Creating OmniFocus Tasks from Entourage, take 2
by rainer on Oct.30, 2008, under GTD, Mac
This is a different solution to the previous entourage 2 omnifocus problem. This script will create an omnifocus task from an entourage mail message (I believe it will also store the attachments). I found it on the OmniGroup Forum and I like it better than the previous one, since it now also creates a back link.
latest, greatest Entourage to Omnifocus – Page 2 – The Omni Group Forums
The only drawback in my setup is that the mail is subsequently opened in Mail.app (which can be a plus too, depending on how you see it 
. Most likely thats just what the default email app is configured to be to handle .eml files.
You can either use the script directly from the page or take my slightly modified version. The original script saves the file to the users folder where you have to actually change the file name inside the script to make it work for you. I have changed the path to /tmp which works fine for me and is independent of the user.
I also took the liberty to bring Omnifocus to the front which is quite nice.
Installation:
Place the script in your ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items/ directory
You can rename it if you wish; I put an [OF] so it sorts to the top and groups with more OF scripts as they become available.
The script currently supports importing multiple emails: just select all the emails you want to import (you can command click them to select non-sequential emails), then hit the hotkey (control-O for me).
Entourage Hotkey:
I have also assigned it a keyboard shortcut of control-O for OmniFocus (which you can change by altering the last character in the filename, but be sure to beware of conflicts)
This has been tested with Entourage 2008 on Exchange messages.
Let me know what you think
Update 11.11.2008
I have noticed that my wordpress mangled up the filename of the script. Please rename it to
[OF] SendEntourageToOmniFocus\cO.scpt
Update 17.11.2008
I have now placed a zip file for download so that you dont have to rename the script anymore.
In addition as already noted in the comments, in order to make OF open the linked mails in Entourage instead of Mail.app you have to assign the .eml extension to entourage. You can do this by
- drag a mail to the desktop (from Entourage or Mail.app)
- select the mail file (should be something.eml) and hit Cmd-I (to show info)
- then in the open with dropdown select “Entourage” and click “change all”
Update
this mail rule is out out date, please take a look at the newest posts tagged with “Omnifocus“, to find the latest version.
43 Comments for this entry
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OmniFocus + Entourage | Eli Foner - OSXr
February 17th, 2009 on 10:49[...] handy script for creating OmniFocus tasks from Entourage. Categories: Productivity, Uncategorized Keywords: computing, Entourage, GTD, OmniFocus, [...]
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Creating OmniFocus Tasks from Entourage, take 3 | Rainers Blog
September 10th, 2009 on 14:05[...] seems that my previous script to make omnifocus tasks out of entourage stopped working, either due to OF 1.7.x or Snow [...]
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November 2nd, 2008 on 13:32
Sorry for the rather newbe question, but after moving this script to the foler you mention, I cannot see it in my Entourage script menu. I’ve tried restarting Entourage, as well as renaming the script, but nothing is working. Any ideas?
November 2nd, 2008 on 13:43
OK, got it installed and running, but I have no idea where it went in Omnifocus (a new number sits over my omnifocus icon, but nothing is in my inbox)…guess I’m going to have to dig through their help forums to figure this thing out.
November 3rd, 2008 on 10:32
when I do that (Omnifocus 1.1 pre and Entourage 2008) as soon as I mark a mail and hit Ctrl-O then I get the quick entry window. In this window you can specify project / context and it will just work like usual. If you dont assign these, then it will end up in the inbox.
November 10th, 2008 on 23:52
Can’t get this to show up in Entourage Script menu. Any help?
November 11th, 2008 on 6:50
@Greg, does the folder “/Microsoft User Data/Entourage Script Menu Items” already exist on your machine? If yes, then you should already see some existing script items in there.
It might also depend on your office version. I use Office:mac 2008 and there it works great. If you are using an older office version you might wanna rename the script to something else, maybe it shows up then.
November 11th, 2008 on 6:53
@Greg, please make sure you read the update of the blog entry. It might be due to a wrong filename.
November 12th, 2008 on 17:32
I have found that in Entourage 2008 on Leapoard, I have to open the script, compile it and name it the way I want all OUTSIDE of the Entourage Script Menu Items folder, then drop it in. Only then will it work.
One other question: I just want the link, NOT the body text pasted in. I tried to edit the script to say ‘embed = false’ but that had no effect. Any ideas? Thanks!
November 12th, 2008 on 18:03
OK, I just took another look and changed a line in the Omnifocus section:
set NewTask to make new inbox task with properties {name:theTask, note:” “}
So that ‘note’ is empty (” “). Now if only I could getthat email link to open in Entourage… (setting default email app to Entourage in mail.app does not do it). Any ideas?
November 12th, 2008 on 19:30
@dgastich: thanks for the info. You should be able to get the mail to open with entourage by assigning the .eml extension to entourage. You should probably be able to do this by
1. drag a mail to the desktop
2. select the mail file (should be something.eml) and hit Cmd-I (to show info)
3. then in the open with dropdown select “Entourage” and click “change all”
November 13th, 2008 on 18:37
Thanks, that worked!
Just out of curiousity, is your script making a new file of the original message?
November 14th, 2008 on 3:48
@dgastich – that worked. Thanks!
November 14th, 2008 on 20:17
Sensational! Exactly what I have been looking for. Thanks.
December 22nd, 2008 on 9:03
Hi. I also have a newbie question. The script will open OF, but it doesn’t place the email into OF. Do I need to create the /tmp path? Thanks.
