Category: Alfred

Can’t quit Alfred? Me neither! But I use these Raycast extensions

I have been using Alfred since 2016 version 2. My Alfred workflows and muscle memory are so ingrained that moving to Raycast just isn’t an option. That said, I’ve got Raycast installed, and I’m currently using the free version, leveraging just two extensions that I find particularly useful.

The first is the Raycast Reminders extension. Here’s what it does:

  • Create Reminders: You can create new reminders, add notes, set priority, and specify a due date. The due date can be expressed in natural language. For instance, you can say “Remind me tomorrow at 3 PM” to set a reminder for that time.
  • My Reminders: This command lists all your uncompleted reminders. You can mark them as complete, set their priority, copy details, or open them in Apple’s Reminder app.

The second is the Calendar My Schedule extension. Here’s what it does:

  • My Schedule: View upcoming events for different time frames, from today’s agenda to the weeks ahead. Search for specific events. No more calendar app hopping!

Alfred simply has nothing like these two extensions.

Quick Tip: View your recent Alfred query history

Alfred Blog

Did you know that Alfred can remember queries you’ve recently typed? Once you’ve enabled this feature, you’ll have access to the latest 20 queries you’ve typed in Alfred by pressing the up arrow. You can even have the most recently typed query automatically populated when you reshow Alfred within 5 minutes.

I just recently discovered this. Good to know!

My Everyday Essentials: Alfred, Drafts, and PopClip – The Backbone of My Workflow

In this blog post, I want to introduce you to three essential Mac apps: Alfred, Drafts, and PopClip. These apps have become the backbone of my daily routine, enabling me to navigate, capture, and process information with remarkable efficiency. Let’s delve into each app’s unique features and see how they can transform your workflow too.

  1. Alfred:

Link: Get Alfred

Alfred is a powerful productivity app that acts as a versatile launcher, file search tool, and workflow automator all in one. It replaces the traditional macOS Spotlight search and provides a wealth of additional features that enhance your productivity. With Alfred, you can swiftly open applications, find files, perform web searches, control system settings, and execute complex workflows, all through custom hotkeys or by simply typing a few keywords.

Key Features:

  • Application launcher: Launch any app on your Mac with a few keystrokes.
  • File search: Quickly locate files by name or content, saving valuable time.
  • Web searches: Perform searches on popular search engines or custom search sites without opening a browser.
  • Workflow automation: Create custom workflows with various actions, such as executing scripts, manipulating files, or sending emails.

Alfred’s versatility and customization options make it an indispensable tool for boosting productivity and streamlining your daily workflow.

  1. Drafts:

Link: Get Drafts

Drafts is an ingenious note-taking app designed to capture and process your thoughts, ideas and more effortlessly. Its primary strength lies in its ability to quickly capture text from anywhere on your Mac and provide a range of actions to manipulate that text. Drafts excels in turning your ideas into actions, making it an excellent companion for writers, thinkers, and anyone in need of a reliable digital scratchpad.

Key Features:

  • Quick note capture: Launch Drafts, jot down your thoughts, and it automatically saves your notes.
  • Actions: Transform your notes with a variety of powerful actions, including sending to other apps, formatting, creating tasks, and more.
  • Automation: Utilize scripts and integrations to automate your workflow and send your notes to multiple destinations simultaneously.

Drafts’ simplicity, coupled with its powerful features and customizable actions, makes it an invaluable tool for capturing and processing ideas efficiently.

  1. PopClip:

Link: Get PopClip

PopClip is a clever utility that enhances your text-editing capabilities by providing a handy popover menu with relevant actions whenever you select text. With PopClip, you can quickly perform actions like copying, pasting, searching, formatting, and sharing, without having to navigate through menus or remember keyboard shortcuts. It’s a small yet incredibly convenient app that significantly boosts your productivity.

Key Features:

  • Contextual actions: PopClip displays a customizable set of actions whenever you select text, allowing you to perform common tasks effortlessly.
  • Customization: Tailor the available actions to your specific needs by adding or removing extensions from a growing library of options.
  • Clipboard history: PopClip keeps track of your copied text, enabling you to access previously copied content easily.

