Actionist·OmniFocus
O

OmniFocus

· #409 most-used

Turn every commitment into a tracked OmniFocus action — automatically

ProductivityProjectsAISchedulingAutomation

OmniFocus is The Omni Group's professional task manager for Mac, iPad, and iPhone — built around GTD-style projects, tags, custom perspectives, and Omni Automation scripting. Connect it to Actionist and your agents can create tasks from commitments made anywhere, update project due dates when timelines shift, list overdue items for the daily digest, move Inbox items into the right projects, and compile weekly review reports — all without opening the app. The OmniFocus MCP server runs locally via Omni Automation, so your task data stays on your Mac.

Try OmniFocus with ActionistVisit OmniFocus
Average time saved
7 hours
per person · per month
≈ 1 workdays back

Eliminates manual work. Agents eliminate the manual work of capturing action items from other apps into OmniFocus, creating project structures from templates, and assembling project status reports before meetings.

Schedule

What your OmniFocus agent runs on autopilot

A week of scheduled jobs your Actionist agent will execute on your behalf.

28Scheduled jobs
7Agents at work
24/7Always on
Agents
Tue–Thu
Tue
Wed
Thu
7a
8a
9a
10a
11a
12p
1p
2p
3p
4p
5p
6p
Multi-app workflows

OmniFocus × every other app you use

End-to-end automations that span multiple apps — each one a real business outcome.

6Workflows
5Apps spanned
~11 hrsSaved / week
6Personas served
For sales
Featured3 apps

Proposal commitment captured in OmniFocus before you leave the chat

When a rep posts a proposal commitment in the #deals Slack channel, the agent checks for an existing task, creates a new OmniFocus task with a 48-hour due date and the deal tag, assigns it to the deal's project, and drops a calendar block for the deadline. The commitment is tracked before the rep closes Slack.

~3 hrs

Time saved for your team — every week, on autopilot

The flow
Trigger·When a proposal commitment message appears in the #deals Slack channel
Trigger
Step 1
Slack
Detect proposal commitment message in #deals channel
read
Step 2
O
OmniFocus
List Tasks to check for an existing proposal task for this deal
write
Step 3
O
OmniFocus
Create Task — 'Send proposal to [prospect]' with 48-hour due date and 'sales' tag
write
Step 4
O
OmniFocus
Move Task to Project — assign to the matching deal project
write
Step 5
Google Calendar
Create a calendar event for the proposal send deadline
Result
Create Task — 'Send proposal to [prospect]' with 48-hour due date and 'sales' tagMove Task to Project — assign to the matching deal projectCreate a calendar event for the proposal send deadline
The win
Saved per run
10 min
Runs / week
~20×
No proposal commitment is forgotten between Slack and OmniFocus
Driven bySales Agent
ROI

Savings

What your team gets back — two angles: what you stop doing manually, and what that's worth.

Without Actionist

What you do manually today

With Actionist

What your agent runs for you

  • Sales
    20 min / week
    Manual follow-up logging from Slack and email

    Reps read a Slack message, mentally note the follow-up, and later manually open OmniFocus to create the task — often forgetting the commitment before they get to it.

    Sales Agent
    0 min
    Agent captures deal follow-ups into OmniFocus automatically

    When a commitment is made in Slack or email, the agent creates an OmniFocus task with a due date and deal tag before the rep leaves the conversation — no manual task entry required.

  • Marketing
    25 min / week
    Manual campaign project setup

    A marketer manually creates each campaign project in OmniFocus, copies in the standard task list from a template doc, sets due dates, and assigns tags — a 15-minute setup per campaign.

    Marketing Agent
    0 min
    Agent creates and seeds campaign projects on approval

    When a campaign is approved, the agent creates the OmniFocus project with standard tasks, folder assignment, and due dates already populated — the team starts working, not setting up.

  • Customer Support
    15 min / week
    Manual commitment tracking

    Support reps juggle commitments across ticket threads and manually create OmniFocus tasks for each one — commitments made under pressure are frequently missed.

    Customer Support Agent
    0 min
    Agent logs every customer commitment as a flagged task

    When a rep commits to a callback or resolution date in a ticket, the agent creates a flagged OmniFocus task with the due date and customer context — the commitment is tracked before the reply is sent.

  • Human Resources
    20 min / week
    Manual onboarding project creation

    HR manually creates a new OmniFocus project for each hire, copies in the standard task list, sets defer dates one by one, and assigns tags — a 20-minute task per hire.

    Human Resources Agent
    0 min
    Agent builds the full onboarding project on each new hire

    When a hire is confirmed, the agent creates the OmniFocus onboarding project with all standard tasks deferred to the right first-week dates — the project is ready before HR opens OmniFocus.

  • Finance
    18 min / week
    Manual invoice task creation

    Finance manually creates an OmniFocus task for each invoice that needs approval, copying the invoice number, vendor name, and due date from the AP spreadsheet.

    Finance Agent
    0 min
    Agent creates invoice approval tasks from the AP tracker

    When an invoice is added to the AP spreadsheet, the agent creates a tagged OmniFocus approval task with the payment deadline — the finance team works a single organised queue rather than scanning two systems.

  • Operations
    30 min / week
    Manual weekly project health check

    An ops manager manually opens OmniFocus, clicks through each project folder, counts overdue tasks, and assembles a status table in Slack — a 30-minute Monday morning ritual.

    Operations Agent
    0 min
    Agent posts the cross-team project health report every Monday

    Every Monday the agent reads all OmniFocus projects, counts overdue tasks per project, and posts a cross-team report to Slack — leadership has the health view before the standup.

