The Omni Group officially launched OmniOutliner 6 following a brief beta period.
The update delivers a host of improvements and new features designed to streamline outlining tasks, even for those who don’t regularly use the tool.
OmniOutliner 6 Introduces Omni Links
As previously announced in November, OmniOutliner 6 adopts the Liquid Glass visual design and functions as a universal application.
According to The Omni Group:
OmniOutliner has been visually refreshed, adopting beautiful Liquid Glass design elements and a modernized look and feel when run on macOS Tahoe 26, iOS 26, or iPadOS 26. With updated iconography throughout the application and a new app icon that adapts to clear and tinted on supported devices, OmniOutliner 6 feels right at home on the latest Apple operating systems.
Being a universal app means users can now access all the new features across Macs, iPhones, iPads, and Apple Vision Pro, with a consistent user interface and a universal feature set, including the new Omni Links.
Omni Links allow users to link to documents through user-defined Connected Folders, which can be local or remote via Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, and Google Docs. It also supports files and folders on a local server.
Beyond files and folders, Omni Links work with web links, increasing its power, especially across multiple devices. They also link to specific content within a document and are shareable with other OmniOutliner 6 users.
Refined UI, Themes, and Templates
OmniOutliner 6 addresses Dark Mode quirks from previous versions, demonstrating a thorough development process.
Users can now mirror the system’s light or dark mode setting or create custom appearances. Dynamic Themes adapt the app and template color schemes to match the selected mode, improving visibility.
The update also introduces fully customizable templates with cross-platform compatibility, reinforcing the app’s universal approach.
Interface details previously exclusive to specific devices, like hiding the bottom bar on Mac (formerly iPad-only), and advanced document styling on iPad and iPhone, are now available across platforms.
The update also brings usability improvements, including multi-column notes, customizable grid lines, row indentation toggles, unlimited outline hierarchy levels, and multiple window support for the same project. Users can drag items between project instances in separate windows for easy reordering.
AI-Powered Tools
OmniOutliner 6 builds on OmniFocus 4.8’s Apple Intelligence support, adding generative text capabilities.
Omni Group CEO Ken Case stated in September:
“Beginning with OmniFocus 4.8 on macOS Tahoe 26, iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and visionOS 26, Omni Automation introduces support for querying Apple’s on-device Foundation Model directly from within scripts and plug-ins. This means you can take advantage of AI without sharing your personal information or data with third-party AI services: all interaction is performed on your Apple device (computer, iPad, iPhone, or Apple Vision Pro).
(…)
Plug-in authors can integrate the language models with your OmniFocus data in all sorts of creative ways. For example, we’ve created a “Help Me Plan” sample plug-in, demonstrated in the video above, that breaks down the selected task into smaller tasks.
Whether or not to use these AI models is completely up to you. They’re not perfect oracles by any means. But sometimes even a bad suggestion can help you past a mental block in planning a project, so you can move forward again.”
OmniOutliner 6 expands on this with the launch of AI Tools, a customizable feature leveraging Omni Automation plugins and Apple’s on-device AI model.
For developers of Omni Automation plug-ins, the new “AI Tools” feature enables the Apple Foundation Models framework to execute custom code snippets or “AI Tools” that you create and add to your plug-in or library. Think of “AI Tools” as JavaScript functions within your code that can be called as needed by the Apple Foundation Models frameworks.
In practice, users can extract text from emails, web pages, documents, and document segments (via Omni Links), send it to Apple’s Foundation Models, and receive outline summaries based on specific prompts.
Users can request detailed outlines from prompts like “help me plan for a cross-country road trip during the spring,” complete with nested items, and then transfer the result to OmniFocus.
Additional Improvements
OmniOutliner 6 also features:
- Attachment Enhancements — Image attachments can now be resized to better fit your content. Attachment support, previously a Pro-only feature, is now available in the Essentials edition.
- Saved Filters — Saved filters now support nested AND/OR/NOT rules, expanded date-based rules, and rule comments.
- Paste — A new “Pasting from other apps” setting offers options for pasting styled text, with dedicated menu items for “Paste and Merge Styles,” “Paste and Match Style,” and “Paste with Original Style.”
- Essentials Mode — Pro users can test the Essentials experience by disabling Pro features in the License window.
As OmniOutliner 6 is a universal app, a single purchase grants access on macOS 15 Sequoia and later, iPadOS 26 and later, iOS 26 and later, and visionOS 26 and later.
While I’ve never been a dedicated outliner, OmniOutliner 6 impressed me with how easily it integrated into my workflow, even while writing this article.
Every customization I considered was supported, and the software felt remarkably deep and capable. The AI-powered capabilities, leveraging The Omni Group’s automation expertise, are a near-perfect implementation.
If you’re new to outlining, OmniOutliner 6 (or the Essentials edition) is a great place to start, with extensive documentation and guides available.
Even if outlining doesn’t become a daily habit, you’ll likely find yourself reaching for OmniOutliner more often than expected.
