Goodbye (and thank you), OmniFocus.
I didn't really expect to be writing this in 2025.
The folks at The Omni Group have been great. I have used their entire suite of products, and specifically my usage of OmniFocus began on 3/9/2012, when I first bought a copy of OmniFocus 1 for Mac. I visited them a few years back in their Seattle office, and really have enjoyed a great relationship with them. The Omni Group are a dedicated group of people who are kind, knowledgable, and dedicated to excellent apps.
But lately (as in OmniFocus 4 - beta and onward), I have felt that I am fighting frustration more than tackling tasks in OmniFocus. Which is sad. The Omni Group's embracing of Apple's SwiftUI framework for OmniFocus 4 was a tad too early in my opinion. They are building atop scaffolding which appears shaky (at least as represented in OmniFocus 4.) The SwiftUI implementation was a noble (and difficult) attempt by the Omni Group, but right now it's a bridge too far for me.
What Happened?
After almost 13 years of using OmniFocus on and off, I have moved on (well, back) - to the excellent, always-polished Things, by Cultured Code.
The reason for my move? Bugs in OmniFocus, for one.
A few of note:
OmniFocus for iPad doesn't have the same keyboard shortcuts as the Mac version unfortunately. I like to launch into an enclosing project from a task, and on the Mac typing Option-Command-R is the way to do so. On the iPad version this doesn't exist. You can tap and hold a task name, and that action is an option in the menu, but it's not a keyboard shortcut here.
Editing a URL link on iOS or iPadOS is maddening, and nearly impossible as you have to try not to launch into the URL by tapping behind the link and then deleting it, so holding down the spacebar on the iPhone to move the iOS cursor within the URL. It's simply not polished at this point, a year plus after the public release of OmniFocus 4.
Again, using a keyboard on iPad, searching a task and then trying to get into its parent project is a bit of a chore, like above. You have to perform a two-finger click right-click gesture on the iPad keyboard's trackpad to be able to summon the contextual menu to be able to see the "Show in Projects" action.
Sometimes the view that you're in on a mobile device gets frozen if you're applying a tag, and you have to cancel out, force quit the app, and come back - to find that the task was tagged and is now somewhere in your database. It's frustrating.
About once every day the keyboard commands just don't work, and I'm forced to force-quit the app. Once I launch it again the shortcuts are there.
I get that the majority of power users might do their task management in OmniFocus on a Mac, but that's not me.
The Mac version is clean and bug-free, and that is the perfect representation of OmniFocus right now. However, I'm about 60 percent versus 40 percent when using Mac versus on an iOS/iPadOS device. OmniFocus on a mobile device feels like it was a great attempt, and is 70% there (the Quick Open feature is a welcome addition, for example). But I implore you to try to drag and drop a task into another task to create a parent-child task relationship. Or try putting one of your mobile devices into Focus mode and selecting the details of a child task thereafter. You literally have to leave the current Perspective view and come back to it to attain a state where you can see the task details expand. It is very maddening.
What Now?
Goodbye, OmniFocus.
With all of this in play, and a life and two business to run, unfortunately OmniFocus no longer feels like a trusted partner. I have put forth a lot of time and effort into testing and reporting bugs, and I simply don't have the mental or temporal bandwidth any longer to do so. I think that my usage of OmniFocus was a nice chapter to have that unfortunately no longer serves me. I'm saddened, because I'll probably miss the convenience of sequential tasks, which no other task manager has.
Hello, Things.
When one door closes, another opens. What lies past this familiar door, Things, is a task manager that I can trust and that will scale with me.
Because I can depend on it (and have always been able to), I am using Things, which was actually my first love (1/27/2012 was my first paid version). Things has been rock-solid, smoothed out, and totally convenient ever since the release of Things 3 in 2017. The app was previously lacking in some power features before that time, but has since stepped up its game and offered indispensable features.
Things Features That Make it Amazing to Use:
- Checklists. Actual checklists. It is so nice to be able to create one to-do and have many children to-do's in there, and it only represent one to-do on your
⭐️ Todaylist in Things. - Keyboard Shortcuts. The consistent and ever-present keyboard shortcuts in Things are not to be beat. Example: when a to-do is selected in Things, I can type Control-C to tag it with "Calls", so that it is included in that list when sorting later.
- Apple Shortcuts Integration. While OmniFocus has Perspectives (internally in the app) which allow you to view tasks from different, well, perspectives, Things leans into Apple Shortcuts integration that allows for powerful actions in the app. You can add an Apple Shortcuts widget to your Home Screen for example, and have all sorts of great automation for Things right there. I use it for viewing all actionable projects right now, seeing my Someday list for a weekly review, etc. I will be posting a bit on how to construct these coming up.
- A clean and thoughtful design. There is no doubting it - this is Things' tentpole feature. Cultured Code have won two Apple Design Awards, and you can see why when you open the app.
- List Views. There are some hidden, and some ever-present in Things. They are:
- Always-present list views: Inbox, Today, Upcoming, Anytime, Someday, Logbook.
- Hidden list views (discoverable by searching for the name of each in the app): Tomorrow, All Projects, Repeating, Deadlines.
The Quick Find feature in Things 3 allows you to find even more lists!
- Sync. Things' syncing is lightning-fast. I love being able to lift my wrist and tap on the Things for Apple Watch app and see my to-do's synced immediately.
Finally...
Never say never. But if your tool is no longer serving you, it might be time to move on. You can always come back. But time is marching forward, and you'd better spend it wisely! I am grateful to have been able to use OmniFocus to help me, but Things is going to carry the torch forward.
Links to Check Out if You Are Moving to Things
My book, "GTD With Things 3", was written and released in May 2017, on the same day that Things 3 was released. You can buy a copy from Apple or Amazon, here.
This iMore video from 2018 featuring Werner Jainek, the CEO of Cultured Code, discusses the thought and process that goes into Things.
You can always send me an email if you want to discuss any specifics.