Problem

You can't easily send your emails with Apple Mail to Todoist. And I don't want to have multiple inboxes, so I need to be able to move them.

Solution

Automator and services. It's not pretty as it's simply automating what you would manually do (but in 1 second rather than 30) but without using the Todoist API and storing the API token somewhere this is our best option.

Step one: Import this automator script or make your own

(if you don't want to use this zip file I've added steps below for you to set it up yourself - I do want to do it myself, get out of my way)

Step two: Ensure it's enabled in Services

  • Go to: System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts -> Services
  • Ensure Send email to Todoist is ticked
  • Add a keyboard shortcut (mine is ⌃⌘T or Control + Command + T)

Open your mail client, click a message, press your keyboard shortcut and bada boom bada bing, job done.

Closing thoughts

Maybe I should just make this an API so it doesn't disrupt my workflow, but I'd have to store my Twilio OAuth token somewhere.

Make it yourself

  • Open Automator
  • Choose Service
  • Drag in (from the action library) Mail -> Get Selected Mail Items
  • Drag in Utilities -> Run AppleScript and paste in
tell application "Mail"
	set _sel to get selection
	set _links to {}
	repeat with _msg in _sel
		set _messageURL to "Link: message://%3c" & _msg's message id & "%3e"
		set emailSubject to _msg's subject
		set end of _links to _messageURL
	end repeat
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to return
	set the clipboard to (_links as string)
	return emailSubject
end tell
  • Drag in Utilities -> Launch Application and ask it to open Todoist
  • Drag in Utilities -> Run AppleScript and paste in
on run {input, parameters}
	
	tell application "System Events"
		keystroke "q" -- q is the shortcut to quickly add a new task in todoist
		delay 0.2
		keystroke "Process email: " & input
		delay 0.2
		key code 46 using {command down} -- 46 = m, this is to open the quick comments box
		delay 0.2
		key code 9 using {command down} -- key code 9 is 'v', so this will paste what we copied above
		keystroke " " -- space so it knows we entered something (it's not registering the paste as inputting a comment)
		delay 0.2
		key code 53 -- Close quick comments box with 'escape'
		delay 0.1
		keystroke tab -- Into the actual title input for the task
		delay 0.1
		keystroke return -- enter to add the item
		delay 0.3
		key code 48 using {command down} -- Go back to where we were with Command + Tab (48)
	end tell
	return input
end run
  • Save it with ⌘+S as 'Send email to Todoist' then go to Step two