PopClip’s unobtrusive nature and seamless integration into your existing workflow make it an essential utility for anyone who deals with text on a regular basis.

Conclusion:

Having the right tools can make a world of difference in your productivity. Alfred, Drafts, and PopClip have become integral parts of my workflow, enabling me to work smarter and accomplish more in less time. By seamlessly integrating into your daily routine, these apps empower you to streamline tasks, capture and process information effortlessly, and enhance your overall productivity. Give them a try and experience the transformative power they bring to your Mac experience.

This post originally published at https://medium.com/macoclock on June 4, 2023.

 

Launching and Hiding Apps in macOS with Hotkeys

Joe Buhlig, The Sweet Setup

What I’m proposing is this: you should set up keyboard hotkeys that allow you to navigate from app to app.

[…]

First, the keyboard is a superior input device to the mouse. It has more keys (most of the time) and it’s much quicker to move your fingers from key to key than it is to move your entire hand to the mouse and move the cursor. So, the more time you can spend with your hands on the keyboard without switching between input tools, the better.

Second, hiding/unhiding applications is superior to minimizing/un-minimizing windows or quitting/opening applications. Not everyone knows about this feature, but on your Mac, you can Hide/Unhide an application from the menu bar.

What Joe is writing about here isn’t new but it’s worth mentioning again for those of you who aren’t using keyboard shortcuts to launch and hide apps on your Mac.

Back in 2017, I wrote about how you can do this with either Alfred or Keyboard Maestro.

Launch your favorite Mac apps with keyboard shortcuts using Alfred – ldstephens

Launch your favorite Mac apps with keyboard shortcuts | Keyboard Maestro – ldstephens

I’ve been launching and hiding apps with keyboard shortcuts for as long as I can remember.

The backbone of my Mac – Alfred 5

There is one app that is the backbone for everything that I do on my Mac. That app is Alfred!

Most folks refer to Alfred as a launcher, but it is so much more. I use it for text expansion, finding files, launching apps, clipboard history, and more. No bullshit, this is the app that I use most on my Mac every single day.

The core of Alfred is free to download and use forever, with no strings attached, but if you end up liking it, you’ll want to check out the advanced features of the optional Powerpack.

New to Alfred? Check out Getting Started with Alfred 5.

These are the features that I use to unlock the full power of my Mac. Each feature listed below is a link to the documentation for that feature. To get the most out of Alfred, I highly recommend that you take the time to read about each feature.

My Workflows
My Workflows

Reference:

Guides and Tutorials – Alfred Help and Support

Tip: You can click the question mark icon in any preference to get to the relevant help page!

I hope this post gave you some insight to what’s possible with Alfred.

If you’ve tried Alfred in the past and felt, that it’s the same as Spotlight, I hope this post has changed that view.

If you’ve never heard of Alfred and are now eager to try it out, give it a go and download it for free.

If you have questions about my setup, please feel free to contact me.

Re-thinking digital data management

I’ve been rethinking how I store my digital data. I used to keep it in plain text markdown files. More recently I have been keeping it in apps like Bear, Ulysses, or Apple Notes. I’ve never been comfortable with this method because of the lock-in. And, use I know Bear and Ulysses have export options.

To get a better idea of how people store their digital data I started a thread titled “Conflicted! Data storage – Individual files or proprietary database format?” in the MPU forums.

What I gleaned from the comments was that more people favored storing data in individual files. Several people use Devonthink or EagleFiler while others use a folder structure in Finder. The subject of finding files/search came up. HoudahSpot was mentioned a few times as a Finder search app alternative to Spotlight.

Researching HoudahSpot lead me to this blog post by Brett Terpstra.

For those of us who have shifted from folder hierarchies to search as our primary method of “filing,” Spotlight has become a way of life. And where Spotlight falls short, HoudahSpot steps in and fills the gaps. I’ve said it enough that it sounds cliché to me, but HoudahSpot really is steroids for Spotlight on macOS.

The decision I made was to go back to individual files. All my digital data is now in a shallow folder structure in Finder as individual files. I can access these files with any text editor on any platform. And searching with Alfred or HoudahSpot I can find absolutely any file I’m looking for.

