Auto-Parsing Tasks in OmniFocus on iOS

Back in 2015, I had an idea. What if it was possible to email (manually or auto-generated) a task into OmniFocus and have it automatically end up in the correct project and context? And if that's possible, can I add all the dates, notes, duration, and such to the task as well? It turned out that it was possible! And I built a little script and method for doing exactly that.

Fast-forward to 2020 and Omni Automation came to OmniFocus on all platforms. It was an immediate desire of mine to bring the bulk of my OmniFocus scripts over to this new system. But it also meant that I would need to rebuild each of them from the ground up. That process began with the release of the Update Reviews script two weeks ago. And today, I have this Auto-Parser script ported over as well.

As a refresher, here's the syntax for this script:

--Fix bathroom wiring! @house ::maintenance #friday #next monday $30 min //It’s driving me crazy.

• “--“ sets the name of the task.
• The “!” after the task name is what sets the flag.
• “@“ sets the tag. You can have multiple of these.
• “::” sets the project.
• The first “#” sets the defer date.
• The second “#” sets the due date. If only one “#” exists, OmniFocus assumes it’s a due date.
• “$” sets the time estimation.
• “//“ sets the note for the task.

You can download this script here. Double-click or open the file to install it. (Or you can see it on GitHub here.)