Vero

@mazerunner Looks like you have a workflow called "Simple PDF Search" where you've made the keyword a single "p". Disable this workflow, and you shouldn't see PDFs appear in those results.

You can then change the keyword to be something a little longer and clearer.

@mazerunner Could you email your Diagnostics file to our info@ address? You can get to it by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred.

@MDR Could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can email them to our info@ address, which will allow me to take a look at your configuration and help you further

@Briscoe It's not possible to add your own templates to that menu.

As suggested by @Stephen_C, you can create prefabs, which are sets of objects and can be as large as a complete workflow, if that's what would be most useful to you afterwards. Here's more information on creating prefabs:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/workflows/getting-started/editor-and-palette/#palette

Your list of prefabs will then be visible in the palette on the right of the workflow canvas, with a title and description:

You can add them to your workflow with the same shortcuts as any other workflow objects: Once you're in the right workflow canvas, type / and the name of your prefab, select it in the sidebar and press Return for it to be added.

In the menu from your screenshot, you can set your Workflow Defaults; The prefix to your bundle ID, your name, URL and a template Readme.

Alternatively, you can duplicate an existing workflow by right-clicking it in the sidebar and choosing "Duplicate..." so if you prefer to use a workflow in its entirety, you can do this. You could even create a category called "templates" (in the circle with three dots at the top of the left sidebar) to organise all of your templated workflows.

@Eureka In both your original diagnostics and most recent one, I can see that you have an external volume, your "My Passport" drive. Please remove this drive from your search scope, as originally advised, as it's very likely that the delay you're seeing is caused by macOS waiting for the drive to wake before sending results.

Beyond this, as you've shared very little information about your configuration, it's very tricky for me to guess what may be happening on your Mac. To be clear, this issue will be outside of Alfred, and caused by a configuration on your Mac causing a delay in returning results. Without more information, I won't be able to help further so please be thorough if you need more help.

@Nika Can you clarify which hotkey you've been changing to option+command+\ and option+command+, with some screenshots?

Do any other features involving Alfred actions work for you, such as copying and pasting from Alfred's clipboard, Snippets, hotkeys in workflows, etc? If they do not, you'll need to also take a look at whether you've granted Alfred suitable permissions here:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/getting-started/permissions/#integration

The more information you provide in your replies, the more likely we'll be able to help you work out what's happening on your Mac.

@Nika Looking at your Diagnostics, the Actions hotkey is set to ⌘\ which is the default.

I'm not sure which hotkey you're changing, but please try selecting a file in Finder and using ⌘\ which should bring up the Actions panel for the file you selected.

@Stevo Another thought... Do you have one or more Macs? Keep in mind that Alfred's Clipboard is local to each Mac, and isn't synced between them, so if you're thinking of content you've copied on one Mac, it won't be available in the clipboard data of the other Mac. Just in case it's that simple

@Nika Could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can then email it to our info@ address so that I can take a look.

Which hotkey do you use when you're in Finder? Whereas in Alfred's results, you can use the single keys checked in "Show Actions", when you're elsewhere in macOS (e.g. in Finder), you need to use the Selection Hotkey:

If the selection hotkey doesn't appear to work, could you change it to a different, more obscure one? This will help establish whether it's conflicting with another app that's also listening for the same hotkey combo. 

Cheers,
Vero

8 minutes ago, jarrodjob said:

This is happening to me

@jarrodjob In that case, you'll also need to take a look at the same troubleshooting steps as above to establish which of the factors I outlined above is causing the preferences to either not save, or not be present at startup.

If you provide the full details of your particular configuration, we can help you too.

34 minutes ago, meadowphoenix said:

if Alfred ever has a fix for saving Preferences in Dropbox Business accounts

Alfred doesn't control how Dropbox stores files, and is agnostic to the storage location. The issue will be down to Dropbox or macOS either not allowing preferences to be saved, or Dropbox making the preferences non-available at startup due to your particular configuration. 

Aside from making sure the files are stored offline and the location available instantly at startup, you could try creating a new folder in Dropbox and setting this up as a sync location to see if a new folder might be free from permissions issues. 

You can also use this brand new workflow to back up your Alfred preferences to save any worries in the future:

https://alfred.app/workflows/alfredapp/backup-preferences/

@Eureka Thanks for sending this through.

When you experience lag in Alfred, the lag is caused by one of the sources of data on your Mac, so there's something on your user profile that will be the root of this issue.

