Where does a deleted item go? iPhone, iPad, or Mac

This morning, before having an adequate amount of coffee, I deleted an action on my iPad. Where do I go to retrieve it? I don’t see it on my Mac, either.
From now on, I promise to consume an adequate amount of coffee before opening Omnifocus.

Thanks!

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It gets automatically deleted. There is no trash bin in OmniFocus.

Perhaps undo would help you recover?

Every time you quit OmniFocus, it will save a backup to the OmniFocus backup folder on your Mac. Go to File > Show Backups to open an OmniFocus archive document in a new window, Then you can copy/paste your deleted projects/tasks.

I think OmniFocus will keep the last 100 backups. It should do one daily backup plus a backup when you quit OmniFocus.

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Perhaps you should consider not deleting tasks at all. By simply checking off a task it’ll be completed safely, & should you require it for any reason your ‘completed’ perspective will reveal it. I used to delete tasks routinely and soon came to regret it. Now I rarely delete unless I make a mistake in entering tasks.

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This is why I am requesting a trash bin for deleted tasks for years. I hope more people write to the support so the request gets accepted one day.

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AND TODAY IT HAPPENED! I Just lost 2 Tasks while I was uncautious deleting some notes of a tasks I accidentally deleted the tasks, also with notes inside them. I directly switched my iPhone and iPad into Airplane mode, but it was too late they were already synced. So I headed to my Mac to get the latest Backup. Luckily I could import that and try to see the changes.

Sadly there is no optional preference to active a confirmation Dialoge (like: Do you really want to delete that task?) before deleting a task. If I would be able to have the Shortcut “Command + Delete” to delete a task and another shortcut (delete key) to delete words in the task I would have no conflicts at all.

Another solution would be just to introduce a trash bin, so I can get out my accidentally deleted tasks. Retrieving Backups is not comfortable at all! Also UNDO and REDO don’t help if you quit the APP and you just want to get back the task you deleted before.

I really don’t understand the Philosophy behind this. The tools for the tasks of my life is not securely handling my tasks and I can never be 100% sure whether I didn’t delete an important tasks by accident.

I also requested this from the support and they said that it is a popular request. I just hope that more people can ask the support, so it can be introduced soon.

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I agree. However to stop this scenario from occurring I decided never to delete anything from OF ever again. That way there is always a record of it.

The problem is not whether I delete something by intention sometimes it happens when I am uncautious. Eg., when the Mous Pointer Focus is still in OF but I think I am editing my word document, but actually am deleting something in Omnifocus… So the problem here is that deleting happens by accident pretty often.

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If it was an immediate deletion, Undo should resurrect it.

The Problem is sometimes you realize your deletion after editing for a long while. Then “Undo” becomes very (!) messy and you get lost. Also the “Undo” does not show what really will be made undo (e.g. like in MS Word) it says Undo and Redo. So its hard to distinguish, what will happen after editing for a long time and then clicking undo.

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I know this is a workaround, and not exactly what you were looking for, but backups are available and manageable on iOS as well as Mac: https://support.omnigroup.com/omnifocus-revert-ios-backup/

At least that avoids the worry of running to Mac or changing to airplane mode or similar.

ScottyJ

I am fully aware of backups. The reason why I switched to airplane mode was, because I didn’t want it to sync so I have to go back to the backups revert it back and fort and loose unnecessary time of my life.
I think that this a real crucial and basic issue, which is missing in omnifocus right now and making it more insecure for me.

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Yup, I hear you. In the forum, though, we’re limited to what users can suggest/do, so I just wanted to make sure any of those options were out there.

ScottyJ

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Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate your help! But what we can do though is to write to the OF-Support. I had contact with he support and they told me it was a “very” popular request. So I hope that more people write to the OF-Team. support@omnigroup.com

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I accept it’s an easy mistake to make. I have done it a number of times.
What is more scary is when you can’t find an action or task you knew was there and it’s gone missing! The old grey matter sometimes lets me down and I can’t for the life of me remember deleting the item! So now I just don’t delete…ever!

Yes you are so right with when you can’t find something you knew it was there. Trash bins would definelty would help in this case.

Also to other guys who constantly say that there are backups anyway: What about when there is a bug about doing backups? What if the backups themselves are buggy or something like that? Then you would end up in a chaos. This is the reason why I always do a time machine backup, beacause in this way I can back up my original OF Data file and I am doing kind of semi-manual backups with my time machine.

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I agree. Just please stop deleting stuff. If you stop deleting there will always a be a record of completed items to fall back on. Sorry to go on about it. I know you want a better method but it doesn’t seem likely to be a planned feature. I say this out of sympathy because I have occasionally over the years lost track of items. Sometimes putting my iPhone back in my pocket causes data loss because my finger may inadvertently check off an item or picking up my iPad cause a similar annoying error.

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Yes this also happenes to me sometimes! Especially in the widget view I accidentally mark items as completed!

But still the completed Tasks are still there, they are just marked as completed. You could get them back with setting up perspectives etc. But once deleted, gone forever (except the uncomfortable backup solution.)

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Backups have been reliable for me since th beginning. Sadly, not available on iOS but rock solid on the Mac. OF does keep the last 100 backups. So you can literally go back in time to view your database at different stages. I think there is a daily backup done as well as another backup created whenever you quit OF.

Anyhow bakcups are too burdensome and take longer, then just searching eg. in the trash bin.

Guys it became so burdensome. I disabled the delete button in Omnifocus through the BetterTouchTool App, so I don’t accidentally delete tasks. But I have the problem now that I always have to press shift to delete a word inside a note.

Does somebody has another Idea how I could achieve it to delete a task with delete + another key and deleting a word while editing a task with the normal delete key? That would be awesome! Thanks!