🖇 Search Safari open tabs from Alfred

Gabe Weatherhead, writing at MacDrifter

Lately I’m frustrated with Safari.

I typically have several Safari windows open, each with a different group of related tabs. When I want to switch to a specific tab it’s a tiny awkward dance of flipping through windows and then CMD-Shift-Backslash to open the Safari tab overview search. It’s not a great experience, especially if I have a Safari window in another space.

There’s a really nice solution to this problem with using an Alfred workflow. It’s some clever work that uses javascript to list all of the browser tabs. It also has separate triggers to search Chrome, Brave, Edge, and something called Vivaldi.

Alfred Tab Search
Alfred Tab Search

I have found this Alfred Workflow to be particularly useful when I have lots of tabs and multiple windows open. You can download the workflow here: https://github.com/epilande/alfred-browser-tabs

My favorite Mac Apps for 2022

2022 is nearly here. It’s the time of year that I evaluate the apps that I’ve been using and decide which apps I will use for the coming year. I find that writing this out helps me better evaluate the apps that best fit my workflows.

For the last 7 months, I’ve been using an iPad as my main computer. I wanted to learn the best ways to use it and forcing myself to make it my main computing device was the way to do that. At the same time, I was wondering if I’d ever use a Mac again since Apple was in the middle of a five-year period in which it had ignored the Mac.

I’ve moved back to the Mac for most of my work and the M1 is a big part of why, of course, but not the whole story. I missed the automation that I developed in apps like Keyboard Maestro, Alfred, and Hazel.

So, now I have a new 2021 24” M1 iMac base model with the Touch ID Magic Keyboard and Magic Mouse. My iPad is now my mobile device.

My Hardware:

  • 2021 24” M1 iMac with Touch ID Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse 2, and Trackpad
  • iPhone 11
  • iPad Air 4th generation with Magic Keyboard and Trackpad and Magic Mouse 2
  • Apple Watch 44 mm Series 4

Web

Communication

Calendar, Tasks, and Notes

Reading

Writing

Utilities / Productivity

My favorite iOS apps for 2022 is here.

Mac Migration Assistant broke Alfred file search on my new M1 iMac

My attempts to resist getting a new M1 Mac failed. I’ve now taken delivery of a base model M1 24” iMac with a Touch ID Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, and Magic Trackpad.

After migrating data from my old MacBook Pro to my new M1 iMac, I ran into an issue with Alfred. File Search was broken.

If this happens to you, here’s what you need to do to fix it:

First, make sure all Permissions are enabled.

Then follow the instructions in this Alfred support email sent to me by Vero:

Hi Loren,

This is an issue in macOS Monterey that affects primarily users who migrate data from another Mac. We’ve established in this forum thread that rebuilding your Mac’s index in full resolves the issue for everyone:

https://www.alfredforum.com/topic/17462-file-search-in-macos-monterey/?do=findComment&comment=90299

The first steps to follow when results seem unexpected is to rebuild your Mac’s metadata. It’s usually because the data being provided by macOS is incorrect (even if it appears correct in the current Spotlight cache), and rebuilding ensures that all this information is refreshed by the OS.

Even if you believe you’ve already reindexed, please follow the steps below specifically (as it involves deleting a cache first and ensuring Terminal has suitable permissions).

  • ******First, please pop open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access and add Terminal**
  • Once you’ve done this, go to Alfred’s Advanced preferences, choose “Rebuild macOS Metadata”
  • ******Ensure that you check “Delete .Spotlight-V100 before reindex”**
  • Follow the steps in Terminal, and keep a close eye for any error messages relating to your index. 

Please let me know if there are any errors. Otherwise, if it proceeds smoothly, you may need to wait up to an hour for the reindex to complete. Once this is done, make your searches again and see if your results are more as expected.

If your issue persists, please provide the following information:

  • Your diagnostics file, by typing ?diagnostics into Alfred and attaching the resulting fileExamples of the File
  • Troubleshooting reports for the files you cannot find using Alfred
  • Details of exactly what you’re typing into Alfred and what results you are expecting to see

Cheers,

Vero

My 2021 Essential Mac Apps

Every year towards the end of December I evaluate the apps that I’ve been using and what I will use for the next year. I find that writing this out helps me better evaluate the apps that best fit my workflows. Once I complete my evaluation, I summarize it in a post on this blog.

