Folks are quite passionate about the software they use to access their email. I fell in that camp for a while but anymore I just don’t get it. I think that stems from my intent to touch emails only once, keep my inbox as empty as possible, and use a single archive folder for all emails I want to keep.
I’m curious. How do you grab the link back to the email message on iOS without a third party app?
I have no experience in this but I can guess that he might be using the Workflow app to do some voodoo magic that might copy the URL of the e-mail to OmniFocus.
That might be possible but I’m no Workflow guru.
Joe, I completely agree. Thanks for writing it.
I’ve received a bunch of questions on this one so I’m pulling together an article/screencast on it that’ll be finished tomorrow morning. Look for that to see the details of how to use the Gmail permalinks.
In short, you can’t that I’m aware of. I always collect them on the Mac.
Close. 
I don’t use it to collect them but I use it to open them on iOS. Again, this will make more sense tomorrow.
As promised, here’s the screencast I mentioned.
I filter my emails into their appropriate folder. I get all kinds of email. By having filtered folders, I can choose to look at the sort of emails I wish when I wish. Saves me time and frustration.
Makes sense, @Karacter0. It works for some and not for others. As long as you have a way that pans out for you, go for it.
I use the Mailplane app with its save to Omnifocus integration and a hotkey set up to do so. It actually includes the body of the email in the note field, so you rarely even need to follow the URL back to the original email unless the point is to reply to that thread.
It also includes a mailplane:// url, which I will, someday/maybe, build an iOS app to handle this url and redirect into the gmail app in one tap (instead of share to work flow which takes 3+ taps)
This is the main reason I don’t use Mailplane. I had it installed at one point and really wanted it to work but it was simply too many steps. But the URLs have to work on both Mac and iOS for me. I tend to put the URLs from Mail into OmniFocus on the Mac and reference them from my phone. So for me, this is a deal breaker.
On the flip side, I know a lot of folks who love Mailplane because it’s basically Gmail itself but native. If that’s you, by all means, go for it.
Maybe it works differently now but when I send emails from mailplane to
omnifocus with my hot key it immediately includes a http://mail.google.com/*
URL, email Title, email Body, AND a mailplane:// url
So it does include the gmail http perma link you’re looking for, as well as
additional fields you don’t get otherwise, and all in exactly one keystroke
Is that hotkey built in or an add you created?
If you’re on the Mailplane app there’s a “Save to Omnifocus” function under
the “Edit” menu that has the functionality I described, so I just gave it a
hotkey in my keyboard shortcuts in system preferences.
I have since overriden it with keyboard maestro though, and I programmed
keyboard maestro to call that function and then re-arrange the title of the
Omnifocus item to look like this:
“ | Subject line” (with the cursor at the beginning of it)
This way, I can clarify the physical visible action in front without any
additional keystrokes—
for example, “Call Dr. Lee to reference Ari | Re: Re: Onsite Interview
Follow-up”
I also programmed Keyboard Maestro to then pause until I save the omnifocus
task and automatically archive my email with the letter ‘e’ once it’s
there. The way my Gmail settings are set, Mailplane then takes me straight
to my next email.
I have another keyboard shortcut with keyboard maestro that I call “Send
and Waiting” that all at once sends the composed email, archives it, and
puts it into my @Waiting context in Omnifocus
But that Spark for email looks so cool. I gotta go lie down and let the lust pass over and I’ll safely remain in Apple Mail.
I’m just too lazy to switch from one mail client to another.
I use Airmail across the board. So I don’t forget third party email apps!
I have great news for you!
In the upcoming iOS 11 and Omnifocus versions, drag and drop works perfectly. You can multi-task both apps and drag emails from the default mail app into the OmniFocus inbox. It works beautifully…
I’ve been waiting on this for soooooo long lol.
I’ll try to capture a screen recording later this evening and show you what it looks like.
Yes, please! I’d love to see an example of how the data comes through on the OmniFocus side. Is the message URL included?
Yup! Message URL is included to link back directly to the message.
Here you go! I love this feature… and everything else about iOS 11 on the iPad btw… it’s going to be a huge step forward as a laptop replacement.
The other really awesome feature they are adding is direct interaction with Siri… this is anothe great thing that removes the reminders work around capture need.
You can add tasks directly into specific projects, or just into your inbox… great!
Wooohoooo! This is gonna be awesome! Kinda tempted to upgrade the iPad Air 2 to that huge iPad 12". But I just got a 13" MacBook Pro. Gonna have to ask Santa Claus and the wife to open the wallet…