OmniFocus is a great tool for keeping track of your tasks, and on the Mac it's easy to take an email and turn it into a to-do. On the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, however, there hasn't been an easy way to do that — until the clever team at The Omni Group figured out how to use their own Omni Sync Server to make that happen.
To turn email messages into tasks in iOS, you first need OmniFocus for your Mac, iPhone, or iPad, and a free Omni Sync Server account. You'll need to enable the Omni Sync Server feature in OmniFocus, too, even if you use the app on only one device.
To enable syncing in OmniFocus on the iPhone and iPad, go to settings in the app (look for the little gear icon), tap Sync Method, then choose Omni Sync Server. On your Mac, launch OmniFocus, then go to OmniFocus > Preferences, and click the Sync tab. From there, you can enter your Sync Server account information.
The Mac and iOS versions of OmniFocus include Sync Server settings
Use your favorite Web browser to log in to your Omni Sync Server account, and then check the box next to “I'd like to try out the Mail Drop beta.” That adds you to the request list, which should get you an email within a few days that includes your own personal Sync Server email address you'll use to add messages to your task list.
Omni Sync's beta Mail Drop lets us brave little toasters turn Mail.app messages into tasks
When you get an email you want to add as a task to OmniFocus, just forward the message to your personal Omni Sync Server email address. It'll show up as a task in your In Box where you can add deadlines, categories, and other notes. I added my Sync Server address to Contacts so all I need to do is type “MailDrop” in Mail's TO field instead of remembering the special address The Omni Group assigned to me.
The feature is in beta, but it's been working great for me. It also took care of the major headache I was dealing with by not being able to directly add emails to OmniFocus tasks when I was away from my Mac. Thanks, Omni Group guys!