Another reason for this post is that visitors are always asking me which apps I use for specific tasks. To keep from repeating myself over and over, here’s the list of apps that I use.

My setup:

  • MacBook Pro early–2015 13” (soon to be replaced with a MacBook Air M1/8gb)
  • iPhone 11
  • iPad 5th Generation (which I rarely use these days)
  • Apple Watch 44 mm Series 4

Table of Contents

Web

Safari – Safari is my browser of choice. I use Wipr with Safari to block ads, trackers, cryptocurrency miners, and other annoyances.

As we all know some websites don’t play nice with Safari. In those situations I use Firefox.

Communication

Fastmail – I’ve been using Fastmail for email ever since I left Gmail over 6 years ago. I also use it for calendar, and contacts.

Fastmail has an iOS app, that I use, but none for the Mac so I use the Fastmate app which is a native Fastmail-wrapper.

Messages – Messages is how I communicate with family and friends.

Calendar and Tasks

Fantastical 3 – Fantastical is my calendar and task app. It integrates perfectly with my Fastmail calendar appointments and events and Apple Reminders tasks.

Reading

Reeder – Reeder is what I use for my Feedly RSS feeds. Anything that I want to read I save to Instapaper for reading later.

Twitter – Twitter is for news and the feeds for apps that I use.

Writing

Drafts 5 – I’ve been using Drafts for several years. It’s the launching-off point for text for me. I use the actions to copy it, share it, or deep link into other apps and services.

iA Writer – iA Writer is my current writing app of choice. For preview I use Marked 2 side by side with iA Writer. Everything that I write goes through Grammarly for proofreading grammar and spelling.

Apple Notes – Notes that I want to keep long-term go in the Notes app.

Utilities / Productivity

Bitwarden – Gotta have a password manager.

Alfred – Alfred is Spotlight on steroids. I’d be lost without it.

Keyboard Maestro – Keyboard Maestro is another app that I can’t live without it. I use it for keyboard shortcuts, launching apps, opening files and folders and automating actions. It has a learning curve but once you start to get the hang of it you can do amazing things. I’ve written about Keyboard Maestro here.

PopClip – I use PopClip to manage what I do with selected text. I’ve written about PopClip here.

Hazel – Hazel watches whatever folders I tell it to, automatically organizing my files according to the rules that I’ve created.

Yoink – Yoink speeds and up my workflow by simplifying drag and drop. I’ve written about Yoink here.

Dropzone – Dropzone makes it easy to copy or move files to my favorite folders, open applications and uploading files to the Internet right from your menu bar.

App Cleaner – AppCleaner is my app uninstaller. I use it because it deletes all the junk that gets left behind when you drag the app icon to the trash.

Moom – I use Moom for window management.

Witch – Witch is my app switcher.

Bartender 4 – Bartender is the app I use to organize my menu bar. I’ve written about it here.

ScreenFloat – ScreenFloat is my app for taking screenshots and storing them.

TunnelBear VPN – TunnelBear is my VPN for security on public WiFi and for web browsing privacy.

PCalc – PCalc is my stock calculator replacement. I use it for its additional features and customization.

My 2021 Essential iOS Apps

 

Back to a MacBook

I wrote a while back about going iPad first when iPadOS 13 was released with keyboard and trackpad support. I had turned my 2015 MacBook Pro (MBP) off and put in a drawer to never be turned on again hoping this would work out.

Well, it lasted about 60 days and then I got my MBP out of the drawer it had been sitting in, turned it back on and slowly started transitioning back to my it.

The trouble with iPad was that I spent more time fighting it than loving. It was just too hard to get things done as fast and efficiently as I can on my MBP. I have so many automations with Alfred, PopClip, Keyboard Maestro, and Hazel that make doing things on the Mac so fast and easy that just can’t be duplicated on the iPad. So, I gave it up.

