OmniFocus GTD: Create Actions from Mail
October 11th, 2007 by Adam Sneller
If you are fortunate enough to participate in the alpha-testing program for OmniFocus, you will likely start to hunger for one super-tasty feature that is almost/maybe/but not quit-yet supported… the ability to send email to the OmniFocus Quick Entry window.
I know, I know, it’s only a matter of nano-moments before the coding ninjas at OmniGroup introduce full Mail integration with Clipping Services. But for those of us with ants-in-the-pants (or who just really, really, really need email support NOW) this post is for you!
Here, you will find an AppleScript that lets you create an action in the OmniFocus Quick Entry window from one (or more) messages in Apple Mail. Simply highlight the desired email, run the script, and a new action appears with a note containing the content of the message and a link back to Apple Mail.
Other scripts have been tried along these lines in the past. But this approach has two distinct advantages. First, you get instant confirmation that the script actually worked. But more importantly, you can leverage OmniGroup’s existing technology to edit the action’s project, context and other fields, prior to sending it to OmniFocus!
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Requirements
- OmniFocus (Revision 92714 or greater)
- MailTags 2.1
- Mail Act-On (Recommended)
Installation
- Download and extract Mail to Quick-Entry to your desktop.
- Open the folder and move the “Mail to Quick-Entry” script to the “~/Library/Scripts/Applications/Mail/” folder on your computer (”~” is shorthand for your “home” folder).
For keyboard access, I highly recommend Scott Morrison’s free plug-in, Mail Act-On. Alternately, you can also create a Trigger in QuickSilver. Or you can even supersede the entire Apple Script Menu with the more versatile FastScripts by Red Sweater Software.
Usage
- Highlight one or more messages in Apple Mail and run the script.
- The Quick Entry window then displays a new action with a appears with your new action.
Special Thanks
Thank you to Tim Wood and Curt Clifton for helping to eliminate that “one last bug”!
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on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 4:58 pm and is filed under OmniFocus GTD, AppleScript, GTD.
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October 12th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Macupdate indicate:
Platform: PPC???
October 12th, 2007 at 10:09 am
zxspectrum - thanks for catching this. I don’t see any reason why this wouldn’t run on Intel (I just happen to be on a Power PC).
October 12th, 2007 at 11:29 am
it works perfectly..thanks.
October 17th, 2007 at 8:39 am
Does this mean that you have abandoned Entourage? I have been enjoying your entries on it (although I won’t hold it against you if you did abandon - it’s pretty quirky). I love the omnigroup’s products, but am stuck on an exchange server at work. Does this mean no more Entourage help?
October 17th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Rob - thanks for your comments. Don’t worry - I”ll be back! Entourage is still the most stable solution on the market, and I’ve got pretty left to say on it. But when you grow up with ADD/HDAD (its a gift), occationally you have to accomidate a random neuron firing, or two!
Best,
-Adam
October 25th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
I’m glad Rob asked this question about Entourage… Let me expand on it a bit:
I am an alpha tester for OmniFocus, and I love it. However, I’m coming up against some limits to its usefulness, and considering moving (back) to Entourage, which I had tried long ago, and didn’t stick with for a few reasons.
Here’s the trouble: While OmniFocus rocks in terms of its treatment of GTD concepts, it’s not a complete solution for all of my digital artifacts (yet?). For example:
1) I have OmniFocus acting as the repository for all tasks, organized by project. I have approximately 100 projects in total.
2) I have a ~/Desktop/Projects folder with subfolders that mirror the project list in OmniFocus, so that I have a place to store all of my different files, OmniOutliner lists, etc associated with my given projects
3) I have a hierarchy of mailboxes in Mail.app that (you guessed it) mirrors exactly the hierarchy of folders and projects in OmniOutliner, so that I have a place to store project-specific email.
4) I keep a journal using MacJournal, and have begun to create, as necessary, subjournals in accordance with each of my projects in OmniFocus so that I can easily keep free-form notes and journal entries associated with my projects.
