This week MacSparky is sponsored by TextExpander. While TextExpander is a fantastic personal productivity tool, it’s even more helpful for teams. With TextExpander team accounts, everyone can access, search, and share common snippets. You can have your best writers prepare your snippets, and everyone can use them on multiple platforms: macOS, iOS, Windows, and the web.

I am a TextExpander for teams subscriber. While my team is pretty small–just two people–TextExpander for teams has been extremely helpful the last few days as you guys have been flooding me with requests to transition your video courses to the new learn.MacSparky site. To solve this problem, I updated the links and codes in the shared TextExpander library so my assistant could get up-to-date information. As I was updating the links and information, she wasn’t even aware of the changes. She could still use the same snippets to send out the customer emails that are now magically updated.

As a result, I was able to make this transition more efficiently. And that is with just a team of two people. Imagine if you had 100 people using TextExpander. If you’re on a team, TextExpander will change your life, leaving more time for what you do best. For larger teams, TextExpander supports Single Sign-On (SSO) and grouping accounts to make on-boarding a breeze.

If you are on a team, you should consider implementing TextExpander to make you more productive. To learn more head over to TextExpander.com and let them know you heard about it at MacSparky.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the powerful email tool that can help you conquer your inbox. I’ve written before about SaneBox filtering, which is awesome. However, SaneBox smart filtering is just the beginning. SaneBox can also sort your inbox, keep track of reminders and snoozed emails, rescue email from your spam folder, upload attachments your cloud, and more.

One of my favorite features is SaneReminders. This feature alone can be a game changer for you. When I send an email to someone that requires a follow-up, I just blind copy to “1week@sanebox.com”. If in the following week my recipient doesn’t reply, SaneBox sends me a reminder so I can follow up. This whole workflow is the most seamless way to keep up with email responses and I use this feature multiple times a day. This is all very powerful and just one more feature you get with a SaneBox account.

SaneBox is a great service that I use every day to manage my email. You should too. To learn more head over to SaneBox.com and check it out. MacSparky readers even get a discount.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by Hoban Cards, makers of fine letterpress calling cards and stationery. I’ve been using Hoban Cards for years and it seems I get a compliment on my business cards every time I give one away. They have solutions for every budget from beautiful existing designs to custom cards. Lately, they’ve also started doing letterpress colophon cards that really stand out. (I’m probably going to end up buying a set of those for myself.)

At the source of all of the beautiful Hoban produts is their collection of vintage letterpress machines. While you may think your cards look just fine made with a Mac and a laser printer, you really haven’t seen anything until you see a calling card made with 1500 pounds of steel and iron. I’m hooked on Hoban’s stationery and cards and I bet you will be too. 

Best of all, mention “MacSparky” at checkout for a little help on your order. Learn more at Hoban Cards.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by the Omni Group and their latest version of OmniFocus for the iPhone and iPad, OmniFocus 3. The latest version adds several new features while still keeping it a beautiful (and usable) app. What features you may ask? Why don’t you try these on for size:

• 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. 

Conquer your task list today with OmniFocus 3.

This week’s MacSparky sponsor, TextExpander, is one of my favorite tools to recommend to folks interested in working smarter, not harder. TextExpander is a text expansion tool that changes your game. Text expansion tools have always been useful. Type “ccell” and the app automatically fills in your cell phone number, correctly formatted. 

What makes TextExpander so much better, however, is all the icing on the cake. And when it comes to TextExpander, there is a lot of icing. 

Need rich text and a picture in your snippet? Yup.

Want to add an AppleScript to your snippet? TextExpander does that.

Want to share snippets? You can do that. (I did that.)

Want to use it on Windows, Mac, and iOS. TextExpander does that too.

You can even get team accounts, so everyone in your company is giving out precisely the right message.

I use TextExpander every day, and the application saves me a ton of time. If you’d like to make your computer do the work, so you don’t have to, look no further. Check out TextExpander, and let them know you heard about it here for a discount.

This week, MacSparky is sponsored by the Omni Group and their new release OmniFocus 3 for iOS. I love the new version of OmniFocus for my iPad and iPhone. 

One of my favorite new features is the improved Forecast view. With the new version, OmniFocus mixes your due tasks in between your events, in order. Then, in Forecast view, you can see exactly how your day will (ideally) go. Click to enlarge the sample below.

View fullsize

So much of staying productive hinges on setting yourself up for success without overdoing it. Laying your calendar on top of your tasks in order has really helped me be more realistic in planning my days.

