View or Counter of New Inbox Items

I typically use the Forecast view almost exclusively. Would love to be able to email tasks to OmniFocus for example but they drop into Inbox and remain unseen in Forecast view as they do not have a date attached. Wondering if there is a way to see a Counter or Number on the Inbox tab so I will be reminded to review new Inbox items and assign due dates.

Does anyone else work this way and have thoughts?

There is no option to display a counter in the Mac version. However a counter is displayed in iOS version.

However you can set an indicator on the Perspectives button in the Mac version. Go to Preferences - Notifications and under the Highlight perspectives heading, select Inbox. This will place a coloured indicator bar on the left hand side of the Inbox button.

It doesn’t jump out at you but once you know it’s there, it does alert you to Inbox items.

Thanks! Really appreciate the thinking. However, have those options selected and emailed a task to OmniFocus. It is now in the Inbox but I do not see any indicator. Am I looking in the wrong place?

The indicator is that grey coloured bar down the left-hand side of the button.

Open up the preferences and toggle the indicator on/off and you will see that bar appear/disappear. Same for the Forecast button (red coloured bar). See below.

Indicator on:
OF-on

Indicator off:
OF-off

Granted it’s not very noticeable like a badge count, but once you know it’s there at least you know something is waiting in the inbox.

I am guessing that you could use a style to make it brighter - one of the styles I tried (Iris) makes it more visible.

OF-Iris

Thanks! Your explanation makes perfect sense but does not match what I am seeing. When I view the tab you are referencing I always see the darker gray bar. I have assigned due dates to all items in the Inbox and there are no NEW items in there. When would it go away?

When there is nothing in the Inbox, the bar should disappear.

After assigning a Project and Context to an item, I click the ‘Clean Up’ button and the items are removed from the inbox and the bar disappears.

To make this work, in Preferences I have this set:
OF2-Pref

Ah! I understand. Thanks, that’s very helpful. I do not use Project or Context. Just my way of organizing. That was leaving everything in the Inbox.

Will setup a general project and see how that goes. Appreciate the insights!