Clear Style

Site License

Available on Mac in Site License… menu command
Available on iPhone and iPad in License settings

Open the Site License window, which allows you to renew or sign out of a site license.

On Mac, this menu command only appears if you are signed into a site license, and replaces Unlock OmniFocus… and Manage Omni Account and Purchases….

On iPhone, and iPad, this appears as a row within the License settings screen.

Sort Once

Available on Mac in Organize menu.

Using one of the parameters in this submenu, perform a one-time sort of the selected items in the sidebar or the outline (as long as you’ve selected something that can be reordered).

By Name
By Status
By Date Added
By Date Completed
By Date Due
By Defer Date
By Date Dropped

Speech

Available on Mac in Edit menu

The Speech submenu contains the Start Speaking and Stop Speaking commands, which you can use to make the macOS text-to-speech system say the selected text out loud.

Start Speaking
Stop Speaking

A similar feature can be enabled on iPhone and iPad, using Accessibility settings, in the Settings app.

Spelling and Grammar

Available on Mac in Edit menu

The Spelling and Grammar menu contains the standard Spelling commands for the macOS spell checking system: Show Spelling and Grammar (which opens the Spelling and Grammar window), Check Document Now (which checks spelling in the document once), and the ability to turn on or off Check Spelling While Typing, Check Grammar With Spelling, and Correct Spelling Automatically

Show/Hide Spelling and Grammar (Command-: on Mac)
Check Document Now (Command-; on Mac)
Check Spelling While Typing
Check Grammar With Spelling
Correct Spelling Automatically

Split View (Mac)

Available on Mac in Window menu.

These menu commands are provided by the operating system, and may include:

Tile Window to Left of Screen
Tile Window to Right of Screen
Replace Tiled Window

More information can be found in Use apps in Split View on Mac, part of the Apple User Guides.

Stage Manager (Mac)

Available on Mac in Window menu.

This menu command is provided by the operating system:

Remove Window from Set

More information can be found in Organize your Mac desktop with Stage Manager, part of the Apple User Guides.

Start Dictation

Available on Mac in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in keyboard shortcut selected in Keyboard system settings

With dictation enabled in Keyboard system settings, select an editable text field and use this command to enter text by speaking.

Status

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad in shortcut menus

Choose from this submenu to change the status for the selected item; two of the options are also available via keyboard.

With one or more items selected in the outline, press Space to mark them complete or switch them back to active. Press Option-Space to mark them dropped or switch them back to active.

Substitutions

Available on Mac in Edit menu

The Substitutions submenu allows you to choose which macOS text substitutions will be used in OmniFocus.

More information about substitutions and text editing is available in Replace text and punctuation in documents on Mac, part of the Apple User Guides.

Sync Now

Available on Mac in File menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in toolbar
Command-S on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

If you have set up synchronization in Sync settings, coordinate with the server database and make sure that both sides have all of the recent changes you’ve made.

Available in the Toolbar More menu on iPhone and iPad; can be added to the Mac Toolbar by using customization.

System Search

Available on Mac in Help menu
Shift-Command-? on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

On Mac, iPhone, and iPad, search OmniFocus menu items in order to find a specific command. On Mac, the same command will also search OmniFocus Help (this document). Results appear as a list of menu items and help topics respectively.

Tile Window to Left of Screen

See Tiled Windows

Tile Window to Right of Screen

See Tiled Windows

Transformations

Available on Mac in Edit menu

The Transformations submenu contains commands that apply to selected text in the outline, sidebar, and inspector, to convert it to upper case, lowercase, or capitalize each selected word.

Make Upper Case
Make Lower Case
Capitalize

Underline

Available on Mac and iPad in Format menu
Command-U on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Underline the selected note text.

Undo

Available on Mac and iPad in Edit menu
Command-Z on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Reverse the most recent change that you made. You can keep undoing edits, allowing you to return to an earlier point in time.

Unflag

See Set/Clear Flag

Ungroup

Available on Mac and iPad in Organize menu
Option-Command-U on Mac, iPhone, and iPad

Move all of the child items out of the selected item, and remove it from OmniFocus. Contrast Group.

Unlock OmniFocus

Available on Mac in OmniFocus menu
Available on iPhone and iPad in settings.

Sign in to your Omni Account to unlock this copy of OmniFocus, or add a license.

On Mac, this menu item will update based on the current licensing state, to either Manage Omni Account and Purchases… or Site License….

Zoom

Available on Mac in Window menu.

Switch the frontmost window between the biggest size possible and the last size you set.

More information can be found in Move and arrange app windows on Mac, part of the Apple User Guides.

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 on another device, 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 can help answer your questions about OmniFocus.

Reference Manual

OmniFocus 4 for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch documentation is being combined into this single, unified reference manual. This is still work in progress, which encountered significant delays during our recent development.

If you are using OmniFocus 3, or you would like more context on material that is not yet available in this manual, you may be interested in the OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for macOS or OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for iOS.

Email Docs Team

Your thoughts and feedback about this reference manual, or any related topics, are very welcome. Planned changes, work in progress, and published updates are noted below, but if there’s something additional you’d like to see, or topics that you’d really like us to prioritize, please email the documentation team; we’d love to hear from you!

If you have a non-Documentation related question or issue, please see the section about emailing the Support Humans, below.

Release Notes

For a detailed, comprehensive summary of the latest changes to OmniFocus, read the Release Notes, available from the Help menu on Mac, the Help row in Settings on iPhone and iPad, or the Help sub-menu under the toolbar More menu on iPhone and iPad.

Finding Help Online

The OmniFocus Support Site provides a wealth of information (including this reference manual), as well as support articles which cover other topics related to working with OmniFocus.

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

Email Support Humans

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, please send us an email. Contact Omni will create an email message addressed to us, which also includes information about the version you’re running, which operating system you’re running it on, and what type of license you have, which helps us quickly assist you.

Alternatively, you can email Support Humans directly! Either way, we take support seriously, so you can expect a prompt response actually typed by our Support Humans.

If you are contacting support with an issue, it’s very helpful if you can include a screenshot or screen recording of the behavior that you’re experiencing, along with the steps that are causing the issue. This helps us understand the problem and find a solution more quickly and effectively.

