How to export from OmniFocus

The basics

OmniFocus stores your database in a single Omni-specific format, and every export is a copy of it in some other shape. Nothing you export is a live link back to the database: once written, a file is a snapshot, and OmniFocus never reads your edits back out of it.

That matters for the two jobs people confuse. Keeping a safety copy and moving to another app need different formats, and picking the wrong one wastes the effort.

Choose the format before you export

Pick the export format from what you plan to do with the file, because four of the five are lossy in ways that only show up later.

The Omni Group’s reference manual documents all of these under one Export command, which is why people miss that the choice is consequential.

Export from OmniFocus on Mac

On Mac, choose Export from the File menu, pick a format, and choose a location. This is the only place all five formats are available.

If you are leaving OmniFocus, choose Plain Text. Omni describes it as a lightweight plain text version of your data that opens in any text editor, and it is the only readable format that keeps your metadata attached to each item rather than spread across spreadsheet columns.

If you want a spreadsheet, choose CSV, and reach for CSV UTF-16 if accented or non-Roman characters come out garbled in the receiving app. Omni ships the second variant for exactly that problem.

Export from OmniFocus on iPhone or iPad

On iPhone, iPad and Apple Vision Pro, the only export is CSV, found under Export to CSV in Database Settings. The manual states this plainly and asks users to email support if they want other formats on those devices.

Plan around it. If your OmniFocus database lives mainly on an iPad and you want TaskPaper output, you need access to the Mac app at least once. There is no iOS route to the other four formats.

Understand what TaskPaper export keeps

Plain Text export keeps your metadata, but renames it. OmniFocus writes non-note metadata as TaskPaper parameters, and the TaskPaper reference guide explains that Omni uses that word because “tag” means something different in each app.

Omni’s own tip is the fastest way to see what survives: create an item in OmniFocus, use Edit then Copy as TaskPaper, and paste it into a text editor. Every parameter attached to the item appears in the correct formatting. The @autodone and @parallel parameters are always included when you copy this way.

Notes are the exception worth checking by hand. Metadata converts to parameters; long note bodies are prose, and how they land depends on what you paste them into.

Keep a .ofocus-backup for OmniFocus itself

A Backup Document is a restore point, not an export. It writes a .ofocus-backup file matching the standard OmniFocus database format, and opening it in OmniFocus surfaces a Revert to This Backup button.

Treat that button carefully: it replaces your primary database and forces every synced device to re-sync. It is the right tool after a bad bulk edit and the wrong tool for anything else, and no other application can read the file.

Check what your export leaves behind

Every OmniFocus export drops something, and the losses are structural rather than random.

Your perspectives do not travel. Omni’s manual for the Mac app notes that an exported OmniFocus Document loses settings specific to your database, including custom perspectives and view options. Perspectives are saved queries over your data rather than data themselves, so no format carries them. If you have spent years tuning them, write down the rules before you leave, because that thinking is the part you cannot re-export.

Attachments are files, not text. CSV and Plain Text are text formats. Anything you attached to an action needs collecting separately.

Structure flattens differently in each format: A CSV row cannot nest, so folder and project hierarchy becomes a column value. TaskPaper keeps the shape through indentation, which is the second reason to prefer Plain Text when the destination is another task manager.

What to do with the exported file

Match the file to the job, then verify one item end to end before you trust the whole export.

• Archiving a finished year: Simple HTML is the most readable in five years’ time, since the stylesheet and icons are embedded in the single file.
• Auditing in a spreadsheet: CSV, switching to CSV UTF-16 the moment characters look wrong.
• Moving to another app: Check its importer first. Use CSV for Done Bear, or Plain Text for a destination that accepts TaskPaper.
• Insurance against your own mistake: Backup Document.

Open the file and find one project you know well. Check its tags, dates and structure, then sample other projects and compare task counts. One correct project does not prove the entire export survived.

How Done Bear helps an OmniFocus move

Done Bear is a GTD task manager with five fixed views, not a project-management tool and not an OmniFocus clone. That distinction is the point: OmniFocus is deeper by design, with perspectives, review intervals and nested folders, and Done Bear deliberately has fewer moving parts.

• Your list is available on Windows, Linux and the web, not only on Apple hardware.
• Tasks live on the device and sync in the background, so nothing waits on a network round trip.
• The CSV importer lets you match columns and preview tasks before adding them.
• A hosted MCP server lets an AI assistant triage the list once it is there.

When you might not need this. If you use OmniFocus perspectives daily, work only on Apple devices, and rely on its review system, stay where you are. OmniFocus does things Done Bear does not, and the comparison page is specific about which.

To move a project, export it as CSV and start free with the CSV importer. Match the title, description and date columns, review the preview, then run the dry run before confirming. Done Bear does not read .ofocus-backup files or recreate perspectives. The import guide explains field mapping and undo.

Done Bear is free up to 250 tasks with no credit card. Import one project and compare the tasks with OmniFocus before moving the rest.