How to Work smarter with Alfred 4

Set up privacy lists

If you’re using macOS Mojave, follow the instructions to allow Alfred to access protected data such as your Contacts, Accessibility, and Full Disk Access. Once set, click on the button to restart the app for those settings to stick.

Open its commands

With Preview at the top, press the right cursor key. Alfred then displays available commands, with Recent Documents… at the top. To open that list of recent documents, press the right cursor key a second time.

Search for tweets

Type ’twitter’ into Alfred. You’ll see a Search Twitter ‘…’ window, inviting you to enter a search term in quotation marks. Enter ‘WWDC’ and press ®. You can refine this by user with “twitter @ MacFormat ‘WWDC’” for example.

Set up Search Scope

Open Alfred’s Preferences, and select Default Results in Features. Check the folders listed in its Search Scope, as these limit where it looks for apps, files and metadata. Drop any additions in from the Finder.

Open the document

The last-opened document is now at the top. To open that, press the right cursor key a third time. To access another document instead, use the … or ae arrow keys before choosing it with the

‘ key or ®.

Set up a Web search

Open Alfred’s Preferences, select Features then Web Search. Click Add Custom Search, then enter the URL of the site and click on Lookup. If OpenSearch or SearchAction is available, click Use to set the action up.

Locate a recent app

Open Alfred from the menu bar icon or its shortcut. Start typing the name of an app which has recently been open, such as Preview. You should only need one or two characters before it reaches the top of the list.

Browse documents

Type ‘~’ to open your Home folder, ‘pi’ for Pictures, then press ‘ twice for folders within that. Select a folder there and press right cursor twice to browse. Change the sort order from the pop-up menu at the bottom right.

Test your Web search

Provide a unique Keyword to trigger the search in Alfred. Then enter a suitable term to validate the search, and click on the Test button to check it works. Finally click on Save to add your new custom search to Alfred.