Any Aflred fans here?

[MacBH928]

So Alfred is supposed to be an alternative to Spotlight or a supercharged Spotlight but I just don't see the real advantage over Spotlight. Currently the thing that is bothering me with Spotlight search is that I can't organization the categories to my wish and so word definitions tend to be the last option.

Is there something I am missing about Alfred?

 

[hg.wells]

Yes love it! Alfred enables a lot of automation, along with the basic spotlight functionality.

You can set up web searches for specific websites, so I can type AMZ then a item name and hit enter and it will search Amazon.

I’ve use it to check things like time zones for different regions I work with.

Have a look at there blog for some examples.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Alfred is a great app. It is Finder on steroids amongst other things. I liked it so much I bought the powerpack. One price for life.

Alfred - Productivity App for macOS

Alfred is a productivity application for macOS, which boosts your efficiency with hotkeys, keywords and text expansion. Search your Mac and the web, and control your Mac using custom actions with the Powerpack.

www.alfredapp.com

I have also found the app "Paste" to be an excellent supplement to Alfred.

 

[cdcastillo]

So Alfred is supposed to be an alternative to Spotlight or a supercharged Spotlight but I just don't see the real advantage over Spotlight. Currently the thing that is bothering me with Spotlight search is that I can't organization the categories to my wish and so word definitions tend to be the last option.

Is there something I am missing about Alfred?

I loved Launchbar, but when it became too expensive for me, I found a suitable replacement in Alfred. It is way more versatile than spotlight.

 

[Diskutant]

Yes, there are some Alfred fans here: In praise of Alfred

 

[MacBH928]

There another app called LaunchBar that was there since OS9 days and another one that had a serious following called QuickSilver but development seems to have halted. I would like if anyone could do a comparison on which is better and why is Apple not improving their Spotlight to make it more like these apps?!

You can set up web searches for specific websites, so I can type AMZ then a item name and hit enter and it will search Amazon.

If you use DuckDuckGo as your default search engine you can do this with a feature called bangs, basically adding a "!" before the keyword. Click cmd+L to go to the URL bar then type for example "macbook !amz" it will search Amazon or "World War !w" it will search Wikipedia.

Alfred is a great app. It is Finder on steroids amongst other things. I liked it so much I bought the powerpack. One price for life.

Alfred - Productivity App for macOS

Alfred is a productivity application for macOS, which boosts your efficiency with hotkeys, keywords and text expansion. Search your Mac and the web, and control your Mac using custom actions with the Powerpack.

www.alfredapp.com

I have also found the app "Paste" to be an excellent supplement to Alfred.

I don't like to add system extensions I feel it bloats the system and causes errors. I just tried one called

I loved Launchbar, but when it became too expensive for me, I found a suitable replacement in Alfred. It is way more versatile than spotlight.

LaunchBar is only 30Euro, is this too expensive?

 

[hg.wells]

It all depends on how you use Spotlight or want it to work.

Alfred is my go to for most things, you mentioned DuckDuckGo having a similar feature, but the issue with that is I have to go to the browser and then DuckDuckGo.

I hit command space - type amz and then what I want to search for on Amazon hit enter and boom safari opens with my amazon search.

I also have a lot of scripting set up in Alfred, so I can type Dial - 0000000000 and it will run a script and dial the number through my Cisco desk phone.

Alfred is 100% Spotlight on Steroids, but also has a ton of additional features.

Have a look at some videos on YouTube:

 

[MacBH928]

What are some examples you use Alfred?

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I just downloaded Alfred with Powerpack and here are some problems I found:

1. In Spotlight, it auto converts units if I type 45KM I get 27.9 miles. Alfred doesn't do thing
2. Same for currency I type $10 in GBP, I get 7.35 British Pounds. Alfred doesn't do a thing
3. in Spotlight if I look up a word I get a full block of the definition, in alfred you get few word of preview then you have to launch the dictionary app.

I feel like there is a way to do all of this I just don't know how. Also Workflow seems powerful I just didn' find something to do with yet. I tried 2 workflows, one to lookup imdb movie ratings but failed to fetch the data the other required me to open an account with open exchange rates to get currency conversions.