  • Legal
    20 min / week
    Manual contract renewal tracking

    Legal monitors a spreadsheet of contract end dates manually, creates OmniFocus tasks by hand when they notice an approaching expiry, and occasionally misses short-notice clauses.

    Legal Agent
    0 min
    Agent creates contract renewal tasks 60 days before expiry

    When a contract approaches its renewal window, the agent creates a sequenced OmniFocus task chain — notification task deferred 30 days out, renewal task due 15 days before expiry — so legal is never caught by a surprise expiry.

+ 100s of other OmniFocus automations
Average time saved
15 hrs / person / month
Calculator

Calculate what your team saves

Team size
5 people
Hourly rate
$75 / hr
Hours saved / week
9
Hours saved / year
450
Annual ROI
$33,750

Based on OmniFocus's typical team usage — the visible tasks plus a few other automations the agent runs: ~1.8 hrs / person / week of admin work automated.

Connect

How to plug OmniFocus into Actionist

Pick the connection method that suits your environment.

The recommended path. The OmniFocus MCP server runs locally on your Mac via Omni Automation — no API key required, no data sent to external servers. OmniFocus must be open on the same Mac as Actionist.

1
Open the Apps tab

Open the Apps tab in Actionist, find OmniFocus, and click Connect. MCP is selected by default.

2
Install the MCP server

Actionist installs the OmniFocus MCP server on your Mac. The server communicates with OmniFocus using Omni Automation — OmniFocus must be installed and running on the same machine.

3
Test the connection

Actionist runs a test query to verify the MCP server can reach your OmniFocus database. You will see your task count returned if the connection is successful.

Actions

14 actions your agent can call

Read and write operations available to your Actionist agent.

Triggers

0 events your agent can react to

Events your agent watches for, and the actions it kicks off in response.

This app has no triggers yet.
MCP servers

MCP servers that work with OmniFocus

Connect Actionist to MCP servers built for or around this app.

OmniFocus

Full CRUD MCP server for OmniFocus via Omni Automation — tasks, projects, folders, tags, recurrence.

local-mcp

Connect Claude, Cursor, Windsurf and other AI agents to macOS native apps including Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and Reminders.

FAQs

Questions about OmniFocus + Actionist

How does Actionist connect to OmniFocus?
Connect via the OmniFocus MCP server: open the Apps tab in Actionist, find OmniFocus, and click Connect. Actionist installs the MCP server locally on your Mac — it communicates with OmniFocus using Omni Automation JavaScript executed via osascript. No API key is required; the MCP bridge runs on your local machine and gives the agent full read/write access to your OmniFocus database. OmniFocus must be installed and running on the same Mac as the Actionist desktop app.
Does the agent have access to my entire OmniFocus database, including all projects and tags?
Yes — the OmniFocus MCP server runs locally via Omni Automation, which means it can reach your entire OmniFocus database: tasks, projects, folders, tags, perspectives, and the Inbox. There is no partial-access tier. The agent sees the same data you see in the OmniFocus app, scoped to the account and database on the Mac where Actionist is running.
Is my OmniFocus data kept private when I connect it to Actionist?
Yes. Because the connection runs through a local MCP server on your Mac — not through a cloud OAuth handshake — your OmniFocus data never leaves your machine to reach Actionist's servers. The Omni Automation bridge executes scripts inside the OmniFocus process directly, so the agent reads and writes tasks without exfiltrating your full database to any external endpoint.
What are the most useful things an agent can do with OmniFocus?
The most common patterns are: (1) capturing tasks from other tools — when a Slack message or email needs follow-up, the agent creates a task in OmniFocus with a due date and tag before you leave the conversation; (2) weekly review prep — the agent queries overdue tasks and projects due for review, assembles a structured summary, and posts it to Slack before your review session; (3) project status reporting — the agent reads all incomplete tasks in a project and generates a progress report for a stakeholder; (4) bulk tag or defer-date updates — resetting dates on a whole project when a deadline shifts.
Can I trigger an Actionist workflow when a task is completed in OmniFocus?
OmniFocus does not expose an outgoing webhook API — it has no built-in way to push an event to an external system when a task changes. Triggers in the Actionist integration are therefore polling-based: the agent checks OmniFocus within about a minute on a schedule and compares results against a previous state to detect changes like newly completed tasks or newly overdue items. For instant reactions to OmniFocus events, use scheduled agent tasks rather than event-based triggers.
Can the agent create tasks with due dates, tags, and project assignments?
Yes — the MCP server supports creating tasks with the full OmniFocus task model: name, note, due date, defer date, tags (one or more), project assignment, estimated duration, and flag status. You can also move tasks between projects or into the Inbox. Recurrence is supported for tasks that have a repeat rule configured in OmniFocus already; creating new repeating tasks via the API depends on the MCP server version you have installed.
Does OmniFocus need to be open for Actionist to read or write tasks?
The MCP server requires OmniFocus to be running on the same Mac as the Actionist desktop app. Scheduled agent tasks that run while OmniFocus is closed will fail or return stale data. If you want reliable round-the-clock OmniFocus automation, keep OmniFocus open in the background, or schedule the agent tasks for times you know the app is running. Computer Use-based interactions with the OmniFocus UI also run on your desktop and require the app to be open.
Can the agent use my custom OmniFocus perspectives?
Actionist can read your OmniFocus perspectives by name and query the tasks they contain — useful for scoping an agent to only the tasks visible in a 'Today' or 'Work' perspective. However, the agent cannot create or modify perspective definitions themselves; perspective management is done inside the OmniFocus app. Use perspectives as a filter input to an action rather than as an output target.