That is just one feature of the new OmniFocus 3 for iPad and iPhone. The Omni Group is a brilliant group of programmers, designers, and generally nice people. Head over to the OmniFocus website to learn more.

Do you ever receive emails with winmail.dat files on your Mac? Windows users send them to me all the time. These files are windows formatted Microsoft Outlook email attachments and one of the rare file formats that your Mac has no idea how to handle. I get winmail.dat files too often, and I finally found the right app for dealing them with Letter Opener.

Letter Opener converts and displays the content of winmail.dat files automatically inside macOS Mail so that they appear just like any other email. With Letter Opener, you will never have to think about winmail.dat attachments again. Letter Opener is fully localized in Arabic, Cat, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.

I love Letter Opener because, since installing it, a long-time problem just went away. Now I’m barely even aware of receiving winmail.dat files because everything is taken care of right in Apple Mail. And for you mobile warriors, there’s also an iOS version. Go check out Letter Opener today and use the code “MACSPARKY” for 10% off.

View fullsize

I’ve heard a lot about automation this week as the Automators podcast gets launched. One of the easiest ways to get started with automation is by getting TextExpander installed on your Mac, iPad, and iPhone. TextExpander is a text replacement tool and so much more. With TextExpander, you can type a phrase like “ccell” and it will automatically fill in your cell phone number. But TextExpander is so much more than that.

Using TextExpander, you can have it automatically create the date and time. For example, when I talk with someone on the phone related to the day job and want to keep notes about the conversation, I just type “xdts” which, in my head, means date and time string. Then TextExpander automatically creates something like this, “2018-07-13 13:23”. If I need to put the full date in a letter, I just type “fdate” and TextExpander puts in the current date, like this, “July 13, 2018”.

But TextExpander goes much deeper. It can use the contents of your clipboard to auto-fill in snippets. It can press keyboard keys, like the tab key, to automate filling in forms on the web or creating an email. You can get it for yourself and your team members so you can share snippets with your team members. 

I’ve done so much with TextExpander over the years that I even have a page of snippets I’ve created that you can download ranging from movie to reviews to conference calls. To learn more, head over to TextExpander.com and let them know you heard about it at MacSparky in the “Where did you hear about us” field.

This week MacSparky is sponsored by SaneBox, the email service that can change your life … today. For a lot of folks, email is that thorn in your side that you can’t quite ever escape. The problem is that email never sleeps. It just keeps coming at you. So why don’t you get on email tool on your side that also never sleeps. That’s SaneBox. With SaneBox at your back, you add a powerful set of email tools that can work in just about any email client. With SaneBox you can:

• Wake up every day to find the SaneBox robots have automatically sorted your incoming email for you so you can address the important and ignore the irrelevant. 
• Defer email for hours, days, or weeks so it is out of your life until a more appropriate time.
• Set secret reminders so if someone doesn’t reply to an important email SaneBox gives you a nudge to follow up. (This is huge in my daily workflows.)
• Automatically save attachments to the cloud (like Dropbox).
• Use their SaneForward service to automatically send appropriate emails to services like Evernote, Expensify, and Kayak.
• Move unwanted email to the SaneBlackHole and never see anything from that person again.

The list goes on. Why not straighten out your email by getting a SaneBox account and bringing a gun to a knife fight. I’ve been a SaneBox subscriber since 2012. If you sign up with this link, you get a free trial and $10 off when you subscribe. Do you know how many MacSparky readers have tried and loved SaneBox? A lot. You should try it too.

This week, MacSparky.com is sponsored by OmniFocus. Check out the new OmniFocus, version 3 for iPad and iPhone. It’s everything you’ve always loved about OmniFocus, just more powerful and easier to use. 

The new version allows you to add tags to your tasks, like location, person, energy level, and priority. You can even sort by multiple tags to build perspectives that get exactly the tasks you need in front of you right now. 

Speaking of perspectives, there are some useful built-in perspectives with the new version including forecasts but if that’s not enough for you, with the pro version you can make your own custom perspectives. I use these every day to get my work done.

I’ve been hearing from readers that are worried about upgrading to the new version on iPad and iPhone while they’re still using version 2 on the Mac. This is not a problem. The Omni group spent a lot of time making sure that the files will work just fine across version 2 on your Mac and version 3 on your iPad and iPhone period. (Version 3 for the Mac should arrive later this summer.)

So stop waiting and get yourself set up with OmniFocus, version 3 for iPad and iPhone and let them know you heard about it here at MacSparky.com.