backing up your OmniFocus database with borgbackup
Next time you want to roll back your OmniFocus content, to undo for any reason, borg will let you do that reliably with as much fine-grained control as you have set up.
One immediate benefit of OmniFocus over alternative tools in the same space, such as Trello and Asana, is no longer having to export content for backups.
For example, with Trello, to backup the valuable contents of a board, one has to manually export from the web app. Sidebar Menu -> More -> Print & Export -> Export as JSON. This method doesn't even capture attachments. And you have to repeat the steps for every board.
backups for OmniFocus are easier
In contrast, OmniFocus' Support documentation explicitly documents using Time Machine to revert to previous versions of your content.
Because OmniFocus maintains your content as a single local database file, the instructions for Time Machine are transferable to any backup method that can take snapshots of its database files, which you'll recognize by the .ofocus file extension.
This is where borgbackup comes in.
borgbackup, henceforth borg, supports local and remotes. Add OmniFocus.ofocus to sources, point borg at an external drive (an app called Vorta makes this easier) plus remote storage like borgbase.com, and in just a few steps, you're compliant with the 3-2-1 rule of backups.
Omni Store or Mac App Store
Tested and found to work with OmniFocus installed from either Omni Store or Mac App Store.
encrypted webDAV database backups too
OmniFocus gives you the choice to sync using webDAV. Wonderful for data sovereignty.
Depending on your setup, you may have direct access to the webDAV sync target. For example, let's say your webDAV server is on networked-attached-storage (NAS). You might use Samba to browse that server from MacOS using Finder.
With access through your filesystem, you could easily direct borg to backup the encrypted OmniFocus database on the webDAV server, just like you did for the local OmniFocus database on your MacOS device.
Follow the same instructions as linked above to revert, and presto, your database is replaced!
When reverting using encrypted databases, you'll need the encryption key, for which OmniFocus will prompt you when you double-tap on the .ofocus-backup file. OmniFocus calls this the Encryption Passphrase. If the key is already saved on MacOS Keychain, you won't actually have to input, OmniFocus will use the saved copy.Next time you want to roll back your OmniFocus content, to undo for any reason, borg will let you do that reliably with as much fine-grained control as you have set up.
It's so easy, you'll find yourself feeling like you have super-powered undo. borg has the backup from 2 years ago? Revert for your OmniFocus for fun and see how different your life used to be.
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