Apple provides several useful sets of instructions for capturing screenshots or screen recordings:

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. When this happens, you can call our Support Humans! Please check our Support site for current hours and telephone numbers.

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.

Omni also maintains a public Slack Workspace, where you’re welcome to join the community of fellow productivity enthusiasts to hang out and share OmniFocus-related insights.

Note that while Omni Forums and Slack are a great resource for interacting with others in the OmniFocus community, they are not monitored for troubleshooting purposes, and are not considered an official support channel. Please use our email and phone options to get in touch with our support team directly.

Documentation Updates

While documentation is still being actively revised, notes will be added to this section to make it easy to find new and updated content.

Planned Revisions

Remaining work is planned in this order; feedback is welcome!

Outline and Sidebar
Custom Perspectives (Pro)
Inspector
Capture Methods
Apple Integration
Settings (minor updates needed)
Commands and Shortcuts (minor updates needed)
OmniFocus for Apple Watch
Automation
Accessibility

Documentation Release Notes

4.0.0.0 — First public release.
4.0.0.1 — Minor cleanup.
4.0.0.3 — Added Grouping Items section; added documentation email.
4.0.0.4 — Updated Custom Perspectives to be more accurate (full rewrite is still in progress); updated Settings.
4.0.0.5 — Fixed layout of index; added Projects Sidebar & Project Type sections, updated Miscellaneous Project.
4.0.1.0 — Added Clippings section.
4.0.1.1 — Added Setting up OmniFocus 4 and Upgrading from OmniFocus 3 sections.
4.0.1.2 — Added How OmniFocus Sync Works (as well as updates regarding syncing with an Omni Account or WebDAV) and Troubleshooting sections.
4.0.2.0 — Added links to relevant portions of OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for macOS and OmniFocus 3 Reference Manual for iOS to sections that are currently in progress.
4.0.2.1 — Added Archiving in OmniFocus and Exporting from OmniFocus sections. Updated Settings and Commands and Shortcuts chapters.
4.0.2.2 — Added Project Sidebar, Project Status, and Folder Status sections. Updated Settings, Commands and Shortcuts, and Glossary.
4.0.3.1 — Added Tags section to Perspectives chapter. Updated Archiving in OmniFocus and Upgrading from OmniFocus 3 for changes being released in OmniFocus 4.0.3. Updated Settings, Commands and Shortcuts, and Glossary.
4.0.3.2 — Added Backups of OmniFocus Data and Migrating Your Data sections to Managing Your Data. Updated Commands and Shortcuts and Settings.
4.0.3.3 — Added Forecast section to Perspectives chapter. Updated Commands and Shortcuts, Glossary, Managing Your Data, and Settings.
4.0.4.0 — Added Flagged section to Perspectives chapter. Revised Upgrading from OmniFocus 3 and Importing an Existing Archive. Updated Welcome, Getting Started, Settings, Commands and Shortcuts, and Glossary.
4.0.4.1 — Added Nearby section to Perspectives chapter. Updated Outline, Inspector, Glossary.
4.0.4.2 — Added Review section to Perspectives chapter. Updated Inspector, Glossary.
4.0.4.3 — Added Completed and Changed sections to Perspectives chapter.

Glossary

Some words and phrases used in OmniFocus have very specific meanings, and though we strive to make those meanings clear, this is a good place to come for further assistance.

Is there is a term missing from this list, or something here that doesn’t quite make sense? Please email our documentation team, and let us know what would be helpful… we’ll do our best to clarify and update.

Action

A specific item which can be accomplished, and which you can capture in OmniFocus. Actions can be found in the Inbox, as part of a project, or part of an action group within a project.

In other areas of your life, these are often referred to as tasks or to-dos. In OmniFocus, using the word action reminds you to always be thinking about the next step you can take to move a project towards completion, and attain your goal.

Action Group

A collection of child actions nested underneath a parent action, and which must all be completed before the parent action can be completed. Though the Inbox may contain actions groups, they are normally part of a project, and can be thought of as subprojects. Similar to a project, an action group may be parallel or sequential.

Action Group Type

Action Groups may be Parallel or Sequential.

Compare this to Project Types, which also includes Single Action List.

Active

See Item Status.

Apple User Guides

Apple provides User Guides for a variety of devices, operating systems, and applications:

Availability

Availability is a state that is derived for actions or action groups, based both upon the assigned status of the item, and the states of containing folders, projects, action groups, or assigned tags; this can include project status, project dates, project type, status of assigned tags, and more. Possible availability states include:

Available — An active action, action group, or project that is available for work, as it is not blocked, deferred, or on hold.
Blocked — An active action or action group that is not available for work, as another action must be completed first. This is typically found in a sequential project or action group, if another action is above it in the project outline. Actions can be unblocked by moving them to the top of the project or action group, or by changing the containing project or action group from sequential to parallel.
Blocked with container — An action or action group may also be blocked based on the availability of the project or action group which contains it.
Unavailable — An active action or action group that is not yet available for work. This is most often due to the defer date being in the future.
Unavailable with container — An action or action group may also be unavailable for work, based on either the status or availability of the project or action group which contains it. This is most often the case when the project is on hold, or the project or action group has a defer date in the future.

Available

To learn more about the concept of Availability in OmniFocus, and how it impacts actions, action groups, and projects, see Availability.

To learn more about the filter option named Available, which is part of View Options, see View Options Filters.

Blocked

See Availability.

Blocked with container

See Availability.

Compact View

Default view on an iPhone, or when using an iPad in split screen, this view shows OmniFocus one pane at a time, and can be thought of as navigating a series of stacked cards. Compare this with Regular view.

Completed

See Item Status.

Container

A folder which contains folders or projects, or a project or action group which contains action groups or actions. This term is used in the Inspector when viewing items which inherit availability, status, or values such as Flag or Due Date from their container.

See Shortcut Menu.

Database

The collection of files, that are bundled together as an OmniFocus.ofocus package, which OmniFocus uses to store all the information that you add to the app. Under normal circumstances, you should rarely need to interact directly with the database folder, and the various perspectives show you all the contained information. There are settings that can optimize the performance of OmniFocus, and you can contact support if it looks like something isn't working correctly. When using a Mac or iPad, you can have multiple windows open, in order to see different views of your data at the same time. When using a Mac, you can open multiple database files at once to restore from a backup or archive, or view the contents of an OmniFocus database other than your primary data.