As you can see, this is a nightmare trying to keep all these artifacts in sync, review them in a cohesive manner, etc. I’m doing it because this level of organization is so critical to me, but the price I’m paying is MUCH higher than I’d like. Unfortunately, OmniFocus just doesn’t go far enough. I want my GTD app to be able to be my ‘one stop shopping’ for project management, period.
Add all this up and it brings us back to Entourage. I left Entourage after giving it a serious multi-month try a couple years ago. It didn’t feel like a mac app, had the multi-screen project wizard abomination (yes, Adam, I saw your post on this and the apple script that fixes it, thank you), and there were other issues as well. But for all it’s warts, its the only app out there (that I’ve seen) that has this comprehensive all-in-one kind of functionality. Moreover, it’s the only app out there with this kind of functionality that has a usable calendar (that can sync with my iphone and Zimbra - very important).
With all that said, I’d like to ask you Adam - given that you’re someone who has apparently power-used Entourage from a GTD point of view, AND you’re someone who has experience with OmniFocus, what do you recommend here? Can you see my plight with the multiple parallel project hierarchies across different apps? How the heck do you manage this? And is it going to be anything less than heartache for me to move backward to Entourage after having used the most excellent OmniFocus?
If the guys out there at OMNI are reading this, please take heed. Power GTDers need even more functionality out of OmniFocus. I know you guys are trying to keep it lightweight (and I understand some mail integration is on the way), but right now it’s just not enough! And yes, I’ll post something to the alpha users’ feedback list about this too…
Thanks all!
October 27th, 2007 at 2:30 am
Well, I didn’t want to ruin the suspense… but oh well. All this time that I’ve been silent; I have been (secretly) working on a way to add an Outline View to Microsoft Entourage. The prototype uses OmniOutliner Pro (much the same as kgtd). But eventually, I hope to migrate this to OmniFocus (one reason I’ve started posting about it).
By-the-way, Chris, thank you very much for your comments! I know exactly what you are talking about. Apple Mail, OmniFocus and Finder are three separate applications and (unless you weld these together under something like crm4mac) there is no apparent means of insuring referencial integrity between your projects. On the other hand, Entourage makes it such a pain-in-the-butt to manipulate project folders, that these are probably best used for tracking your super-projects (or, as David calls them, your “areas of responsibility”).
One of the things I do, that helps me focus things a bit, is to name all my projects using a hybrid camel notation (all you programmers should know what I’m talking about). The idea is to add a sort-of hierarchy to your projects by building a string of folder names that get progressively more specific as you go. For example:
fa_halloween
fa_momsBirthday
me_blog_articles
me_blog_site
me_gtd_entourage
In this case, “fa” = family, “me” = me (you get the idea). Also, notice that “me_blog” has two sub-projects (”_articles” and “_site”).
I promise I’ll have more on all this soon. In the meantime, I’ll be releasing my first cocoa plug-in for Entourage next week. I’m pretty excited about it (this one took some doing)… but I’ll let you guys read about it all then!
Best,
-Adam
October 31st, 2007 at 11:58 am
what about a script to use to start a letter in word, using a template that I created to pattern letterhead stationery?
Thanks, Tim
November 1st, 2007 at 12:49 am
Tim - that’s a good idea. I think Paul Berkowitz might have designed a set of scripts along these lines. You could probably find these listed on:
http://scriptbuilders.net/
March 5th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Hey Adam, thanks for this very cool script.
Have a problem: the link to the message in the OmniFocus-Action does not work. (link is something like that: message://20080305034151.75524110247@mail.cinergy.ch)
and if I click it, Mail should launch and open the message. but there is an Error: No Application found (and a the Mail Logo is shown in the Error window)
Can you fix this? Or can you publish the code (or make the file editable)? Maby I can fix it myself…
thanks, simon
March 28th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Simon - this script requires MailTags 2.1 in order to work. But actually, the new version of OmniFocus includes this feature (so you no longer need this script to process your email)!!!
I have a follow-up post that discusses this and how to use the OmniFocus: Send to Inbox function to accomplish the same thing.
Hope this helps!
-Adam