Vero

@Ravotten23 As you can see from the troubleshooter, the files in question are not indexed by macOS. 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 emailing it to our info@ address, referencing this thread Output from File Troubleshooting reports for the files you cannot find using Alfred to see if anything's changed. Cheers, Vero

@jhutch @smokedalmond Tagging you both to ask you to please take a look at this post and let me know whether your scenario matches this? If you've also transferred/migrated from another Mac, could you please try creating a new profile on your Mac temporarily and see whether Alfred can find files? I can't recall *exactly* which version of macOS caused this same issue, could've been Mojave or Catalina, but this isn't new; Apple's migration system is not flawless, and Monterey is brand new, so it's likely that there are permission issues on this migrated set of data, stopping Alfred from gaining access to the indexed data. A new profile or fresh install (without migration of data) would almost certainly resolve this issue, or Apple may fix this in an upcoming Monterey update. To everyone in this thread, please do share any progress or discoveries you make with your fellow community members Cheers, Vero

@seamush In that case, can you please provide as much information as you can? 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 (You can email this to our info@ address, including a link back to this thread) Examples 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 The more information you can provide, the more likely we'll be able to help you establish what's happening on your Mac specifically. Cheers, Vero

@seamush Did you set up your new Mac by transferring settings from another Mac? If so, please take a look at this thread: There seems to be a pattern emerging in that anyone having seemingly indexing-related issues in Monterey have all transferred their preferences from a backup or another Mac. Please try creating a new user account and see what behaviour you see. If you can please reply in that thread if it's relevant, it'll help keep the discussion in one place. Cheers, Vero

The error message usually makes it easy to identify which application has locked secure input. If Alfred reports that "loginwindow seems to be preventing text expansion by locking secure input" or a random process number, it's likely that Alfred is unable to tell which application is using secure input. This can be because macOS itself has left the secure input enabled (e.g. when you've recently logged into your Mac, or after waking your computer and typing your password). This can be resolved by restarting your Mac, or logging out fully and logging back in. If the issue occurs frequently, try launching a minimum number of apps/services on your Mac, and re-launching apps one by one, allowing you to establish which app or service is locking secure input by process of elimination. Note that browser plugins (e.g. password managers) can be the cause, so enable plugins one at a time to test them. Cheers, Vero

@rocklobster I've tagged you in another thread that appears to be covering the same topic, so as to keep everything in one place. Please let me know if I've incorrectly assumed you've also just upgraded to Monterey. Cheers, Vero

@Pim @iclark @jcrisp16 @rocklobster There seems to be a pattern here; All those who are reporting issues finding files seem to have gone through the same scenario of transferring from a previous Time Machine or migrating everything from another Mac rather than done a fresh install. While I can't conclusively say so, I'm wondering if something is wrong in Apple's current transfer process resulting in broken permissions for apps or underlying issues with the index. If you create a brand new user account and perform some searches on the new profile, what behaviour are you seeing between Alfred and Spotlight? Cheers, Vero

@DjCoke Welcome to the forum In Alfred, you can see whether the secure entry is locked by a third-party in the Features > Snippets preferences, where it will appear in red like this: It's not possible for Alfred or any third-party to override this, as it's a security feature in macOS and giving other apps a way to override it would invalidate the entire purpose of protecting you while you're typing sensitive information such as passwords. Rather than rebooting blindly every time the issue occurs, try to work out which app or plugin is the source of the issue. I would then very much encourage you to report it to the maker of the problem app/plugin, as this is the real way this should be resolved. If it's the Dashlane plugin, it should release the secure entry as soon as you're no longer in a protected field. Cheers, Vero

@iclark With regards to Full Disk Access, you can add Alfred manually by unlocking the padlock at the bottom (which will require entering your user profile password), then clicking the + button and adding Alfred. In terms of your last question, an update to Google Drive in recent months has caused Spotlight and macOS to stop indexing the files. Google is very opaque about what's happening under the hood with Google Drive so we don't know whether they intend to re-enable indexing in the future. In the meantime, one of our most long term community members @vitor has created an excellent workflow for use with Google Drive: Cheers, Vero