You may also see this referred to as your OmniFocus data, or OmniFocus library.

Defer Until Date

The date and time that you can next consider an item for work or completion. When the date and time that you have set is reached, the item becomes available for work. Using Defer Until is an excellent way to get something off of your plate for now, knowing that it will return when it's ready for work.

You may also see this referred to as a Defer Date or Start Date.

Projects or action that have a Defer Until date in the future are referred to as Deferred projects or actions.

Compare this to Due Date.

Drag and Drop

A system-level function that allows dragging items into OmniFocus, out of OmniFocus, and between OmniFocus and other apps on Macs, iPads, and iPhones. Try dragging text into OmniFocus from other apps, reordering items in the outline, and dragging rows or selected text from OmniFocus to other apps on your device.

Dropped

See Item Status.

Due Date

The date and time by which a given action, action group, or project must be completed.

Compare this to Defer Until.

Due Soon

A designation for actions, action groups, and projects with assigned due dates that are approaching, and may need additional attention. Items that are due soon have a special style to make them more visible in your outline. The exact meaning of Due Soon can be changed in “Due Soon” Means.

A menu available on iPhone and iPad, that allows editing of text in text fields; normally accessed by tapping in a text field, while editing text. Most often contains system commands such as cut, copy, paste, and more; may also contain OmniFocus commands, such as Paste with Original Style.

Everything

See View Options Filters

Favorite

Perspectives can be starred to indicate that they are a favorite view. This can be done in the Perspectives List on Mac, in Quick Open on iPad & iPhone, and in Settings on Apple Watch.

First Available

Unlike the other availability states, which can also apply to projects and action groups, First Available is a state that can only apply to actions.

See View Options Filters

Flag

A way of indicating that an action, action group, or project is important. Children of flagged items are also considered flagged, making it very easy to prioritize an entire project with a single click. Items that are flagged also have a special orange status circle.

Use Set/Clear Flag to add or remove Flagged status to an item.

Folder

A way to group together related projects or folders. By default, folders are shown in the Sidebar, and can optionally be shown in the Outline using View Options in Projects.

Group

See Action Group.

Hidden

An item that exists in your OmniFocus data, but that isn’t currently visible, based on your setting for View Options. This can be relevant when OmniFocus alerts you that something might be deleted by mistake.

Hierarchy

See Structure.

Inbox

The built-in perspective designed to hold actions and action groups that you have captured in OmniFocus, prior to processing them… creating new projects, adding them to existing projects, or assigning tags.

Inbox Order

The order in which action groups and actions are listed in the Inbox perspective. This is a very common order in which to display your OmniFocus data, even when you are in other perspectives.

Related: Project Order.

Inspector

A view on the trailing side of the OmniFocus window (in Regular view), or that can be opened by swiping from the trailing side (in Compact view), which allows you to adjust all the details for actions, action groups, projects, folders, and tags. With something selected in the Outline or Sidebar, the Inspector automatically shows relevant fields. Click the Inspector button in the toolbar, or choose Show Inspector from the View menu.

More information is available in the Inspector chapter.

Item

Term that may refer to actions, action groups, projects, folders, or tags. This reference manual will typically refer to the specific type of item being discussed, but there are a few topics where referring to an item is either necessary, or sufficiently clear.

Language Direction

When using OmniFocus with a left to right language, the leading edge is the left side, and the trailing edge is the right side.

When using OmniFocus with a right to left language, the leading edge is the right side, and the trailing edge is the left side.

Keyboard Shortcut

A single key, or set of keys pressed in combination, that calls a menu command. These are available when using a Mac, or with an external keyboard attached to either an iPhone or iPad. When using an iPad, pressing and holding the Command key (⌘) will see a list of shortcuts available from your current location in the app.

Omni Account

Your Omni Account can be used to start a free trial of our applications, purchase a license or subscription, upgrade an existing license, and sync our applications using the Omni Sync Server.

More information about Omni Accounts can be found in our Using and managing your Omni Account support article.

Omni Automation

A method of scripting OmniFocus with JavaScript. See the Omni Automation website for more information on this feature.

On Hold

See Item Status.

Outline

The main view of OmniFocus, where you see and interact with your actions, action groups, and projects, usually through a structured view of your data. On a Mac or iPad, this is the center area of the OmniFocus window, with the Sidebar available on the leading edge, and the Inspector available on the trailing edge. On an iPhone, this is also the primary area of OmniFocus, with both the Sidebar and Inspector hidden most of the time, but available for changing your view or data. Some perspectives, such as Forecast, Nearby, and Review have specific ways of viewing your data, that may differ from the typical project structure.

More information is available in the Outline chapter.

Overdue

A state for items with due dates in the past. Items that are overdue have red status circles for greater visibility.

Parallel

A project or action group that contains actions which may be accomplished in any order. By default, all active actions are considered available. For a parallel project or action group, View Options set to First Available or Available will show different results, as the topmost action is considered first available.

Compare sequential projects or action groups, and single action list projects.

More information is available in the Perspectives chapter.

Pending

This custom perspective filter rule is now called Has an active project which has a future defer date.

Perspective

A view of your OmniFocus data that appears in the Perspectives Bar, Perspectives List, and Quick Open. OmniFocus comes with nine built-in perspectives, and custom perspectives can be created using OmniFocus Pro.

Plug-In

Omni Automation Plug-Ins are written in JavaScript, and can be used for automating various tasks, when using OmniFocus Pro. Visit the Omni Automation in OmniFocus website for more information.

Project

A collection of actions and action groups that are all working towards a common goal (see parallel or sequential) or that are united by another common element (see single action list).

Project Order

The order in which projects, action groups, and actions are listed in the Projects perspective. This is a very common order in which to display your OmniFocus data, even when you are in other perspectives.

Related: Inbox Order.

Project Type

Projects may be Parallel or Sequential, or they may be a Single Action List.

Compare this to Action Group Types, which does not include Single Action List.

