Is there a simple way to export OmniFocus actions to notes in Evernote?
I would like to trim down my OmniFocus projects to just things that are actionable, and I have 100+ “actions” that are really just reference items I’ve squirrelled away in there over the years. Moving them all manually would be a bit time consuming, so if there’s a way to do it en masse, I’d love to hear it.
If you have the evernote helper, just right click, services > Add to Evernote
Ah, good call, thanks!
This sounds like exactly what I need, but it’s not working. Evernote and Evernote helper are installed, but when I select an item and choose “Add to Evernote”, nothing happens except Evernote shows “Connecting…” and the Evernote stripey bar “moves”. The “connecting” never goes away.
Other services in OmniFocus seem to work as expected (Send to Fantastical, for example).
When I tried a pdf, the “Add to Evernote” service works from the Finder.
I’ve made sure I’m running the latest (not beta) versions of OF, Evernote, Mac OS X 10.9.4. I tried restarting Evernote and reinstalling Evernote. (I used Evernote’s instructions, however, and did not discard related files like plists, etc, when I reinstalled.)
Nothing worked.
I don’t know if this is an Apple problem or an OmniFocus problem or an Evernote one. Does Evernote install the service by default, or is it some third party thing I installed a long time ago and never used?
If anyone knows, that might help me track down a solution.
I’m 99% sure that it’s something that Evernote installs when it’s first installed. I know it’s not something I installed myself
I’m having this exact same problem. I’m on a work computer behind some firewall stuff, so I thought that might be it? But it sounds like you’re having the same issue…
I’m having the same problem. “Add to Evernote” works from other apps - including OmniOutliner - but not from OmniFocus. Everything’s the latest install, but all I get is “Connecting”, and no note from OF shows up in Evernote.
It seems to work if you
For whatever reason, the menu item you get when right-clicking is broken.
Thanks for that - I just discovered I can send text to Evernote using right-click: I have to actually select the text of the action, not merely select the line.
In other words, if I click to the left of the text and select the task, right-clicking will not send the text to Evernote.
But if I click inside the text itself and then select the line of text, right-clicking does work.
BTW, using Services in the OmniFocus menu works the same. Selecting the line doesn’t work, selecting the text of the line does.
Not sure I follow. I find there’s no way at all I can select the title text of an OF action, right-click and add via “Add to Evernote” and have it actually work. In fact, even the Services menu doesn’t seem to work with the titles of OF actions (it does seem to work for the “info” section though).
If I click to the left of the action, to select the task, it highlights the task in light blue. “Add to Evernote” won’t work.
If I click inside the actual text of the action and select any or all of the text, it highlights it in deep blue. Now, “Add to Evernote” will work for me, whether I do it through the OmniFocus menu or through right-clicking.
None of the methods below worked for me:
selecting the item
selecting text within an item
right-clicking to access Services
using the Services entry from the menu bar
All seem to do nothing except put Evernote into an endless “Connecting…” cycle.
BUT: selecting text from the Note field in the Inspector panel did add a new, unnamed entry to Evernote!
Of course, this is not terribly useful. I need both the task and the notes added to Evernote (in a single entry).
Thanks for testing this, folks. I’m reporting it to OmniFocus (even though I’m not sure it’s their problem). And I’m glad I’m not alone in seeing this odd behavior.
I got a response from the OmniFocus people. They confirmed that Evernote will not import a selected action via the services menu. Evernote isn’t parsing the OmniFocus data properly.
The OmniFocus people claim that you should be able to send selected text to Evernote. For me, this only works if the selected text is in the Inspector panel.
One possible work-around is to export the OmniFocus action as plain text. This throws every action together into a single document. I think the CSV format will be easier to cut-and-paste from. It’s easier to see which notes go with which action.
I’m not sure how scriptable Evernote is (my guess is “not very”, since it’s cross-platform), but maybe there’s a way I can have Evernote create a note for each line in a CSV file. That would be awesome.
I am currently in the process of taking my reference lists out of Omnifocus and moving them to Evernote. I am basically trying to accomplish the exact same thing you laid out in your original post. I found a quick work around.
Step 1: Open Evernote and create a search query for notes created today. This will display all your newly added notes from your OmniFocus actions
Step 2: Organize the OmniFocus actions you wish to migrate. For example, I have a lot of photography gear on my wishlist to buy. I created a project folder called “Photog to Buy” and moved all my projects containing the various lenses, lighting, and other things into this folder. Organize everything like this. I made each of these newly created project folders into its own note in Evernote.
Step 3: Click on the project folder. This will display all the projects. Go into the View menu and select “Show All Notes”. This will expand every action and display all your notes for ever project and action in the folder.
Step 4: With the project folder still selected, go to File and select “Export”. I chose to create a folder on my desktop called “Omni to Ever” and saved each project folder export as an HTML file.
Step 5: Open the newly created HTML file. This will open in your default browser. The resulting webpage will be a very organized layout of all your projects and actions from OmniFocus. If you had notes with the action/project, they will be displayed because you chose to display them all before exporting.
Step 6: Cmd A to select the entire webpage text. Right click, services, send to Evernote
Step 7: Go to Evernote and look in your note list. Remember, you have a search query already open to display all notes created today. Your new note should be at the top of the list if you have sorted by updated date. Mine show as “Untitled”. Look over the note. It should be in a very organized and nicely formatted list as a note in Evernote. Verify all the content and rename the note as you wish.
Step 8: Go back to OmniFocus, select the project folder, and change the status to Dropped. I decided to drop instead of delete in the event something goes wrong and I need to find it again.
Step 9: Reorganize your newly input lists in Evernote as you see fit.
This may not be optimal for everyone, but my goal was to create a list inside Evernote from several actions/projects inside OmniFocus. It literally took seconds to do for each one.
I hope this helps.
