How to export your OmniFocus data — the complete guide

Your task list is one of the most personal databases you own — years of projects, contexts, and the shape of how you actually work. You should never feel locked into one app to keep it. This guide covers the three ways to get a complete copy of your OmniFocus data out, how to choose between them, and what to do when an export misbehaves.

It is written to be useful whether you are switching apps, making a backup, or just want to know your data is portable. (We make SingleFocus, a cross-platform GTD app, and yes — one of the paths below produces a file we can import. But the export is yours regardless of where it goes. That principle has its own page.)

THE THREE PATHSWhat "export" means in OmniFocus

OmniFocus offers three fundamentally different ways out, and they preserve very different amounts of your data. Picking the right one is the whole game — so here is what each actually keeps.

1. CSV — the universal path

A spreadsheet-style dump available on every version of OmniFocus, on both Mac and iPhone/iPad. On a Mac it is File → Export; on iOS it is the only export format offered. CSV captures task name, project, tags, defer and due dates, completion, flagged state, estimated duration, notes, and the project hierarchy (encoded in the outline numbering). What it drops is everything structural: repeat rules, review intervals, and the sequential/parallel distinction. Good enough for a readable archive; lossy if you want to rebuild your system elsewhere.

2. TaskPaper — the middle path (Mac only)

OmniFocus can export plain text in a TaskPaper-flavoured format: hierarchy by indentation, and properties written as @defer(...), @due(...), @flagged, @parallel(false) tags. It preserves more meaning than CSV — including the sequential flag and some repeat information — and it is human-readable. The catch: it is Mac-only, and the format is convention, not a strict schema, so importers have to interpret it.

3. The JSON plug-in — the complete path

OmniFocus has a built-in JavaScript automation layer (Omni Automation) on both Mac and iOS. A plug-in can walk your entire database and emit structured JSON with everything: folders, the full tag hierarchy, projects with status and review intervals, the complete task tree, and — crucially — repeat rules as standard iCalendar RRULE strings plus OmniFocus's repeat method (fixed, defer-again, due-again). This is the only path that loses nothing structural. We maintain a free, open-source one: singlefocus-co/omnifocus-export. It runs entirely on your device, makes no network requests, and never writes to your database — the security model is documented and the whole thing is one readable file you can audit in a minute.

DECISION MATRIXWhich path is available to you

Availability depends on three things: your OmniFocus version, your device, and whether you have the Standard or Pro licence. Find your row.

One simplification falls out of this: if you keep custom perspectives, you have Pro, which means the plug-in is open to you — so for most serious OmniFocus users, the complete path is the right path.

CSV & TASKPAPERThe built-in exports, step by step

CSV on a Mac

1. Select the items you want (or show everything in a flat list first, so nothing is hidden by a perspective filter).
2. Choose File → Export…
3. Pick the comma-separated values (CSV) format and save.

There is a UTF-16 variant of the export for databases with non-ASCII characters. If your tasks contain accented characters and the plain export looks garbled when opened, re-export using that variant.

CSV on iPhone or iPad

1. Open the app's settings and find the data / export option.
2. Choose Export to CSV — on iOS this is the only export format.
3. Save the file through the standard share sheet (to Files, email, or a cloud drive).

TaskPaper (Mac)

Export plain text from the File menu, or select tasks and use Copy as TaskPaper to put a TaskPaper-formatted copy on the clipboard — that route carries properties like due dates, tags, and repeat type. Useful when you want something both portable and readable.

THE PLUG-INThe complete export, step by step

This is the path that keeps everything. It needs OmniFocus 3.8 or 4 with a Pro licence, and works identically on Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Install

1. Download the latest release of singlefocus-co/omnifocus-export — it comes as a .zip (see the warning below for why).
2. Unzip it to get the singlefocus-export.omnifocusjs file.
3. Mac: double-click the file and confirm the install. iPhone/iPad: save it to Files, tap it, choose to open it in OmniFocus, and confirm.

Run it

Where the run command lives differs between OmniFocus 4 and 3 — this trips up almost everyone on OmniFocus 3, so it has its own troubleshooting entry too.

• OmniFocus 4: open the Automation menu (or Quick Open) and choose Export for SingleFocus.
• OmniFocus 3: the Automation button only appears in the Projects, Tags, and Review perspectives — not on the Home screen. Open Projects, tap the automation icon in the toolbar, and choose the action there. Tip: if you'd rather not hunt for it, turn on Developer Tools in OmniFocus 3's Settings — that surfaces the Automation button everywhere, including the Home screen bottom bar, so it's always one tap away.

On first run, OmniFocus shows a one-time security confirmation. Approve it, then choose where to save the JSON file. You'll get a summary like "12 projects, 552 tasks, 3 tags, 3 folders exported."

TROUBLESHOOTINGWhen the export misbehaves

These are the real failures we hit getting this working on actual devices — with the exact error text, so you can find this page by searching for it. Each one has a one-line fix.

VERIFYConfirm your export is complete

Whichever path you used, do a quick sanity check before relying on the file:

• Open it. A CSV opens in any spreadsheet app; a JSON file opens in any text editor. Confirm your projects and tasks are actually there.
• Check the count. The plug-in tells you how many projects, tasks, and tags it exported — compare that to roughly what you expect.
• Check the encoding. If accented characters look wrong in a CSV, re-export with the UTF-16 variant.
• Check the extension. A plug-in download should end in .omnifocusjs (or .json for the export it produces), not .txt.

WHAT TRAVELS, WHAT DOESN'THonest limits

No OmniFocus export is perfectly lossless, and it's better to know the gaps up front than discover them later:

• Perspectives can't be read by the automation API — their rules don't come out in any export. You rebuild them in your new app.
• Attachments aren't exposed by the export API.
• Rich-text formatting in notes comes out as plain text.
• OmniFocus 2's contexts map to a single tag per task on import — v2 predates multiple tags.

The JSON plug-in keeps everything else: the project and folder structure, the full tag hierarchy, defer and due dates, completion and drop dates, flags, estimated durations, review intervals, and repeat rules. A good importer should show you a report of exactly what came through, so nothing fails silently.