More information is available in Project Type

Regular View

Default view on an iPad when running in full screen. This view can show all panes of OmniFocus at the same time; you can see the Sidebar, Outline, and Inspector at the same time. Compare this with Compact view.

Remaining

See View Options Filters

Resolved

Projects, action groups, or actions that have either been completed or dropped.

Sequential

A project or action group that contains actions which must be completed in a specific order, from top to bottom. By default, only the topmost active action is considered available, and all actions below that one are considered blocked. For a sequential project or action group, View Options set to either First Available or Available should show the same result.

Compare parallel projects or action groups, and single action list projects.

More information is available in the Perspectives chapter.

When long pressing on an item, row, or selection of text, a menu may appear with relevant commands. These were previously referred to as context or contextual menus, but Apple now refers to these as shortcut menus.

A pane to the left of the Outline, which can display folders, projects, tags, or a calendar, depending on which perspective you are viewing. When using Regular view, choosing Show/Hide Sidebar will show or hide the Sidebar, next to the Outline. When using Compact view, the Sidebar will slide in from the left, and will slide out to the left when you are finished using it, leaving the Outline visible.

Single Action List

A project which contains actions that may (or may not) be related in some way, but that are not part of an overall goal. Unlike with parallel or sequential projects, the position of an action in a single action list does not matter; each action can be thought of as a very small standalone project. For a single action list, View Options set to First Available or Available will show identical results, as all actions are considered first available.

Compare parallel and sequential projects and action groups.

More information is available in the Perspectives chapter.

Stalled

This custom perspective filter rule is now called Has an active project which has no remaining actions.

Status

Status can be directly assigned to an action, action group, project, folder, or tag. Status can also be inherited from the item which contains it: actions can inherit status from action groups and projects, projects can inherit status from folders, and so on.

Inherited status works a little differently from status that is applied directly. When a status is inherited, the item keeps the original value of any assigned fields, and shows the inherited values through slight modifications of icons and text, in both the Outline and Inspector.

Status can be applied by clicking or tapping on a Status Circle, using the Status sub-menu in the Edit menu, using the Status sub-menu in the shortcut menus, or using the Inspector.

Active — Status for an action, action group, project, or folder that is planned for work, or a tag that is currently in use. This is also the default status for newly added items.
On Hold — Status for a project or tag which is not currently planned for work, but which may be in the future. Actions or action groups which are part of an On Hold project will be considered unavailable for work; actions or action groups which are assigned to an On Hold tag will be considered blocked. Use the Inspector to set this status.
Completed — Status for an action, action group, or project when you have finished work on the item. Clicking or tapping on the status circle will complete the action or action group; actions, action groups, and projects may also be completed by pressing the Space bar while they are selected, or by using the Inspector.
Completed with container — Active actions or action groups which are part of a container which has been Completed will be considered Completed with container.
Dropped — Status for an action, action group, project, folder, or tag that is no longer planned for work. Option-clicking on the status circle will drop the action or action group; actions, action groups, projects, folders, and tags may also be dropped by pressing Option-Space bar while they are selected, or by using the Inspector or shortcut menu.
Dropped with container — Active actions, action groups, projects, and folders which are part of a container which has been Dropped will be considered Dropped with container. When dropping a tag group, any child tags will also be dropped; note that dropping a tag does not drop actions with that tag assigned.

Structure

OmniFocus data is structured in a specific way, often referred to as the hierarchy of OmniFocus. Here is a very quick introduction to that structure.

The smallest item in OmniFocus is the action, which can either exist in the Inbox, or as part of a specific project. While part of the Inbox, an action is just that: a single item which has the potential to be completed, but which may or may not be part of a larger goal.

When switching to the Projects perspective, you begin to see where else an action can exist. Actions, whether or not they are part of an action group, are also part of a project. Projects may contain many actions or action groups, but may not contain other projects. How can you group project?

Looking at the Sidebar, you can see folders, which can hold projects, or other folders.

This brings us to a quick summary of the hierarchical structure of OmniFocus: folders can contain folders or projects, projects can contain action groups or actions, action groups can also contain action groups or actions, and at the bottom of the structure lives the most important part: the action.

Sub-Project

See Action Group.

Status Circle

The circle next to an action or action group that can be clicked or tapped to set the item to complete, or Option-clicked to drop the item. The color of the circle also indicates whether it is due soon, overdue, or flagged; repeating actions or groups also have a special status circle, containing 3 dots.

Sync

Updating your local OmniFocus data with another copy, which is stored on a server, such as the Omni Sync Server. This allows you to keep all of your copies of OmniFocus up-to-date, as changes go from one device, to the server, to another device, and back again.

Settings

See OmniFocus Settings or System Settings, depending on whether you want to change something about OmniFocus, or something about the system on which OmniFocus is running.

Starred

See Favorite

System Settings

Apple application that allows you to change options that affect either your entire device, or only OmniFocus. This application is named Settings on iPad, iPhone, or Apple Watch; it is named System Settings on Mac, where it was previously known as System Preferences.

Tag

Tags can be assigned to an action, action group, or project, and provide another way of looking at your OmniFocus data. They can represent a person, place, thing, state of mind, energy level, or any other factor that you find useful. These allow you to pull together all related actions, action groups, and projects into one place.

Your usage of tags can be simple, such as showing you all the items related to work; or it can be complex, such as showing you all the items related to work that you need to coordinate with your co-worker, and that must be completed while you have high-energy and are sitting near your computer.

A collection of child tags nested underneath a parent tag. Selecting a parent tag in the Sidebar will also select child tags. Assigning a child tag to an action or project will also assign the parent tag.

Task

See Action.

An area at either the top or bottom of the OmniFocus window that contains tools and commands for modifying the contents of that window, or provides access to additional functionality, such as settings, help, or automation.

Unavailable

See Availability.

Unavailable with container

See Availability.

