This week MacSparky is sponsored by the Omni Group and their latest version of OmniFocus for the iPhone and iPad, OmniFocus 3. It’s so appropriate that OmniFocus is sponsoring this week because I have been running around like a crazy man between the two jobs this week. Many podcast recordings. Many legal irons in the fire. I am not going crazy, however. That is because of OmniFocus and the way it helps me hold things together. OmniFocus is the task manager that keeps on giving. Just a few of the OmniFocus Features:

• Tags! Make them for people, energy level, priority, location, or whatever floats your boat.

• The Forecast view now shows your tasks and calendar events in order, so you can better see what’s coming up in your day and adjust if needed.

• Enhanced repeating tasks are easier than ever to set up and they work with real-world examples, such as the first weekday of the month.

• Batch editing has been brought over from the Mac, and it lets you set due dates, tags, and other data for multiple tasks all at once.

• Flexible inspectors now allow you to show only the features you use and reorder them, so your favorites are where you want them.

There is a bunch more. Just try it for yourself. Also, did you know that the Omni Group has world-class support? If you need help, they even have an 800 number. To learn more, head over to the OmniFocus website and get started.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Ulysses, the powerful, yet simple-to-use, writing app for all of the Apple platforms. With the release of iOS 13 and the new iPadOS, Ulysses was there on day one. The latest version 18 includes all the great new features, including support for Dark Mode and the system Split View on iPad. The Ulysses team has also made the application less dependent on iCloud. If you want, now you can sync your Ulysses library in Dropbox without functional compromises.

I am a fan of this application. I use it for all of my significant writing projects. Indeed, this is very post was written in Ulysses. The reason I like it so much is the combination of power and simplicity. The developers are opinionated and have built a beautiful application that’s fun to write in. At the same time, they have not overloaded it with bells and whistles to such an extent that it gets in the way of your writing. It’s just the perfect balance for me. If you haven’t checked out Ulysses, you should. If you sign up with the links in this blog post, you’ll even get three months of Ulysses for free.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by TextExpander. Copy and paste is an inefficient way to keep track of the things you type again and again. TextExpander makes you more productive by taking care of all those words and phrases for you. TextExpander works in all your apps so you can use it everywhere, like Microsoft Word and Excel, Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, and Apple’s Pages.

TextExpander does way more than that. With TextExpander you’ll see your snippets everywhere. It syncs between your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Windows PC instantly.

They’ve got free snippet groups for all sorts of folks including job recruiters, freelancers, airport codes, brand names, and more at the TextExpander website (or you can download some of mine).

TextExpander even lets you run AppleScripts. For example, I use TextExpander to auto address emails with Apple Mail.

Best of all, with TextExpander you don’t have to work alone: TextExpander for Teams lets you manage and share snippets with your coworkers or the entire company. Use this link to get 20% off. 

My thanks to BetterTouchTool for sponsoring MacSparky this week. BetterTouchTool takes your mouse, trackpad, and just about every other input device and makes them way better. Apple’s built-in gestures are just a taste of what you could do with those devices. With BetterTouchTool, you can completely re-design your Touch Bar, configure various Magic Mouse and Trackpad gestures, define keyboard shortcuts, bind standard mouse buttons, use the Siri Remote with your Mac and do tons more.

BetterTouchTool offers many actions to automate various tasks on your Mac. These can be assigned to any input-device trigger you choose. Additionally, it contains some handy features like window snapping, a clipboard manager, a screenshot editor, and much more. It even includes a free iOS app to control your Mac and trigger actions remotely. If you have a MacBook or MacBook Pro, this app is an absolute game-changer.

For example, when I click the bottom right corner of my trackpad, the currently active window gets resized to the right side of the screen. (I also do the same on the left side.) This little gesture is just one step in BetterTouchTool, but for me, it’s second nature, and I use it countless times a day.

Recently, the BetterTouchTool added a community website at community.folivora.ai. Users have shared some amazing presets there, including some very advanced custom Touch Bar setups that you should check out.

BetterTouchTool comes with a 45-day trial, after which you can choose between a license that includes all updates for two years and a lifetime license.

BetterTouchTool has been around for nine years, and I’ve used it since the beginning. With BetterTouchTool, I can make my Mac dance. You should too. MacSparky readers can purchase BetterTouchTool for 15% off at checkout by using the coupon code MACSPARKYBTT for a limited time. So don’t delay. Go to folivora.ai to learn more and take advantage of the special limited-time, 15% discount on BetterTouchTool.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the email service that can add a boatload of features to any email application. Using SaneBox you can get your email auto-sorted for you, defer it, and even get reminders when people don’t reply to important email. The feature I’d like to cover today, however, is the SaneBlackHole.

