OmniFocus + Evernote

A standing opinion about Evernote is that it's fantastic at accepting information but terrible at giving it up again. You can search from within the app, but any kind of integration with other apps is only barely possible—by, say, linking to the Evernote web client.

OmniFocus, for its part, is exceptional at helping you organize your life, but really isn't designed to be a repository of detailed information, so integration with Evernote is a natural desire. For example, I have an OmniFocus single-action list which I use to store blog post ideas; it's a natural next step to have an Evernote note associated with each containing notes and drafts.

So here's the method (admittedly, somewhat manual) that I've been using to keep references to Evernote notes with associated OmniFocus actions.

  1. Create the note. This is the part that really ought to be automated, but isn't (some AppleScript-fu, which I unfortunately do not possess, could probably eliminate or ease this step. Suggestions welcome). Go into Evernote and make a new note, presumably titled similarly to your OmniFocus action.
  2. Pull up the note in Finder. Herein lies the only interesting part. Since Evernote notes show up in Spotlight searches, there is at least some avenue for getting a reference to the note outside of Evernote itself; we will exploit this.

    • Open up Finder and start a new search (type a character in the search box, then delete it).

    • Click the + button to add a new criterion, where Kind is Other. Type "Evernote Note" into the box. You can restrict this search to your home folder if you have other Evernote users on the same computer. Sort descending by Last Opened.

    • Click "Save." Save it as "Evernote" and add it to your sidebar.


    Now selecting this saved search in Finder will pull up all your notes in an order conducive to this process. If you just created the note, it'll be right on top; otherwise, you can progressively filter the search by some text.
  3. Drag the note to the OmniFocus. Just drop it on the action to get a link to Evernote in the notes field.


Nothing fancy, nothing new, and as I said, still more manual than one would hope. A button in OF that automatically creates a note in Evernote and plugs the reference into the action would be sweet. Still, until somebody writes that or I manage to find the time to learn some AppleScript, this method seems to be working pretty well for me.

12 comments

  • Tom  
    March 30, 2010 2:05 AM

    This is a cool hack! I tried it and think it could become my new method for integrating the two. Thanks for posting!

  • Anonymous  
    March 31, 2010 2:41 PM

    Ian - Thanks for the suggestion. I'm an evernote user, and a new Omnifocus user and I've been trying to figure a good way to integrate the two. I had never thought of a trick like this. I agree - this isn't the end game we are looking for, but it should at least get us somewhat closer. Thanks for the tip!

    secretsquirrel

  • Garfield  
    July 4, 2010 5:32 PM

    Yes, a good hack - Thanks.
    I only get a text URL in the Action box, not a double-clickable icon. I have to Ctrl-click and select Open in order to open the link, but your screen-grab shows the evernote icon. Any ideas?

    garfield
    Chester, UK

  • Dean Webber  
    August 2, 2010 7:59 PM

    Thank you for writing this post. I found it really helpful.

  • Howard Theriot  
    August 22, 2010 1:27 PM

    Excellent tip. I've been using both Omnifocus and Evernote for a while and looking for a way to bring the two together.

  • Rodpartida  
    August 25, 2010 12:50 PM

    What a clever and helpful idea! Nice tip. Thank you very much.

  • Nathan  
    September 10, 2010 9:05 AM

    Thanks for the hack! Just what I've been looking for.

  • Michael  
    November 23, 2010 12:15 PM

    Great Idea. I am still trying to learn omnifocus, GTD, and Evernote.
    This is a great help.
    thanks

  • Molon Labe  
    August 17, 2011 8:22 PM

    Awesome idea! Thanks so much for posting.

  • Molon Labe  
    August 17, 2011 8:23 PM

    Great idea. Thanks so much for posting and sharing. I tested it out and it works great. I'll be using this often. Now if I can just get it to work with the iPhone version!

  • Diego  
    November 30, 2011 11:12 AM
    This comment has been removed by the author.
  • Diego  
    November 30, 2011 11:16 AM

    You can also right click on the note in Evernote, select Copy Note Link, and then paste the link into your Omnifocus task's note field.

    You also have Multiple Note Links. Select multiple notes, then right click and select Copy Note Links. When you paste them, you’ll get a list of links. This is great for building bibliographies, tables of contents and citations when doing research.

    More info: http://blog.evernote.com/2011/06/15/big-evernote-desktop-update-windows-and-mac-get-note-links-note-copying-and-much-more/

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