In fact, I’m not sure that I even need or want an iPad. A couple of weeks ago I put it in the same drawer that I had put my MBP in and didn’t even miss it. I found that between my MBP and iPhone 11 I can do all that I need or want to do.

All that said, I just finished watching Apple’s One More Thing event where they introduced the new Apple Silicon 13” MacBook Air, 13” MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini with the new M1 chip. These devices are incredible and what I’ve been waiting for. I’ll be ordering a new MacBook Air as soon as I decided whether to get 8 or 16 GB of unified memory.

How to get the trackpad to ignore touches while typing

Do you get frustrated with how the slightest touch of the palm of your hand or thumb on the trackpad causes the text cursor to jump to a different position when you’re typing? I have and it’s been bothering me for some time.

Here’s how I solved this problem. I turned off “Tap to click” in the Trackpad Settings. Now when I’m typing and my palm or thumb accidentally touches the trackpad the text cursor doesn’t jump to a different position. I’m guessing this setting is on by default because I don’t recall having ever turned it on.

When I’m not typing, I like having “Tap to click” turned on. Since it’s not convenient to go into Trackpad Setting to turn it on and off all the time I looked for an AppleScript that I could use to toggle it on and off.

I found this one and it works fine.

Credit: Wojtek Witkowski on Github

tell application "System Preferences"
	activate
end tell
tell application "System Events"
	tell process "System Preferences"
		delay 1
		click the menu item "Trackpad" of the menu "View" of menu bar 1
		delay 1
		click the radio button "Point & Click" of the first tab group of window "Trackpad"
		click checkbox 3 of tab group 1 of window "Trackpad"
	end tell
end tell
tell application "System Preferences"
	quit
end tell

I’m using this script in Keyboard Maestro with the hotkey ⌘+⌥+9 to toggle the setting on and off. This will also work with an Alfred Workflow.

Bitwarden for Mac browser extension exposing passwords in clipboard managers

While using Alfred’s clipboard manager the other day I noticed passwords in the clipboard history. My first thought was how is this happening. I immediately went into Alfred’s Advanced Clipboard History Settings to make sure that I had added Bitwarden to the Ignore list and yes I had. So I figured this has to be some sort of an issue with Bitwarden.

After doing some testing I discovered that the issue is with the Bitwarden browser extension. When I copied a password in the extension the password was collected by Alfred’s clipboard manager even though I had it set to be ignored. This happened with both the Safari and Firefox extension. I then copied a password in the Bitwarden App and to my surprise, it was ignored. So this only happens with the browser extension.

I contacted both Alfred and Bitwarden regarding the issue. Here’s what they had to say:

Alfred Support:

Could you also take a look at Features > Clipboard History and ensure that the boxes for “Ignore Clipboard data marked as Concealed” and …”as Auto Generated” are checked, which they should be by default?

This ensures that if a password app (or any other app) correctly marks the copied data as concealed, which indicates its potentially sensitive information like a password, this is ignored by Alfred. However, if Bitwarden doesn’t mark the passwords as such, it’s impossible for an app like Alfred to guess what you’ve copied.

First, check whether Bitwarden offers you a setting to identify the data as Concealed, and if not, you may want to contact them to request this.

Cheers,

Vero

Bitwarden Support:

Thank you for supporting Bitwarden! I’d be happy to help.

This has been requested. Unfortunately, due to upstream limitations by our desktop application framework, the ability to mark data as “concealed” is not available at this time.

We have an open issue regarding this here: https://github.com/bitwarden/desktop/issues/90

Please let us know if there is anything else we can help with!

Regards,

Luc

While doing my research on this issue I noticed that others using different clipboard manager apps were having the same issue. So if you’re using a clipboard manager and Bitwarden you might want to check your clipboard manager history for passwords.

My workaround in Alfred is to remember to clear the clipboard history after I copy a password from the extension. Better yet if I need to copy a password I’ll do it from the app instead of the extension.

My 2020 Must-Have Mac, iPhone, and iPad Apps

Each year towards the end of December I summarize in a post, on this site, the Mac, iPhone, and iPad apps that I will be using for the next year. This is always one of my most popular posts.

