OmniFocus 1.0 Mail Preferences

Introduction

OmniFocus has a Mail rule that can be enabled for those road warriors that have an e-mail enabled portable device (i.e. iPhone). This feature comes in handy for those times you are away from the computer but still want to capture actions that you need to do.

Setup & Usage

You can enable the OmniFocus Mail Preferences by clicking OmniFocus->Preferences->Mail from the main menu as shown here:

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Notice that I have configured OmniFocus to scan e-mails sent from me for subject lines that begin with “–”. Any text after the “–” will be turned into an action. For example, here are some e-mail subject lines and their corresponding OmniFocus actions:

• E-mail Subject: –Replace the lightbulb in the downstairs hallway
• OmniFocus Action: A new action called “Replace the lightbulb in the downstairs hallway” will appear in your OmniFocus Inbox.

• E-mail Subject: –Replace the lightbulb in the downstairs hallway::Repairs@Home
• OmniFocus Action: A new action called “Replace the lightbulb in the downstairs hallway” will appear in your “Repairs” project within the “Home” context.

You can also use ‘#’ and ‘$’ notation within the e-mail subject to set start/stop times for an action as well as duration. I won’t show examples as you can read more about it more via the OmniFocus Help documentation.

After you have enabled the OmniFocus Mail Preferences, you’ll want to double check that the Apple Mail application has the new rule set. This can be found via the Apple Mail main menu by clicking on Preferences->Rules as shown here:

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Click the edit button of the “Send to OmniFocus” mail rule to see details as shown here:

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Caveats

There are some caveats to all this, however. One is that Mail rules don’t always fire in a timely fashion. This means that you could have a bunch of actions build up in your Mail Inbox. If that is the case, you can always manually force the rules to run by clicking on Message->Apply Rules from the main menu of the Mail application as shown here:

Another issue happens while you are using your mobile device. Lets say you haven’t left your desktop on while running the Mail application (this also assumes you have IMAP capabilities between your mobile device and your desktop). Your Inbox on your mobile device can fill up with e-mail messages to yourself. These messages won’t get turned into actions until the Mail rules get applied by turning your desktop computer back on again and launching the Mail application.

Tags: OmniFocus

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