View Options

View Options allows for setting many elements that impact how your OmniFocus data displays, and which actions and groups and displayed. Though the details can vary between perspectives, these choices are found in most of the perspectives:

First Available — The first of the actions which are active and available, in a given project; this is a more focused view of the Available option (described next), which additionally takes into account the position of actions within a project, as well as the type of project. In sequential projects, the first available action must be higher in the project list than any other blocked or unavailable actions; it is very common for a sequential project to not have a first available action, if there is another action higher in the project, which is itself blocked or unavailable. In parallel projects, the action may be anywhere in the project, as actions in parallel projects may be completed in any order. For single action lists, all available actions are considered first available, as a single action list is a collection of individual actions, rather than actions working towards a specific goal. This list may also be thought of as a list of next actions.
Available — Actions, action groups, projects, folders, and tags which are both active and available; items may not be blocked, deferred, or on hold.
Remaining — Actions, action groups, projects, folders, and tags which are not completed or dropped.
Everything — All actions, actions groups, projects, folders, and tags, including those which have been completed or dropped.

More information is available in the Perspectives chapter.

Managing Your Data

OmniFocus stores all the information that you enter into a file on your system, titled OmniFocus.ofocus (technically, a bundle — which is a folder of files that looks like a single file). On a Mac, you can see the data file by selecting Show “OmniFocus.ofocus” in Finder from the File menu. On an iPhone or iPad, you can see the data file by using Files.app, and navigating to On My iPhone/iPad > OmniFocus > OmniFocus.ofocus (though the name will likely display without the .ofocus portion). It is possible to have both OmniFocus 3 and OmniFocus 4 installed and syncing on the same device, so to make it easier to tell the folders apart, the OmniFocus 4 folder will also contain a file with the title OmniFocus 4 Documents.

Setting up OmniFocus 4

When you first launch OmniFocus you’ll be asked to set up Sync. Syncing is important as an additional layer of backup for your data, and enables several of the advanced features of the app such as email capture.

If you’re planning to sync, we recommend setting up sync as part of the first launch process, to ensure as smooth a transition as possible between versions. If you choose to set up sync later, the same options you see during first launch are available in Sync settings.

Upgrading from OmniFocus 3

OmniFocus 4.0 does not contain any changes to the OmniFocus data structure and is fully sync compatible with the latest releases of OmniFocus 3. Future OmniFocus 4 updates may require you to migrate your data to an updated format.

We have updated how the Archive Old Items… and Open Archive… commands work, to better support importing existing Archive files from older versions of OmniFocus. More information is available in the Importing an Existing Archive section of Archiving in OmniFocus.

Upgrading While Syncing

If you are currently syncing OmniFocus 3, then upgrading to OmniFocus 4 is easy:

Launch OmniFocus 4 on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. If this is the first time you have launched OmniFocus 4, complete the setup.
When you reach the Sync Setup screen, sign into the same sync account you use for OmniFocus 3, whether that is an Omni Account or an Advanced (WebDAV) server account.
You will be prompted to Add tutorial project, which will help get you quickly acquainted with OmniFocus 4… so you can enjoy the new and updated features!
If you are using a Mac, and have an existing Archive, please read Importing an Existing Archive.

Upgrading on a Mac Without Syncing

Upgrading from OmniFocus 3 to OmniFocus 4 on a Mac without syncing requires exporting your existing OmniFocus data from OmniFocus 3, adding it to OmniFocus 4, and then importing any existing Archive file. This will allow you to use OmniFocus 4, while leaving OmniFocus 3 unchanged.

Launch OmniFocus 3 on your Mac.
Select Export… from the File menu, choose a location that is easy to find (such as the Desktop), select the file format option for Backup Document (OmniFocus), then click the Save button. This will save an OmniFocus.ofocus-backup file in your chosen location.
Quit OmniFocus 3, so you’re working with a single version of the app.
Launch OmniFocus 4 on your Mac. If this is the first time you have launched OmniFocus 4, complete the setup.
When you reach the Sync Setup screen, tap the Skip button, and confirm that you would like to continue without syncing.
You will be prompted to Add tutorial project; choose either option (as this data will be replaced), and then tap on Launch OmniFocus. You should be viewing a new data file in OmniFocus 4.
Drag the OmniFocus.ofocus-backup file on top of the OmniFocus 4 app icon in the Dock or Applications folder, click on the Revert to This Backup button that will present in a bar at the top of the window, and then confirm that you’d like to revert to the backup.
Your OmniFocus 3 data should now be in OmniFocus 4, and you can close the OmniFocus Backup document.
The first time you use Archive Old Items… or Open Archive… in OmniFocus 4, it will offer to import a copy of your existing archive from OmniFocus 3 (or OmniFocus 2). Please read the Archiving in OmniFocus section, with special attention to Importing an Existing Archive.

Upgrading on an iPhone or iPad Without Syncing

Manually upgrading from OmniFocus 3 an iPhone or iPad requires copying your primary OmniFocus data; this will allow you to begin using OmniFocus 4, while leaving OmniFocus 3 fully operational.

Install and launch OmniFocus 4.
Complete the setup for OmniFocus 4.
When you reach the Sync Setup screen, tap the Skip button, and confirm that you would like to continue without syncing.
You will be prompted to Add tutorial project; choose either option (as this data will be replaced), and then tap on Launch OmniFocus. You should be viewing a new data file in OmniFocus 4.
Force quit OmniFocus 4 (See Quit and reopen an app on iPhone or Quit and reopen an app on iPad).
We’re now going to find your current OmniFocus 3 data. Let’s start by opening Files.app.
Navigate to On My iPhone/iPad > OmniFocus. Note that there should be two OmniFocus folders: one will contain your OmniFocus 3 data, and one will contain your OmniFocus 4 data. You are looking for the folder that contains the OmniFocus 3 Documents file.
There should also be an OmniFocus.ofocus file in this folder (which may display as OmniFocus, depending on your View Options in Files.app). Press and hold on OmniFocus.ofocus, and select Copy.
Navigate to the other OmniFocus. This one should contain a OmniFocus 4 Documents file.
Press and hold below the file list, and select Paste. Your iPhone or iPad will prompt you to Replace or Keep Both; select Replace.
Launch OmniFocus 4, and your OmniFocus 3 data should be ready to go!

How OmniFocus Sync Works

With sync enabled in OmniFocus, a sync server you choose keeps a copy of your database, so that it’s always available wherever you are. With each sync, OmniFocus compares your local data with what’s on the server and updates each as needed.

