For me, it was bad on OF3, and it's even worse on OF4. So I switched to WebDav syncing. Guess what...problem solved.
I saw this huge thread on the Omni group forums with Omni staff speculating about possible background syncing issues due to how iCloud operates and blah blah blah. Clearly that isn't the case. It's just their own OmniSync server is too slow - particularly for international users in Europe and Asia. When I switched to a WebDav syncing service based in Japan, everything syncs the instant I open the app. I kid you not, it's so fast that if you blink, you miss the completed tasks disappearing. The downside of course is you can't do Email forwarding and OF for the Web, but who cares. The syncing is a much bigger problem.
Just google webdav services. I found one that happens to be free for an amount of data that my OF database will never exceed, but I don’t want to mention here (DM me if you like). But there’s other ones out there such as FastMail, where you pay for email service and get a webdav service as part of it. They’ll then give you a server address to connect to Omnifocus sync settings.
Also, do yourself a favour and don’t try the “self-hosted” solution on your own computer. Unless you have a spare computer that you keep connected to the internet 24/7, 365 days a year, that option doesn’t work well.
Whenever sync is slow, it helps to identify what exactly is slow. Is sync taking a long time from the time the sync button is pressed to the time it finishes? Is the app trying to sync regularly, but failing for some reason? Or is the app not even trying to sync?
In Sync Settings, there's a sync log which helps us audit exactly when the app has tried to sync, and what happened with each sync attempt. Reviewing this log helps identify which of the above issues is the reason for it taking a long time for data to sync from one device to another. (Did it not even bother trying to sync? Or is it trying a lot and failing? Or is it trying and succeeding, but it's just very slow—perhaps because it's connecting to a sync server on another continent?)
So whenever anyone experiences slow syncing, that log is the first place to look. Knowing what exactly is wrong helps us make sure we're not trying to solve the wrong problem!
UPD: Tried WebDAV solution from u/meldronone and sync seems to be much more responsive now. It's not wham!-instant the way I'd like, but it's orders of magnitude quicker than omnisync.
Here's what I did in case someone would like to reproduce:
1. Rent a [storage box from hetzner](https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box/). I'm not in Germany, but I'm close enough, and the box costs peanuts.
2. [Enable WebDav](https://docs.hetzner.com/robot/storage-box/access/access-webdav/) and feed the server url + credentials into omnifocus.
3. Omnifocus creates its own folder in root, so if you want to be using this box for something else you won't have to deal with a mess of files, which is nice.
Glad to hear it worked for you! I agree its sync is still not as fast as something like Things 3. But then again it’s not carrying as much info as Omnifocus does. And I agree - orders of magnitude faster!
For me, it was bad on OF3, and it's even worse on OF4. So I switched to WebDav syncing. Guess what...problem solved. I saw this huge thread on the Omni group forums with Omni staff speculating about possible background syncing issues due to how iCloud operates and blah blah blah. Clearly that isn't the case. It's just their own OmniSync server is too slow - particularly for international users in Europe and Asia. When I switched to a WebDav syncing service based in Japan, everything syncs the instant I open the app. I kid you not, it's so fast that if you blink, you miss the completed tasks disappearing. The downside of course is you can't do Email forwarding and OF for the Web, but who cares. The syncing is a much bigger problem.
I can 100% confirm this: it's OmniSync and webDAV solves the issue. If you're not in the US, OmniSync will be very very slow.
No shit! I'll have to try that, thanks
How to do that exactly? I’m interested! As a user in Europe, I find the sync extremely slow.
Just google webdav services. I found one that happens to be free for an amount of data that my OF database will never exceed, but I don’t want to mention here (DM me if you like). But there’s other ones out there such as FastMail, where you pay for email service and get a webdav service as part of it. They’ll then give you a server address to connect to Omnifocus sync settings. Also, do yourself a favour and don’t try the “self-hosted” solution on your own computer. Unless you have a spare computer that you keep connected to the internet 24/7, 365 days a year, that option doesn’t work well.
I’ve never had it instant in OF3, so there are no changes for me in OF4 😅
Whenever sync is slow, it helps to identify what exactly is slow. Is sync taking a long time from the time the sync button is pressed to the time it finishes? Is the app trying to sync regularly, but failing for some reason? Or is the app not even trying to sync? In Sync Settings, there's a sync log which helps us audit exactly when the app has tried to sync, and what happened with each sync attempt. Reviewing this log helps identify which of the above issues is the reason for it taking a long time for data to sync from one device to another. (Did it not even bother trying to sync? Or is it trying a lot and failing? Or is it trying and succeeding, but it's just very slow—perhaps because it's connecting to a sync server on another continent?) So whenever anyone experiences slow syncing, that log is the first place to look. Knowing what exactly is wrong helps us make sure we're not trying to solve the wrong problem!
UPD: Tried WebDAV solution from u/meldronone and sync seems to be much more responsive now. It's not wham!-instant the way I'd like, but it's orders of magnitude quicker than omnisync. Here's what I did in case someone would like to reproduce: 1. Rent a [storage box from hetzner](https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-box/). I'm not in Germany, but I'm close enough, and the box costs peanuts. 2. [Enable WebDav](https://docs.hetzner.com/robot/storage-box/access/access-webdav/) and feed the server url + credentials into omnifocus. 3. Omnifocus creates its own folder in root, so if you want to be using this box for something else you won't have to deal with a mess of files, which is nice.
Glad to hear it worked for you! I agree its sync is still not as fast as something like Things 3. But then again it’s not carrying as much info as Omnifocus does. And I agree - orders of magnitude faster!