Create events in macOS calendar from OmniFocus tasks
- Create macOS Calendar events from OmniFocus tasks that are due today/soon
- Multiple calendars can be used and tasks added to a particular calendar depends on a task's tag
- Events that are tagged/shared aren't duplicated onto my own OmniFocus calendar via include/exclude parameter
- Flagged tasks will have its calendar event have an alert occur on the task's due date
- A notification is displayed when the script starts and when the script ends, including info about runtime
- Using the .plist, a launchd user agent can be created to run the script in the background every so often
The script uses a config.json file for its configuration:
version: a version number of this configuration file that corresponds with a script versiondaysAhead: the number of days to look ahead (the default example is 1)daysBack: the number of days to look back (the default example is 1)data.tags: the OmniFocus tags to work withdata.mode: the mode to work as with tags, either the word "include" or "exclude"data.calendar: the calendar to work with
In regards to the span of days being worked with in the default example, the script will place tasks on calendars from today and yesterday.
Refer to examples/v2.1.0-config.json as to the structure of the script's configuration file.
This script can be run from the macOS command line: osascript omnifocus_tasks_to_calendar.scpt
Starting with v2.0.0, calendar events are created or updated based upon their respective tasks in OmniFocus (previously, all calendar events were deleted and then recreated). Even so, DO NOT USE A PRIMARY CALENDAR! A separate, dedicated calendar(s) should be used only with this script, as this script will delete events on the calendar in some circumstances.
In accordance with the runtime of the script, my Mac mini M4 does a week's worth of tasks to calendar events in about 30 seconds, while my 2019 Intel MacBook Pro can take 3 to 4 times longer.
Task details that are synced to the calendar:
- the task's name is made the calendar event's title
- the note of the calendar event will include at the top "Project:" and the task's project name (if there is one) and then task's note below that
- the task's duration is applied to the event, so a task with a due date of 4pm with its duration of 2 hours would make a calendar event from 2pm to 4pm, and if the task doesn't have a duration, the calendar event is made for 30 minutes
- for calendar alerts, any task that would be added to the calendar and is also flagged will have a calendar alert at the time of the task's due date/time
- the URL of the calendar event includes the OmniFocus task's URL so that you can click into the task from the calendar
The only thing I'm positive it can't do is to take a task's attachments and attach them to the calendar event's attachment section, as AppleScript doesn't provide a way to do that. In the event that an attachment is in a note (like for a picture, where it's included inline), it is ignored.
Tasks get synced based on the tags it has, which can either be included or excluded. The distinction that I generally use is that tasks as related to family that should sync to their shared calendar use the "include" parameter so that only tasks with their tag(s) are synced, whereas with my own calendar, I use the "exclude" parameter along with all of their tags so that any task related to them does not get duplicated onto my own calendar.
The handler structure for processOmniFocusTasks is:
- 1st parameter: tags to either include or exclude
- 2nd parameter: the word "include" or "exclude"
- 3rd parameter: the name of the calendar that tasks matching the first two parameters should be added to
An example call to this handler for myself looks like:
set tagsToIgnore to {"Mom","Brother","Nephew"}
processOmniFocusTasks(tagsToIgnore,"exclude","OmniFocus")
An example call to this handler for a family member looks like:
set tagsToSync to {"Mom","Nephew"}
processOmniFocusTasks(tagsToSync,"include","OmniFocus - Mom")
Calendar week view
Calendar event
