The OmniFocus Inbox is a temporary holding area. Items land there when you capture them, with the intention that you’ll process them into your system: moving them to projects, adding tags and dates as needed, or discarding them. Not everything that lands in the Inbox belongs in OmniFocus. Some items are better handled elsewhere, and processing is the moment to make that call.
I recommend clearing your Inbox regularly, ideally at least once a day. The more often you clear your Inbox, the less of a chore it becomes. A regularly processed Inbox also helps ensure that OmniFocus accurately reflects your life and work, making it a useful and trusted part of your system.
Inbox Overload
In practice, the Inbox doesn’t always stay tidy. There are times when it fills up, whether you’re away, busy, or you simply haven’t had the headspace to process everything. A long, undifferentiated list can make it harder to know where to start. There may be time-sensitive items buried among less urgent ones, creating unnecessary stress.
There’s a psychological weight to facing such a list. Seeing everything at once, with nothing to break it into smaller pieces, can make the work feel more daunting than it actually is. Additionally, unprocessed Inbox items going back days or even weeks reduce trust in your system and contribute to mental clutter.
The Inbox (Alt) perspective is designed for moments like these.
What Is Inbox (Alt)?
The built-in Inbox displays a flat list, sorted from oldest to newest. That simplicity works well when the Inbox contains minimal items. But as items accumulate, a grouped view makes it easier to approach the work; it allows you to process actions in sections rather than facing a single long list.
Inbox (Alt) is a custom perspective that shows the same items as your built-in Inbox but presents them according to your criteria. While it’s most common to group Inbox (Alt) by Added Date, other groupings are possible depending on your needs. For example, if some of your Inbox items have due dates, you may choose to group actions by Due Date and prioritize processing these time-sensitive items.
Inbox (Alt) can also be configured to show deferred items, giving you a complete picture of everything in your Inbox, even when some items aren’t yet available. The built-in Inbox, meanwhile, could be set to show only available items. Used together, they give you two complementary views of the same underlying list.