Could you please create a temporary new user account on your Mac, run Alfred and type "s"? What behaviour do you see on that profile? 

This will allow you to establish whether the issue is specific to your main profile, or a broader issue on your Mac.

@nasri It seems that Evernote no longer want people using the legacy version of the app. We've expressed to them many times that we'd love to see AppleScript support, but the new Electron version of Evernote doesn't support it - making search via a workflow no longer possible.

@Cliff Could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can email them to our info@ address with a link to this thread, so that I know which thread it refers to. I'll then take a look and see if I can give any more insight.

Could you also let us know what other app you're using and what hotkey(s) you've set for it?

@meadowphoenix If your hotkey resets when you restart your Mac, it's a sign that Alfred is unable to save your customised preference to disk. 

There are two possible next steps, depending on your particular setup:

If you sync your preferences, start by moving your preferences to a non-synced location

• Create a temporary Alfred folder in your home directory (which is ~/yourusername - alongside the Downloads, Movies, Pictures folders, which are outside of iCloud syncing)
• Go to Alfred's Advanced preferences and set the sync location to that newly created folder

If you do not sync your preferences and they're in the default ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/ location, there may be permissions issues in macOS. To repair permissions, follow these instructions:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/preferences/

This will ensure that macOS lets Alfred update the preferences and save the customisations you're making.

I would steer clear of adding Onyx to the mix when trying to resolve this, as it can often do more harm than good.

Let us know how you get on.

@Ckdestef Alfred isn't finding the folder? Or the aliases? And is the folder itself a "real" folder in that location, or an alias as well?

Your best bet is to drag the folder into Alfred's File Troubleshooter, which will give you some details on the metadata macOS has for the folder itself:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/indexing/

You can copy the output in your reply so that we can help you further.  

@Eureka Please re-send your Diagnostics, as I've suggested some changes to your scope, so would like to see the current configuration.

@onigirichan Do you already have the right app focused when the key combo is used? If not, you might want to try adding a delay utility between the keyword and key combo, as the app may need some time to come into focus or open the relevant window before Alfred dispatches the key combo.

If you can share your workflow (or a simplified version of it) we'll be able to help you more thoroughly  

@Fergus Black As well as the permissions discussed above, the other issue to take a look at is a different aspect to permissions; Whether macOS is permitting Alfred to save changes, in this case, saving the knowledge that you've already seen that pop-up window. 

You can repair macOS permissions here:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/preferences/

Are your other Alfred preferences being saved normally? E.g. your main Alfred hotkey, your location in the General tab, etc...

@Eureka In what context does the issue still occur? As this is an issue specific to your Mac, we'll need more details to be able to help you diagnose this further. For example, if you reset your search scope to /, what kind of behaviour do you see?

If you still see some lag, I would recommend rebuilding your index, which you can do by following steps 5 & 6 here:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/indexing/

@GatorMapi As well as taking a look at what Stephen suggested, could it be that the paste is triggered by a snippet keyword you've set? Pasting the last history item may be a symptom of the focused app being a non-native slower app, but let's ignore that for now.

Taking a look at what you were typing at the time may help identify either a snippet keyword (from your Features > Snippets collections) or a snippet trigger (from a workflow).

Let us know how you get on.

@Eureka Could you please change your search scope in Alfred's Default Results to look like this?

Once you've done this, try searching again. Do results appear without lag? The results will be more limited as it's a single folder scope.

If you don't see any lag, you can now reset your search scope to Alfred's Defaults (by using the "Reset..." button at the bottom right of the search scope) and let me know how you get on.  

Cheers,
Vero

@Eureka Welcome to the forum  

Do you experience this regardless of what you type into Alfred? Or does it happen with specific characters or hotkeys?

Could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can email it to our info@ email address so that I can take a look at your configuration.

Cheers,
Vero

@Eric Moyer Welcome to the forum

Your best bet is to look at the metadata created by macOS for these files, which you can do by using the File Troubleshooter built into Alfred:

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/indexing/

This will give you insight into how macOS is classifying your files.

@jroubieu Could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can then email it to our info@ address, which will allow me to take a look at your current configuration.

I've tried to replicate the behaviour you're seeing, but haven't been able to. Are you using a third-party tool like PopClip that could be interfering with the Clipboard History? Could you try changing your Clipboard History hotkey to a combo that doesn't include Shift, to see whether this changes the behaviour?

Let us know how you get on

Cheers,
Vero