OmniFocus automatically syncs whenever it’s connected to the internet. When connected, OmniFocus sends new changes to the sync server after one minute, or when opening or closing the app. At a minimum, OmniFocus checks with the server every hour, even if nothing has changed on the device. This helps ensure that your data from OmniFocus is always safe, secure, and most importantly — up to date.

If you’ve made changes you want to view immediately on another device, you can perform a manual sync by choosing Sync Now from the File menu (Command-S), click the Sync button in the toolbar, or pull down to sync on your iPhone, before switching devices. This syncs your latest changes up to the server, so that when you launch OmniFocus on the other devices, all you have to do is sync to ensure that all of your changes are there… and remember that sync also normally happens when you open the app, so using Sync Now on the second device probably won’t be necessary.

OmniFocus uses push notifications for even more robust synchronization support. This feature notifies OmniFocus on your other devices that a sync is needed, whenever you make a change. With push notifications, manual syncing should rarely be required. See our OmniFocus Push-triggered sync support article for more information on how it works.

For options related to push notification sync, select the Push option in Sync settings.

Encrypted Sync

OmniFocus uses HTTPS to encrypt your data while communicating with sync servers that support it (including the Omni Sync Server). Additionally, all current OmniFocus databases set up to sync with remote servers are also encrypted prior to transit, and remain encrypted on the server.

Encryption was introduced in OmniFocus 2.6 for Mac and OmniFocus 2.15 for iOS. If you are upgrading from a previous version of OmniFocus, your database will require migration.

Encryption is done by OmniFocus on your Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch at the time the data is transmitted to the sync server. This means that regardless of the sync destination (Omni Sync Server or another WebDAV server), encryption-based security is preserved. Though your database is encrypted while on the server, OmniFocus doesn’t actively encrypt data while it is stored on your local device, instead deferring to any system-level encryption you have in place.

Technical details of the encryption scheme for OmniFocus can be found in this forum post.

Setting a Separate Encryption Passphrase

By default, OmniFocus encrypts your database on the server using the password you chose when setting up your sync account. When selecting the Encryption row of Sync settings, the resulting view will confirm Encryption active and Passwords are linked. For an extra layer of security, you can use a distinct encryption passphrase by clicking or tapping on Change Passphrase.

When you click Change Passphrase, you are prompted to enter a new passphrase, which will be used to encrypt your database on the server. After setting a new encryption passphrase the Encryption settings will update to read Passwords are distinct. You can link them again by clicking Link Passwords, and entering your current encryption passphrase, or change the encryption passphrase to something new using Change Passphrase.

If you change the encryption passphrase on one device, all of the other devices that you are syncing will prompt you to enter the new passphrase, before that device can receive further updates from the server. This is to guarantee that your end-to-end encryption remains secure across all devices.

Sync Settings

Establishing a cloud-connected copy of your database is a great way to keep OmniFocus in harmony across all your devices. The Sync tab has the options you need to set up your sync account. Even if you’re only using OmniFocus on a single device, we recommend setting up sync for the automated data backup it provides. There are three primary states in this collection of settings:

Sync Disabled, which keeps your data on device.
Syncing with an Omni Account
Syncing with an Advanced (WebDAV) server

If you choose to sync, keep your sync password (and separate encryption passphrase, if you use one) in a safe place. If you lose these, you’ll lose access to your data. While our Support Humans can help you reset the password for your Omni Account, it is not possible to reset your encryption phrase, if you have lost it.

If you select to sync using either an Omni Account or Advanced (WebDAV) host, there are several additional settings that become available:

Selecting the Sync row (which shows which kind of account you are using) will show the following information in the right pane (Mac), or on a second screen (iPad or iPhone):

Omni Account

Advanced (WebDAV)

Archiving in OmniFocus

After using OmniFocus for some time, your OmniFocus database may become quite large. This can affect sync times and performance, especially if you are syncing with an iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch. Most of your data is likely to be completed or dropped items, which you rarely need to reference, so OmniFocus includes an option to move some of that data to an Archive file. This gives you the option to review your older data when needed, while keeping your active data as streamlined as possible.

We have updated how the Archive Old Items… and Open Archive… commands work, as of OmniFocus 4.0.3, and the information in this section reflects that update.

To archive your old data, choose Archive Old Items… from the File menu. A sheet appears with a date field; any items completed before that date, or dropped items that haven’t been changed since that date, will be moved to the archive.

Creating an Archive

The first time that you use Archive Old Items… or Open Archive… in OmniFocus 4, you will be asked to choose a folder where you would like your OmniFocus archive to be stored. This may be a folder with an existing archive, or it may be a folder in which you would like to create a new archive.

OmniFocus 4 supports storing your OmniFocus archive anywhere on your local system, instead of requiring the archive to be stored in the same location as your primary OmniFocus data. Two places to consider are the OmniFocus folder which is automatically created in iCloud Drive, or in an OmniFocus folder that you create in your Documents folder.

Once you have selected a location for your OmniFocus archive, that location will be used each time you Archive Old Items… or Open Archive…. If you would like to change this location, move your current OmniFocus archive file (Archive.ofocus-archive) out of the selected folder. The next time you use an archive-related command, OmniFocus will prompt you to select a new location.

Importing an Existing Archive

If you would like to import your existing Archive file from OmniFocus 4, OmniFocus 3, or OmniFocus 2, but don’t yet want to archive additional items, select Open Archive… from the File menu. If you would like to import your existing Archive, and also want to archive additional items, select Archive Old Items… from the File menu.

You must then select the location where you want the imported Archive file to be stored (not the location of the Archive file to import). If you have recently installed and configured OmniFocus, you will likely be shown a location in iCloud Drive. You are welcome to choose any location in iCloud Drive, or on your local hard drive, but please read the note about Cloud Storage and File Sharing before selecting another cloud storage location.

As long as the location you have chosen to store your imported Archive file doesn’t already contain an OmniFocus 4 Archive file, OmniFocus 4 will search for an OmniFocus 3 archive; if it can’t find one, it will search for an OmniFocus 2 archive. You won't be asked where to select an import location, as OmniFocus 4 already knows where to look. If an existing Archive file is found, OmniFocus 4 will offer to import it, specifying which version of OmniFocus last updated the archive; if multiple Archive files are found, OmniFocus 4 will offer to import the most recent.