This year instead of a separate article for Mac apps and another for iPhone and iPad apps I’m putting them all in one article. I indicate in parenthesis under the app title where I’m using the app Mac, iPhone or iPad.

During 2019 I tried a lot of different apps. Some I liked and switched to and others I tried, didn’t like and stayed with what I’d been using. I hope you’ll discover a new app or two that will improve your workflow or make you more productive.

My setup:

  • MacBook Pro (early–2015 13”)
  • iPhone 7 Plus
  • iPad 5th Generation
  • Apple Watch 44 mm Series 4

Here’s my software and what I use it for:

Safari
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
Safari is my browser of choice. It just works best on macOS. I use Firefox when a site doesn’t play nice with it.

Enpass
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
Gotta have a password manager.

Fastmail
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
I’ve been using Fastmail for email for over 5 years. A few weeks ago I also started using it for calendar, and contacts. On my iPhone and iPad, I use the Fastmail app. Unfortunately, Fastmail doesn’t have a Mac app but with Unite I turned the Fastmail web client into a native Mac app. I’ve written about Fastmail here.

Fantastical 2
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
Fantastical is my calendar app. It integrates perfectly with my Fastmail calendar appointments and events.

Things 3
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
I use Things 3 for task management. I love the simplicity of how it works. I wrote about it here.

Due
(iPhone and iPad)
Due is where I keep all my reminders.

Drafts 5
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
I’ve been using Drafts for several years. It’s my multi-purpose writing and note-taking app. I often use it as the first stop for most everything I write and then use Drafts actions to send what I’ve written anywhere I want to. I’ve written about how I use Drafts here.

Bear
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
I’ve been a Bear pro user since the inception of the app. It’s where I keep all my notes and lists. For now, it’s also where I’m doing my writing. And for plain text I use iA Writer on my Mac and 1Writer on my iPhone and iPad.

Marked 2
(Mac)
Marked is the markdown previewer app I use side by side with my writing app.

Grammarly
(Mac and iPad)
I use Grammarly for proofreading my stories for grammar and punctuation.

Yoink
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
Yoink speeds and up my workflow by simplifying drag and drop. I’ve written about Yoink here.

Copied
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
Copied is my cross-platform clipboard history manager. I’ve written about it here.

Reeder
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
Reeder is what I use for my Feedly RSS feeds.

Pocket
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
I’m now using Pocket instead of Instapaper for reading later. I wrote about why I switched here.

Tweetbot
(iPhone and iPad)
Tweetbot is for Twitter.

Day One Journal
(iPhone and iPad)
Day One is where I keep a lifelog.

Alfred
(Mac)
Alfred is Spotlight on steroids. I’d be lost without it. I’ve written about it here.

Keyboard Maestro
(Mac)
Keyboard Maestro is another app that I couldn’t live without it. I use Keyboard Maestro keyboard shortcuts to launch apps, open files and folders and automating actions. It has a learning curve but once you start to get the hang of it you can do some amazing things. I’ve written about Keyboard Maestro here.

Dropbox
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
Dropbox is where I keep files that I want to have available on all my devices. It’s also where syncing happens for apps like Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, and Due.

PDFpen and Hazel are key apps for my paperless workflow. I’ve written about my paperless workflow here.

Scanner Pro
(iPhone and iPad)
Scanner Pro is also part of my paperless workflow. I use it to scan paper documents into PDFs with OCR that look clean and professional.

App Cleaner
(Mac)
AppCleaner is my app uninstaller. I use it because it deletes all the junk that gets left behind when you just drag the app icon to the trash.

Moom
(Mac)
I use Moom for window management on my Mac.

Witch
(Mac)
Witch is my Mac app switcher.

PopClip
(Mac)
I use PopClip to manage what I do with selected text. I’ve written about PopClip here.

Bartender 3
(Mac)
Bartender is the app I use to organize my menu bar. I’ve written about it here.

ScreenFloat
(Mac)
ScreenFloat is my app for taking screenshots and storing them.

TunnelBear VPN
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
TunnelBear is my VPN for security on public WiFi and web browsing privacy.

PCalc
(Mac, iPhone, and iPad)
PCalc is my stock calculator replacement. I use it for its additional features and customization.

