OmniFocus Reviews & Insights

Score8 out of 10

31 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for OmniFocus are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Rich Functionality and Flexibility: Reviewers have consistently praised the product for its rich functionality and flexibility, allowing for rapid and friction-free user adoption. Many users appreciate the wide range of features available, which cater to various needs and preferences. The flexibility of the product has been highlighted as a major advantage by numerous reviewers.

Cross-Device Synchronization: The cross-device synchronization feature is highly valued by users, enabling seamless switching between desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone. This ensures real-time access to data from anywhere, providing convenience and enhancing productivity. Several reviewers have commended this feature for its effectiveness in keeping their tasks synchronized across multiple devices.

Effective Task Management Capabilities: Users highly regard the task management capabilities of the product. They find it efficient in syncing tasks to mobile devices and other computers, making it easy to stay organized and on top of their responsibilities. Multiple reviewers have specifically mentioned how this feature has improved their workflow and helped them manage their tasks more effectively.

OmniFocus Reviews

3 Reviews

Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees)

Great, but would be better if it were multi-platform

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

May 25, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As an organization, we suggest the use of OmniFocus as an organizational tool for our employees. We offer reimbursement for the purchase of the app. It is not used as an enterprise solution because it only works with iOS, and our computers are PC's, however, we do have Apple mobile devices and believe that it helps to act as a todo list and organizing tool for many of our employees. It certainly helps me to organize my projects and break them down into meaningful task actions. We have found that those team members who use OmniFocus do have slight upticks in productivity, which is why we have started encouraging its use through reimbursement.

Pros

Maintains to do lists
Breaks projects into meaningful tasks
Reminders
A place to store important ideas and thoughts to come back, review and assign tasks to.
Integration with other apps and products.

Cons

Would love to see OmniFocus come up with an App that works with Windows so that it could sync for multiplatform users, that is a HUGE blind spot for me personally right now.

Likelihood to Recommend

I believe that OmniFocus is well suited as a personal organizational tool and can be encouraged to be used through organizations, although mandating use is difficult because of its lack of usability on multiple platforms (Windows, Linux, etc.). I believe that it helps to beat procrastination by giving a place to accurately enter and understand the projects that you have on your plate, and break them down into small achievable tasks. I also think it is a great way to ensure that things don't just disappear from memory after a meeting or discussion. If you simply write down notes in a meeting but never reflect on them, for example, to enter into OmniFocus or revisit them, it is easy to forget that the tasks require your attention.

Che Odom

Marketing and Business Administrator in Marketing at Rabren General Contractors, Inc. (Construction, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

The best task manager for iOS and Mac users is OmniFocus

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

January 18, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

OmniFocus is used as a task list and project management tool to help organize all sorts of projects. It is currently in use by our Marketing Department to manage content creation, daily, weekly, and quarterly tasks, as well as long term planning for more comprehensive projects that span multiple departments and business units.

Pros

Easy task list creation using keyboard shortcuts
Great at-a-glance look at weekly due dates
Tasks can be organized within projects

Cons

It would be great to see a dark mode in OmniFocus
Their upgrade strategy involves having to purchase new versions when they are released
It would be good to have a quarterly view of tasks and due dates.

Likelihood to Recommend

I'm a big fan of OmniFocus for task management. It's my go-to task manager, and is very useful for those that have bought into the Mac and iOS ecosystem, as all my tasks quickly sync between my MacBook Air, iPhone, and iPad. Obviously this means it's not as good of a choice for web or Windows users.

OmniFocus uses their own server to sync, and although it works great and I haven't had any issues with it, it's strange that they choose not to use iCloud syncing.

Overall, I highly recommend OmniFocus for Mac/iOS users.

Verified User

Director in Marketing (Wholesale company, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Forget what you need to do with confidence!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

December 1, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use OmniFocus as one of the preferred task management applications. We are primarily a Mac organization and OmniFocus is one of the best task management tools for individuals. It helps me and the others who use it organize all their To-Dos in a way that allows them to see what they need to see and nothing else. Tasks that are distractions or lower priorities can be hidden away to avoid "Mind Clutter".

Pros

Contexts! I use my own contexts to organize To-Dos. For example: Full Focus, Brain Dead, Short Dashes, Thinking, and Top 6. This allows me to easily find a short task I can do in the 15 minutes I have. Or if I'm mentally drained, I can find things that I can do at that time.
Perspectives is another great feature. These are custom searches that are saved as common "views". Using projects, context, due dates, defer dates, and Status allows me to have much more control over what I see. For example, I have a context that only shows me work To-do's that are due today. I have another that shows my personal/home to-dos. Another option is to use location services that can notify you or list things you can do based on location. This is a great way to separate home and work tasks.
Syncing across devices is important, particularly for productivity needs. OmniFocus sync works so well, you never think about it once it is set up.
The user interface is very easy to work with and looks nice. It is the kind of tool that allows you to work with it and not get in the way.

Cons

I would like to see more ways to set priority. Context can be used, but I find contexts better used for other things. You can only assign one context per item. There is a flag status, but I would like to see something more like red/yellow/green status indicators to visually scan a list and see the urgent vs the normal vs. the low priorities.
It can be a bit pricey vs. some other options, but it is still a very good value.

Likelihood to Recommend

Who should use OmniFocus

Anyone with multiple projects
Anyone with multiple tasks that need to get done
Anyone who does not like to forget what to do
Anyone who prefers to stay organized
Anyone who is not told what to do and when to do it

I think I covered everyone with that list. It is a very good tool to manage your tasks in life. I try and follow the "Getting Things Done" approach. Each morning I think of everything I need to do, put it in Omnifocus (unless it takes less than 2 minutes, then I do it), then go about doing what I need to do. Context, due dates, and status lets me filter out the urgent from that which can wait.

That said, OmniFocus is not for everyone. It does require a strategy and sticking to the strategy. I've met some who struggled to use it or wasted time building the perfect workflow. For them, a basic checklist is probably better. However there are some GREAT resources from Merlin Mann and others that teach how to use it well.

Doug Eli

Director Of Technology in Information Technology at Frontier_Ventures (Religious Institutions, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

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Forget what you need to do with confidence!

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

December 1, 2017

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Contexts! I use my own contexts to organize To-Dos. For example: Full Focus, Brain Dead, Short Dashes, Thinking, and Top 6. This allows me to easily find a short task I can do in the 15 minutes I have. Or if I'm mentally drained, I can find things that I can do at that time.
Perspectives is another great feature. These are custom searches that are saved as common "views". Using projects, context, due dates, defer dates, and Status allows me to have much more control over what I see. For example, I have a context that only shows me work To-do's that are due today. I have another that shows my personal/home to-dos. Another option is to use location services that can notify you or list things you can do based on location. This is a great way to separate home and work tasks.
Syncing across devices is important, particularly for productivity needs. OmniFocus sync works so well, you never think about it once it is set up.
The user interface is very easy to work with and looks nice. It is the kind of tool that allows you to work with it and not get in the way.

Cons

I would like to see more ways to set priority. Context can be used, but I find contexts better used for other things. You can only assign one context per item. There is a flag status, but I would like to see something more like red/yellow/green status indicators to visually scan a list and see the urgent vs the normal vs. the low priorities.
It can be a bit pricey vs. some other options, but it is still a very good value.

Likelihood to Recommend

Who should use OmniFocus

Anyone with multiple projects
Anyone with multiple tasks that need to get done
Anyone who does not like to forget what to do
Anyone who prefers to stay organized
Anyone who is not told what to do and when to do it

Doug Eli

Director Of Technology in Information Technology at Frontier_Ventures (Religious Institutions, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

View profile