Depending on which command you selected from the File menu, you will be presented with options to Import Archive, Create New Archive, or Cancel; please read the available options, and select the best choice.

If you have an Archive file that you would like to import, but which is no longer stored in the default location for an earlier version of OmniFocus, you can still import it. Place it in the same folder you are going to select after using either Open Archive… or Archive Old Items…; OmniFocus 4 will detect that it is from an earlier version, and offer to import it.

Restoring from an Archive

If you ever want to look at your archived data, choose Open Archive… from the File menu; your archive opens in its own window. To retrieve items from an archive you are browsing, drag and drop them into the desired location in your main OmniFocus window (copy and paste works, as well). In either case, a copy remains behind in the archives; the archived copy can be retained as a record or manually deleted to keep things tidy.

Backups of OmniFocus Data

Backups are handled differently on a Mac than they are an iPhone or iPad, but on every device our goal to ensure that your data is safe, and can easily be restored, if needed.

Backups on Mac

On a Mac, OmniFocus automatically backs up your data once every two hours, and keeps up to 100 backups of your data at a time. This is about two weeks worth if you run OmniFocus continuously, but is more for most people, since backups do not happen unless OmniFocus is running. Backups are also made prior to changing sync accounts, migrating your data, and even before restoring from a backup.

To restore a backed-up version of your database, choose Show Backups in Finder from the File menu, then double-click on the backup that you would like to view. It opens in its own separate OmniFocus window, so you can determine if it is the backup that you want to use. If you’d like to use this backup, click the Revert to This Backup button to replace your primary OmniFocus data with the data contained in the backup. If you are syncing, this will also force all of your other devices to re-sync, bringing them all up to date.

Backups Folder

OmniFocus 4 changes where your backups are stored, to make it easier to find them, or to include them in your Mac backups.

If you are not syncing your Desktop & Documents then you will have a special OmniFocus folder inside your Documents folder, that contains a Backups folder. This folder isn't actually part of your Documents folder, but is in a special location inside the OmniFocus storage on your system, which allows macOS to show it here.

If you are syncing your Desktop & Documents (see the Store your Desktop and Documents folders in iCloud Drive section of the Apple User Guide’s Store files in iCloud Drive on Mac), then this folder can be found in On My Mac, which you can add to your Finder sidebar in Finder Settings (see the Apple User Guide article Customize the Finder sidebar on Mac).

Backups on iPhone and iPad

On an iPhone or iPad, OmniFocus automatically backs up your data once per day, and can store backups on your local device, or in iCloud Drive. More information about using Backups on an iPhone or iPad can be found in the Backups settings section.

Migrating Your Data

When you update from earlier to later versions of OmniFocus, you may be prompted to migrate your database to a format capable of supporting the features of the latest version of the app. As noted above, the initial release of OmniFocus 4 is fully sync compatible with the latest release of OmniFocus 3, but if you have been syncing with older versions of OmniFocus, then a migration may be required.

When you first launch a version of OmniFocus that’s compatible with the new database format, or use Migrate Database…, you’ll see a Migration window which lists any clients that need to be updated to a later version, as well as which features will be enabled.

If you’re running a very old version of OmniFocus on a device that syncs with your current database, it may not be eligible for migration to the new database format. If this is the case, it will be indicated in the Migration window, and you’ll be asked to disconnect older versions. Choose Show Devices, then tap or click on Registered Devices, and Unregister those older versions before proceeding with the upgrade by re-selecting Migrate Database….

If you prefer to maintain sync compatibility with a very old version of OmniFocus, you can choose not to update to the new database format. However, newer features of OmniFocus that require the updated format will not be available on any devices that sync with that database.

When all of your devices with OmniFocus have versions that support the latest database format, the Migration window gives the green light to make the transition to the new, improved format. Choose Migrate Database, and OmniFocus will sync your database in the new format to all of your devices. If you choose Later, you’ll be prompted to migrate again in one day (and you can always use Migrate Database… to migrate sooner).

In the unlikely chance that something goes wrong during the migration process, OmniFocus automatically makes a backup that you can revert to, if needed.

Exporting From OmniFocus

Your OmniFocus data belongs to you. If you want to send it to other applications, run scripts on it, publish it on the web, or do other exciting stuff with it that we haven’t even thought of, you’re more than welcome to export it to the format of your liking.

Exporting on a Mac offers a variety of formats; exporting on iPhone or iPad offers the CSV format. If there is another export format you would find valuable on iPhone or iPad, please send us an email and let us know.

To export your data on iPhone or iPad, use Export to CSV in Data settings.

To export your data on a Mac, choose Export… from the File menu, and then choose a format and a location. The available formats are:

OmniFocus Document — This is an ordinary OmniFocus document, like the one that you use for your primary OmniFocus database. If you open this file in OmniFocus, it will appear in its own window, and you can work with it normally, including moving items into your primary OmniFocus database. Keep in mind that most settings are stored in and read from your primary database, rather than being pulled from the document that you are viewing, which can result in unexpected behavior.
Plain Text — This is a lightweight plain text version of your data, able to be opened in the text editor of your choice. OmniFocus’s plain text export is inspired by TaskPaper, the to-do list editor from Hog Bay Software. This export should be generally compatible with TaskPaper, and able to be imported with a minimum of fuss. See our OmniFocus TaskPaper Reference Guide support article for more information.
Simple HTML — This is a single-file HTML version of your data; the stylesheet and even the icons are embedded in the HTML. If you are proficient with CSS, you should be able to restyle the result however you like.
Comma Separated Values (CSV and CSV UTF-16) — CSV is an open syntax for applications old and new, on all platforms: all of your data in a plain text file with its columns separated by commas. Once you have your data in CSV format, it’s easy to run scripts on it, convert it to some other format, or open it in applications that understand it (like OmniPlan). If you’re having trouble persuading other applications to read the non-ASCII characters in your CSV file, such as accented letters or non-Roman characters, try exporting with the UTF–16 CSV option.
Backup Document (OmniFocus) — This export option creates a file in a format (.ofocus-backup) that is almost the same as the standard OmniFocus database format, with one key difference: unlike a standard OmniFocus database file, when you open a backup in OmniFocus, the option to Revert to This Backup appears right below the toolbar. Click this button to replace your primary OmniFocus data with the data contained in the backup. If you are syncing, this will also force all of your other devices to re-sync, bringing them all up to date.