Apple Activity app
I use the Activity app with my Apple Watch to track all my daily activities.

Update – Alfred or Keyboard Maestro or both

This is an update to my Alfred or Keyboard Maestro or both article that I wrote the other day.

I’m back using both Alfred and Keyboard Maestro. After using just Alfred for a few days I discovered a couple of Keyboard Maestro macros that I use that I wasn’t able to replicate in Alfred. So since I need Keyboard Maestro for them I switched back to Keyboard Maestro for all my automation.

I like the way Keyboard Maestro macros work better than Alfred workflows and as a side note, they execute much faster. I also prefer the way web searches are executed using Keyboard Maestro. It’s several keystrokes quicker.

I’ll be upgrading to version 9 very soon.

Alfred or Keyboard Maestro or both

I wrote an update August 22, 2019 to this article. You can find it here.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know that I’m a huge fan of Alfred and Keyboard Maestro.

Alfred was one of the first apps that I discovered after moving from a PC to a Mac. I use its features many times every day.

I discovered Keyboard Maestro a little later on. Since Alfred was already ingrained in the way I used my Mac there were a lot of its features that I didn’t use. There’s a lot of feature overlap between Alfred and Keyboard Maestro. Over time I created or accumulated a couple of dozen Keyboard Maestro macros some that I used often and others that I rarely used.

When Alfred 4 came out in June I immediately upgraded without a thought. I think the cost was around $15. Today I received an email from the developer of Keyboard Maestro letting me know that version 9 is now available with lots of new features and an upgrade price of $25. But, I’m having trouble justifying the upgrade. After reviewing what’s new I’m not sure I’ll use any of the new features or actions.

So that leads me to question whether I even needed Keyboard Maestro. I figured if I could recreate my KM macros as Alfred workflows I wouldn’t need Keyboard Maestro any longer. So that’s what I did. To my surprise, I was able to create Alfred workflows that would do the same thing that my KM macros did. To be fair to Keyboard Maestro I love the app but don’t need to apps that will do the same thing. Also, my macros were just scratching the surface of what Keyboard Maestro can do.

For now I’ve stopped using Keyboard Maestro and I’m using Alfred for 100% of my automation. Folks, this is what works for me but may not be what works for you.

Apple listening

I love the Mac. It’s my preferred computing device. What makes the Mac great are all the apps that increase productivity. I’m thinking about Alfred, Keyboard Maestro, PopClip, Moom, and Hazel to name a few. You won’t find these in iOS or iPadOS

So, my Mac’s are getting old. Up to today, I have been concerned with what I would replace them when the time comes?

If you care about the Mac as I do you’ll want to read Marco Arment’s article Apple is Listening. After WWDC and reading Marco’s article I’m encouraged about the future of the Mac and that I will be able to continue to enjoy the Mac and the apps that I love using.

But there has clearly been a major shift in direction for the better since early 2017, and they couldn’t be more clear now:

Apple is listening again, they’ve still got it, and the Mac is back.

Alfred 4 Is Here

My Mac launcher app has gotten an update.

Although I didn’t see much reason to upgrade from version 3 I did so anyway. I want to support the developer so I also upgraded my Powerpack license.

Alfred is an indispensable part of the daily use of my Macs. I use it at least 20 to 30 times every day. You can find all the articles that I’ve written about Alfred here.

 

Interact with Things 3 using Alfred

I wanted to share this cool Alfred Workflow, Things for Alfred, with you since I know a lot of you have moved to Things 3 since its launch. Here’s what it does.

Using the keyword todo

  • Use the keyword todo to show Things lists and action any of them for displaying the corresponding to-dos.
  • Action a to-do to display it in the Things UI.
  • Try the modifier keys either in lists or in to-dos for more actions.

File Quick View with Alfred

If you have been following my blog for a while you know that I’m a big fan of Alfred. I use it all the time for finding and opening files. One thing I didn’t know though is that when searching files you can do a Quick View. In the past, I’ve always opened the file in the appropriate app to view it. With Alfred Quick View I can press ⇧ or ⌘Y to bring up a quick view of the file. This is a nice time saver.

Credit to Lee Garrett: Quick View with Alfred​