OmniFocus with Shortcuts: Task Capture and Siri Checks
OmniFocus documents Shortcuts and Siri AI Beta through Apple's Reminders schema; this listing does not certify availability outside beta. The schema maps reminders to actions, lists to projects, and groups to folders, covering shared operations rather than every OmniFocus field. Planned dates cannot be added or edited through that Siri AI route.
What to know
Existing Shortcuts support does not confirm a new Siri AI integration. OmniFocus separately documents Siri AI (Beta) through Apple’s Reminders schema; this listing retains shortcuts and does not certify a non-beta public integration or device-tested behavior.
Try it step by step
- Open Shortcuts, create a new shortcut, and find the OmniFocus section. Inspect the details button beside an action for its purpose, inputs, and results.
- Choose the modern Add Action action. Set the action title and destination project, then configure only the details you need, such as tags, note, or due date.
- Run a sample manually and inspect the new action in OmniFocus. For navigation instead of capture, build a separate shortcut with Open Perspective and select the desired perspective.
- Give the workflow a distinctive name and invoke that name with Siri. Before adding Complete Action or Complete Project, check the selected target; each completes only the first input item.
Use the current OmniFocus action library
OmniFocus documents Apple Shortcuts in its current universal reference manual, including instructions for finding actions and inspecting their inputs and results. This provides a stronger setup reference than its older Siri Shortcuts announcement alone. The library separates creating, finding, getting, opening, editing, and completing database objects. A useful first choice is between capturing a task and opening a perspective: the former changes your database, while the latter takes you to a view of existing work. Start with one purpose and inspect the result. This listing uses Shortcuts documented for that established workflow and separately acknowledges the manual’s explicit Siri AI beta support rather than reducing all Siri features to the same status.
Capture an action or import a structured outline
Add Action accepts an action title, a project, and optional details. The current manual lists tags, notes, flags, attachments, estimated minutes, defer dates, planned dates, due dates, and repeats. Those fields let a shortcut express a specific task without relying on a title to encode every property. The manual dates Add Action to OmniFocus 4.5 and describes later updates, so it should not be confused with Legacy: Add Item. For structured input, Add TaskPaper imports TaskPaper-formatted text into a selected destination such as Inbox, Projects, a folder, a project, or an action. Choose it when you already have a suitable outline; a single task capture is easier to inspect with Add Action. Review project placement and date fields before extending the workflow.
Find and complete work with the documented limits
The current Find Actions action remains labelled Beta. Omni explains a specific problem: a Tag result from a previous OmniFocus action does not yet work as the value of a Tag filter. That is narrower than saying all search is unavailable. Check whether your workflow passes a tag object or uses a different supported criterion. Complete Action and Complete Project have another important limit: if several objects are supplied, only the first is completed. Passing a list therefore does not mean every matching task will be marked finished. A workflow that searches and then completes work needs an explicit understanding of its selected result. For navigation, Open Action, Open Folder, Open Perspective, Open Project, and Open Tag offer more focused choices than the older general Show in OmniFocus action described in the 4.5 announcement.
Read the separate Siri AI beta claim precisely
The current manual also says OmniFocus supports Siri AI (Beta), with a documented path through Apple’s Reminders app schema as of OmniFocus 4.9 and OS 27.0. In that vocabulary, reminders map to actions and Inbox items, lists to projects, and groups to folders. The integration covers only operations shared by Reminders and OmniFocus; planned dates cannot be added or edited through this Siri AI route. The vendor warns that beta results may be unexpected or incorrect and that support is more robust on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Vision Pro than on Mac. These are meaningful first-party claims, not grounds for asserting that third-party Siri AI is universally unavailable. They also do not meet this listing’s non-beta verification boundary. Sources were checked on November 6, 2026, without a device test. Compare Things for task capture, Drafts for collecting text, and the Shortcuts guide for invoking a configured workflow by name.
Common questions
Does OmniFocus document Siri AI as well as Shortcuts?
Yes. The current manual explicitly documents Siri AI (Beta) through Apple’s Reminders schema, alongside the Shortcuts library. This entry preserves that evidence, but keeps status shortcuts as requested and does not certify non-beta availability. A named shortcut and a direct Siri AI database request are different routes.
Will Complete Action finish every task returned by a search?
No. The manual says Complete Action completes only the first action when multiple actions are passed as input. Complete Project has the equivalent first-project limitation. Inspect the selected object before running a completion workflow, rather than assuming a list will be processed in full.
Why is Find Actions still labelled Beta?
Omni documents a specific Tag-filter problem: a Tag result from a previous OmniFocus Shortcuts action does not yet work as the filter value. The label does not say all finding operations fail. Review the input type and filter criteria in your own shortcut before connecting the result to a modifying action.