Have you ever received emails from a pest that just doesn’t know when to quit? I’m not talking about SPAM here, but instead a real person that just keeps bugging you. Just this morning I received the third email in three days from a blogger that wants to do “friendly cross-posts”. I declined in a reply to his first email but that didn’t stop him. They just keep coming. Today’s email started out, “Just in case you missed my earlier email about this important opportunity for you …” So today I unceremoniously dumped his email in the SaneBlackHole. Now, when I get any future email from that person, they go straight into the black hole and I’ll never see them again.

Maybe you’ve got someone in your life that needs to be dropped in the black hole. SaneBox can help you with that.

Why not straighten out your email by getting a SaneBox account today. If you sign up with this link, you even get a discount on your subscription.

This week, MacSparky is sponsored by OmniFocus, one of my favorite applications. Professional task management is the key to staying on top of your projects. These days, we have more commitments than ever. If we don’t have powerful tools to manage those projects, things are going to break. That is why I use OmniFocus. More than just a task manager with built-in tools to manage project review and tags, it gives you so many ways to capture and manage your tasks.

The Omni Group now has a web-based version that lets you access and modify your data from any computer with a web browser. If you work in an office that doesn’t support your Mac or iPad, OmniFocus for the Web solves your problem. You really need to check this out if you are down with web apps. The Omni Group did it right.

I use OmniFocus every day. It is how I’m able to keep my act together. Do you need a little help? Try OmniFocus. I don’t know how I’d get by without it.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by TextExpander. Copy and paste is an inefficient way to keep track of the things you type again and again. TextExpander makes you more productive by taking care of all those words and phrases for you. TextExpander works in all your apps so you can use it everywhere, like Microsoft Word and Excel, Adobe Illustrator and InDesign, and Apple’s Pages.

TextExpander does way more than that. With TextExpander you’ll see your snippets everywhere. It syncs between your Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Windows PC instantly.

They’ve got free snippet groups for all sorts of folks including job recruiters, freelancers, airport codes, brand names, and more at the TextExpander website (or you can download some of mine).

TextExpander even lets you run AppleScripts. For example, I use TextExpander to auto address emails with Apple Mail.

Best of all, with TextExpander you don’t have to work alone: TextExpander for Teams lets you manage and share snippets with your coworkers or the entire company. Use this link to get 20% off. 

This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the email service I use every day to manage my email. SaneBox acts as your own personal email assistant, sorting your inbox for you so you only see the most important emails with less important email getting relegated to other mailboxes for later.

I’m not the only one that relies on SaneBox. It’s also used by companies like eBay, Coca-Cola, Adidas, and LinkedIn to help their employees stay on top of the most important email.

SaneBox has many additional features, like the ability track and notify you if people don’t respond to your email and defer incoming email until later. It really serves as a set of power tools to make every aspect of using email easier and it works with just about any email platform: including iCloud, IMAP, Google, and Exchange. No matter what system, platform, or app you use to do email, SaneBox can help. It’s like feature upgrading every email application. If you’d like to become the boss of your email, go sign up for free SaneBox trial today and use the links in this post to get a significant discount when you sign up.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by inShort (website) (Mac App Store) (iOS App Store). inShort is a project planning application for the Mac, iPhone, and iPad that lets you plan projects and processes graphically across all of your Apple devices. 

One of the more innovative features is the way it allows you to embed processes and drill down to the level of detail you need at the moment. The trick with inShort is to build a detailed diagram, and from there the application creates a Gantt chart to execute your plan. If this has your interest, I recommend checking out the inShort Very Quick Guide.

inShort takes a unique approach to project planning and is worth checking out. The inShort development team has also added a satellite service, workflow.link that gives you a way to work with, edit, and manage your projects from any device with a web browser. 

Want to learn more? Check out the website and read the developer’s PDF. 

This week MacSparky sponsor is sponsored by  SaneBox, the email tool that everybody can (and should) use. You may have heard about some of the innovative new email features like inbox auto-sorting, deferred email, and reply tracking. The trouble is that early implementations of those features were all app-specific. You had to switch to a different email client that you didn’t necessarily like to get those features.

SaneBox fixes that. SaneBox has all of those cool new email tools (plus many more), and it works with just about any email client. Over the last few years, I have been jumping between iOS email clients trying to find the right app for me. Throughout this process, my one constant has been SaneBox because no matter which email client I’m using, I can still get auto inbox sorting, deferred email, reply tracking, and a pile of additional email tools via SaneBox. The service gives me the freedom to try and use any email client that tickles my fancy.

There is a lot more to SaneBox, but in addition to all of that, SaneBox gives you email client freedom. Just yesterday I hear from a reader that finally got around to trying out SaneBox and now he’s a believer. As he explained it to me, his biggest regret was not trying it sooner. To learn more head over to SaneBox and sign up today. Using the links in this post, you’ll even get a sweet discount.