Keyboard Maestro Macros for OmniFocus

Add ease and efficiency to OmniFocus for Mac using Keyboard Maestro.

Keyboard Maestro is a powerful and easy-to-use app for macOS that allows you to automate things you do regularly and fine-tune your system for maximum efficiency. It’s a natural complement to OmniFocus.

You can use Keyboard Maestro macros to jump to a perspective or field in OmniFocus quickly, make changes to the sidebar and outline and shift your focus. If you frequently do the same actions repeatedly in OmniFocus, it’s worth encapsulating these sequences in a Keyboard Maestro macro.

Here are some of our favourite Keyboard Maestro macros. Tap the download link on your Mac and add them to your Keyboard Maestro library. Some can be used as is, and others must be customized to match your system. Once installed, you’ll need to enable the macros you choose to use.

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Global 🌐 Macros

The following macros are designed to trigger OmniFocus from anywhere on your Mac and will automatically launch OmniFocus if it’s not already running.

• OmniFocus | Quick Entry – Opens the Quick Entry window, launching OmniFocus if it isn’t already running.
• OmniFocus | Quick Open — Quickly access the Quick Open feature in OmniFocus. You can then use Quick Open to navigate to a Perspective, Folder, Project, or Tag quickly.

Local OmniFocus Macros

The following macros will work when OmniFocus is the foreground app.

• Clear Sidebar Selection – Clears any tags or projects currently selected in the sidebar.
• Collapse/Expand Outline – A convenient way to collapse or expand the outline, even if you’re not currently editing it.
• Complete + Select Next – Complete the selected item and move on to the next one.
• Edit Fields – Hold down an option key combination to edit a specific field in the outline. This macro will work even if you were previously editing another field.
• Focus in New Tab – Creates a new tab and focuses on the project(s) that contain the selected action(s).
• Open Perspective + Collapse Sidebar – Switch to a specific perspective (e.g., Project) and collapse the sidebar.

Global 🌐 Macros

OmniFocus | Quick Entry

OmniFocus supports a Quick Entry shortcut (⌃⌥Space) that makes it easy to capture something into OmniFocus, even while using another app. This shortcut doesn’t do anything if OmniFocus isn’t currently running. That’s where this macro comes in. It checks to see if OmniFocus is running. If it is, it simply invokes Quick Entry. If OmniFocus isn’t running, the macro opens OmniFocus and then displays Quick Entry.

⌃⌥Space – OmniFocus | Quick Entry

If you’re not using the default shortcut for Quick Entry (⌃⌥Space), you’ll need to modify this macro to reflect the global shortcut key you’re using.

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OmniFocus | Quick Open

If OmniFocus is in the foreground, you can choose File > Quick Open or press ⌘O to quickly open a folder, project, tag, perspective or Omni Automation. If you’re using a different app, you can use this macro to switch to OmniFocus and invoke the Quick Open feature. The macro will launch OmniFocus if it’s not already running.

⌃⌥⌘O - OmniFocus | Quick Open

This macro can be used as a model for global access to other OmniFocus features. For example, you could duplicate this macro and create a new macro that gives you global access to the Search Remaining feature in OmniFocus.

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Local OmniFocus Macros

Clear Sidebar Selection

If you have one or more projects or tags selected in the sidebar, the outline will show a filtered view of the perspective. For example, if you switch to the Tags perspectives and choose Phone, the outline will only show you items tagged with “Phone”.

This macro provides a quick way to clear the sidebar selection. You don’t even have to take your hands off the keyboard.

⇧⌘U – Clear Sidebar Selection

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Collapse & Expand Outline

If your keyboard focus is on the outline, you can press ⌃⌘0 to collapse the outline and ⌃⌘9 to expand the outline. These same keyboard shortcuts can be used to collapse and expand the sidebar if that’s where your keyboard focus is.

These two macros allow you to collapse and expand the outline even if your keyboard focus is on something else (i.e., the sidebar or the inspector). They provide a simple quality-of-life improvement that frees you from having to think about your keyboard focus.

⌥⌘C – Collapse Outline
⌥⌘X – Expand Outline

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Complete + Select Next

This macro simply presses the ␣ Spacebar, pauses briefly, and presses the ↓ Down Arrow key. It provides a convenient way to complete the current item and move on to the next.

⇧⌘Space – Complete + Select Next

It’s a good example of a Keyboard Maestro macro that is very simple yet can be useful.

Tap the screenshot to see a larger image.
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Edit Fields

If a project, action or action group is selected, you can navigate to a specific field by pressing a key. For example, pressing the D key navigates to the Due field for easy editing.

This macro leverages this feature and takes it a step further. You can edit a field by holding down Option ⌥ and pressing the key corresponding to the field. This will work even if you’re editing another field. For example, if you’re writing some notes, you can press ⌥D and specify a due date.

The keyboard shortcuts are as follows:

⌥C – Edit Field: Completion
⌥U – Edit Field: Defer Until
⌥D – Edit Field: Due
⌥E – Edit Field: Estimated Duration
⌥' – Edit Field: Note
⌥N – Edit Field: Notification
⌥P – Edit Field: Project
⌥R – Edit Field: Repeat
⌥T – Edit Field: Tag
⌥↩ – Edit Field: Title

If more than one item is selected, you’ll be taken to the appropriate field of the first selected item.

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Focus in New Tab

Using this macro, you can select one or more items in the outline and create a new tab that’s focused on the project(s) associated with these item(s).

⌃⌘T – Focus in New Tab

Behind the scenes, this macro uses an AppleScript written by Dan Byler to perform the magic.

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Open Perspective + Collapse Sidebar

This macro allows you to switch to a perspective and collapse the sidebar in one fell swoop. This gives you a clean starting point. You can expand tags or projects in the sidebar as needed. Macros are provided for the Projects and Tags perspectives. The keyboard shortcuts match the default keyboard shortcuts for these perspectives with ⌃ added on. For example, ⌘2 will switch to the Projects perspective, and ⌃⌘2 will switch to the Projects perspective and collapse the sidebar.

⌃⌘2 - Open Projects + Collapse Sidebar
⌃⌘3 - Open Tags + Collapse Sidebar

You can use this same approach for other perspectives, even your own custom perspectives. Just duplicate one of these macros and change the keyboard shortcuts. Speaking of custom perspectives, check out our Custom Perspectives for OmniFocus resource if you’re looking for some inspiration.

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