January 5th, 2009 on 10:20
@Chris, hmm, usually /tmp should always exist which is why I used it. open terminal and type
ls -l /tmpand see if that works. If it does not then do a
sudo mkdir /tmp
sudo chmod a+w /tmp
But as stated before, I would be very surprised if the /tmp folder is not there yet.
December 30th, 2008 on 16:00
Excellent work! I loathe using Entourage (really bad OS X integration), but this wonderful script makes it bearable.
January 13th, 2009 on 4:29
Rainer, thanks so much for writing this. It worked perfectly for me the first time. Being able to assign emails to projects and/or contexts is awesome. I owe you a beer, man…
January 13th, 2009 on 21:14
Spectacular-just what I needed, and fixes everything in the original script I’d hoped to see fixed. You’re a lifesaver, and thank you.
February 18th, 2009 on 18:05
Big thanks for your work on this – when I get this to work it’s going to fill a big gap in my OF process.
My problem: When I run the script from Entourage I get the following error message:
Microsoft Entourage got an error: Bad name for file. some object
Any ideas?
March 9th, 2009 on 17:25
make sure you have a /tmp folder on your system and that its writable. That might do the trick.
February 21st, 2009 on 11:41
It works perfectly for me.
Cheers, mate
April 11th, 2009 on 19:11
Thank you!!!
It works perfectly.
April 14th, 2009 on 19:28
Ken Case pointed me in this direction for your script. It works a treat and means that I can use Entourage for the absolute minimum time possible which has made the world an appreciably better place. Thanks.
May 10th, 2009 on 8:51
Great stuff! Works perfectly. Thanks for this script.
July 18th, 2009 on 21:52
Stuck with using Entourage until Snow Leopard and Exchange support arrives in 2 months. Thanks for this – works a treat and made my life easier
September 9th, 2009 on 15:32
I love this script. I noticed that it doesn’t work for me anymore. I have done 2 things that might be the culprit. I moved my entire Microsoft User Data directory into a dmg that gets opened as a startup item. I also upgraded to Snow Leopard.
My Entourage is working without any issues other than this script. I believe I had this working after I implemented working through the dmg but I am not 100% positive. Would it be Snow Leopard perhaps? I can see the script menu flash when I hit the hotkey Control-O. But nothing happens after that.
Any ideas?
September 10th, 2009 on 10:52
This is either due to the new omnifocus (likely), or leopard. I am seeing the same issue. Will take a look.
September 10th, 2009 on 11:22
Hmm, if you first click CTRL-O and then the hotkey combination to bring up the quick entry window it works. It seems that the script does not bring up the quick entry window anymore.
September 22nd, 2009 on 14:20
Howdy, script doesn’t work with 1.7. any idea how to fix?
September 22nd, 2009 on 14:25
Please be sure to check my latest article Creating OmniFocus Tasks from Entourage, take 3
January 4th, 2010 on 4:44
Thanks for the script. It works for me ONLY if OmniFocus is not running. If Omnifocus is running, nothing happens. If i first quit OF, then the script starts OF and creates the task.
Any suggestions? Thanks!
February 3rd, 2010 on 0:02
So cool. Thanks for the script!
April 13th, 2010 on 12:51
I have the same issue as Jim Vetter – I can send a task to OF only when OF is closed. If it is already open, I can see the control-O tries to trigger the script (the script icon highlights), but no task is created in OF.
April 13th, 2010 on 18:22
@Casey please check newer posts with the omnifocus tag. The new version fixes this.
August 30th, 2010 on 0:01
Rainer – thanks a ton. GTD only really works if everything’s integrated.
For me the script works fine if Omnifocus isn’t currently running – the subject is in the inbox with the email as an attachment.
If Omnifocus is already up and running however, nothing seems to happen. Any thoughts? (I figure closing Omni-focus each time will work but isn’t the best.)
August 30th, 2010 on 6:53
Hey Kevin. That’s very odd. Which version of OF are you using? Also check the console for errors.
August 30th, 2010 on 1:42
I’m having trouble with the lines in the script:
tell application “Finder”
delete file theFileName
end tell
It’s creating the .eml in the /tmp directory just fine but.
The error posted is:
Result:
error “Finder got an error: Can’t get file \”/tmp/entourage19972.eml\”.” number -1728 from file “/tmp/entourage19972.eml”
lil help.
August 30th, 2010 on 15:54
I’m using the most recent update OmniFocus/1.7.5/GM-v77.41.7
September 4th, 2010 on 20:03
Thank you for taking the time to put this together.
September 9th, 2010 on 12:56
Hey Rainer – any thoughts on the following error?
error “Finder got an error: Can’t get file \”/tmp/entourage12979.eml\”.” number -1728 from file “/tmp/entourage12979.eml”
Thanks.
September 9th, 2010 on 13:16
OK – I fixed that problem. My /tmp directory was a link, so I built a /documents/tmp directory.
Now the weird thing is it runs error free, then brings up OmniFocus with nothing in the in-box. When I restart Omni-Focus, all of the selected mail messages are there just fine. I can live with this one… clean e-mail, then restart OmniFocus afterwards but it’s a weird one.
Cheers.
September 9th, 2010 on 14:47
great, thanks for sharing the solution
September 9th, 2010 on 16:02
Any idea why the inbox items don’t appear in OF until after I restart it?
September 9th, 2010 on 16:14
dont remember seeing that.