Troubleshooting

Here are a few troubleshooting tips you can try, using OmniFocus’s built in self-help features.

Finding Misplaced Items

Have you lost track of something? Try these tips:

Use the Search Field (with the three options for Here, Remaining, and Everything).
Try using the Completed & Changed perspectives to track down missing actions or projects.
Check the Attachment List for images or other files that you may have attached 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.

Improving Performance

Is OmniFocus a little slower than you’d like? Try these tips:

Sync all of your devices regularly! This reduces sync wait times and generally improves speed and performance across the board.
Compact your database to remove unneeded edit histories; if you are syncing, this will happen automatically, once all devices have synced the same information.
Archive projects that have been completed or dropped. Moving them to the Archive gives you a more streamlined database, while still being able to restore items in the future.
Delete unneeded attachments using the Attachment List, in order to lessen the sync load and storage space required for your OmniFocus data.
More information can also be found in our Troubleshooting OmniFocus Performance support article.

Sync Settings Reference

Account Name and Password

These fields allow you to enter the sync account name and password.

The account name cannot be changed while sync is turned on. To switch sync accounts, tap Turn Sync Off, then enter information for the new account.

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. Learn more about OmniFocus encryption here.

Manage Your Omni Account

Opens a link to Omni Sync Server, where you can change your password, update your email address, enable Mail Drop, and access your sync server data.

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.

Registered Devices

View a list of devices registered to sync with your cloud database, along with some other useful 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.

Replace Sync Data

Replace the OmniFocus data on the sync server with the data stored on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone. This can be used when you encounter a sync conflict, and you are sure that the local copy of your data is the one you want. This may also be a good time to check our online help or talk to our Support Humans.

Reveal Stored Password

View the password for your sync account as it is locally stored and encrypted on your device. This requires giving OmniFocus permission to reveal your secure data using Face ID or Touch ID, so another person accessing your device will not be able to see your password.

Sync Disabled

This setting isn’t recommended, but if you plan to use OmniFocus exclusively on your Mac, iPad, or iPhone, and syncing to a remote server is either not allowed or simply not desired, you can choose to leave OmniFocus’s sync features disabled. In all other cases, having a cloud-based copy of your data is a great way to rest at ease that your work won’t be lost if anything happens to the device you are using.

Sync Log

A sync log with a list of all your recent OmniFocus database sync activity, and the reasons for each sync event along with their durations. If anything seems strange here, you can copy the log for use when contacting Omni support.

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.

Syncing with an Omni Account

Omni maintains the Omni Sync Server, which is designed to work well with OmniFocus, while providing unique features like Mail Drop. We recommend this as the best sync solution for most users, since it’s the one for which we can provide the most support; it also happens to be free! If you have an Omni Account, you can use our sync service.

If you choose to entrust your data with the Omni Sync Server, we’ll treat it with utmost care and responsibility (see our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy). To set up sync with the Omni Sync Server, get started by creating a new Omni Account here.

Syncing With a WebDAV Server

Omni Sync Server is a great solution for most OmniFocus users, but if your sync needs require that your data be kept completely within a system you control, you can configure OmniFocus to sync using another WebDAV server.

Omni is not able to provide support for third party servers, so this option is not recommended unless you have a specific need for control over your own server, and you have the technical capability to administrate it. If you choose to go this route, OmniFocus sync is compatible with any WebDAV standards-compliant server, whether remote (there are many fine providers available) or hosted on your own Mac.

If data privacy is your primary concern when syncing, you may also wish to disable the Push feature in OmniFocus preferences (found in the Push row of Sync settings). Push registrations contain nothing specific to your database, but do represent information exchanged outside your server. See this support article to help determine whether push sync is right for your needs.

While services such as Dropbox, OneDrive, and Google Drive are great for file sharing, they don’t handle OmniFocus data properly. Using a file sharing service as a place to store your OmniFocus data can corrupt it. Please do not use file sharing services as a means of synchronizing your OmniFocus data, or non-iCloud Drive services for storing your OmniFocus data.

Turn Sync Off

Available on Mac
Available on iPhone and iPad

Turn off sync and use OmniFocus with a local database only. Leaving sync turned off is not recommended. If you need to switch sync accounts, tap this to turn off the currently connected account and use the setup dialog to connect to the new one.

Automation

This chapter needs revision, and does not fully reflect the current state of OmniFocus 4.

Omni Automation (Pro)

For more information about Omni Automation, please visit Omni Automation in OmniFocus, and read OmniFocus 4: What’s New in Omni Automation?.

Contents

Welcome to OmniFocus

A Message From Ken

Next Steps

New in OmniFocus 4

Universal Purchase

Outline

App Navigation

App Appearance

App Customization

Forecast Perspective

Custom Perspectives

Apple Watch

Nearby Perspective

Focus

Keyboard Support

Widgets

Sharing

Supported Languages

Updated in OmniFocus 4

Accessibility

Attachments

Automation

Archive

Backups

Menus

Dates

Default Perspectives

Notes

Quick Open

Reference Manual

Repeats

Settings

Standard vs. Pro

OmniFocus

OmniFocus Pro

Getting Started

A Trusted System

Capturing Ideas

Organizing Your Thoughts

Before You Go

Perspectives

Built-In Perspectives

Default Perspectives

Completed and Changed

Perspectives Bar

Perspectives Bar Shortcuts

Quick Open

Quick Open (Mac)

Quick Open (iPhone and iPad)

Perspectives List

View Options

Custom Layout

Inbox

Inbox View Options

Inbox Outline

Inbox Sidebar

Item Status

Cleaning Up Resolved Items

Projects

Projects View Options

Projects Outline

Projects Sidebar

Miscellaneous Project

Project Type

Project Status

Folder Status

Tags

Tags View Options

Tags Outline

Tags Sidebar

Tag Status

Tag Sorting

Forecast

Forecast View Options

Forecast Outline

On Hold Projects

Forecast Outline: Flexible

Forecast Outline: Organized

Forecast Outline: Calendars