Quick Entry

Please note that this section currently discusses the Mac version of Quick Entry; more information about the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Vision Pro 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.

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.

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.

Importing from OmniOutliner (Mac)

OmniFocus integrates with OmniOutliner, so you can outline an agenda in OmniOutliner and then easily bring it to OmniFocus and take action. There are three ways to bring your OmniOutliner data into OmniFocus:

• Using the Import OmniOutliner Document menu command, OmniFocus imports an OmniOutliner outline of your choice into your OmniFocus database. The outline’s rows become OmniFocus items, and its columns become fields for those items (you can choose what OmniFocus item field corresponds to each outline column as part of the import process).
• Drag a selection of rows from an OmniOutliner document onto a project or group in OmniFocus, and they’ll become actions within that project or group with hierarchy preserved. As with the Import command, when you release the drag OmniFocus will ask how you’d like data in the outline’s columns to be interpreted.
• Select any number of rows in an OmniOutliner document and Copy them (Command-C). Paste them (Command-V) into the Inbox or into another selected OmniFocus project or tag, and the copied rows will appear in place with hierarchy preserved. As with the Import menu command, when you paste in a valid location OmniFocus asks how you’d like the data to be interpreted.

OmniFocus for the Web

OmniFocus for the Web is a browser-based companion app that works in tandem with OmniFocus for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Vision Pro 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.