@seamush If you've just upgraded to macOS 12 and neither Alfred or Spotlight are finding any results, you might just need to kick back and let macOS do its thing for a bit. Every time there's a macOS update, we see a flurry of posts like yours, which magically go away once the new OS install has had time to reindex and sort itself out. If you've installed more than 24 hours ago, and you've given your Mac plenty of awake time, then follow the steps on the Indexing Troubleshooting guide carefully. In particular, drag some files to the File Troubleshooting guide and see what the output is. When you get to step 5, please ensure that you follow the instructions closely and delete the Spotlight-V100. This will then give macOS an opportunity to rebuild the index from scratch. If you've given your Mac enough time to rebuild (a good hour after step 5) and Spotlight isn't indicating that it's rebuilding with a progress bar in the Spotlight bar view, then please provide more details about what the File Troubleshooting output is, etc. so that we can help you further. Cheers, Vero

@Jimbo108 Welcome to the forum Yes, you can copy the Alfred.alfredpreferences file to your new Mac to move everything over. By default, this file is located in your user directory under ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/ If you are currently syncing your preferences, the file will be in your sync location instead. On your new Mac, drop the Alfred.alfredpreferences file in the same location. Please note that you'll still need to activate your Powerpack license on your new Mac Cheers, Vero

@bocaboy You can set your default mail client in Mail.app itself under General preferences. Alfred tells macOS to launch an email using your default email client, and it's then up to macOS to proceed with the rest. I've been using macOS 12, and can confirm that this behaviour hasn't been changed by Monterey, or by recent Alfred updates. If you open Safari and paste mailto:bob@example.com what happens? It's likely that you've set something to allow Outlook to take over mailto: in some way, or that you've set up a custom action in Alfred under Features > Contacts > Custom Actions? Cheers, Vero

@MelWel Alfred learns from your usage, so if you use the down arrow or Cmd + number and choose the item you want to see at the top for "go" a few times, Alfred will learn this if your preferred result for "go". Here's a more detailed explanation of Alfred's Result Ordering logic if you're curious https://www.alfredapp.com/help/kb/understanding-result-ordering/ Cheers, Vero

@MelWel Welcome to the forum I think you might have a few features mixed-up. It appears you're in the Alfred Remote section of Alfred's preferences, which isn't relevant to what you're trying to achieve. Open Alfred's preferences to Features > Web Search and create a custom search for the URL you have in mind: https://www.alfredapp.com/help/features/web-search/custom-searches/ Having said that, Alfred also remembers URLs you type/paste, if you have "Store and show history of URLs used in Alfred" checked in Features > Web Search > URLs / History tab: https://www.alfredapp.com/help/features/web-search/#history Cheers, Vero

@Alpha Dorry Welcome to the forum Please post your issue as a reply in the appropriate thread for the workflow you're referring to: There, the workflow creator or other community members will be able to help you further. I would encourage you to take a look at the workflow debugger and post any output you can share that will help work out what's happening. The more information you can provide, the more likely you'll get a solution quickly Cheers, Vero

@johnhamill That's not what slow/fast fade is; It sets the speed at which the Large Type appears. Once shown, it won't be dismissed and fade away on its own, and will remain there until you click away or press escape. "Nothing happens at all" is not a particularly descriptive response, so do you mean that the Large Type never pops up, or that it doesn't fade away in the way you want it to? I've tested your workflow and Large Type appears with the fixed text "Follow with (Alt-S) macro". Happy to help you with your workflow if you let me know what you're seeing vs what you're expecting in a bit more details Cheers, Vero

@naked2000 Could you please go through the troubleshooting steps for snippets? It's likely that you need to grant (or re-grant) Alfred accessibility permissions. https://www.alfredapp.com/help/troubleshooting/snippets/ Could you please provide more details about what's not working with snippets? - Have you checked that Accessibility is granted to Alfred? Have you tried removing and re-adding Alfred to ensure macOS is "nudged" into seeing that you've granted it? - If you launch TextEdit (a simple and native app, ideal for testing) and try to expand your snippet, what do you see? Does the keyword disappear, does the snippet content appear, do you hear an error beep? - If your snippet expands in TextEdit, in which apps do you see a different behaviour? - What is your snippet keyword? What is the content that should be pasted? The more information you provide, the easier it'll be for me to help troubleshoot what's happening on your Mac Cheers, Vero

@kio Welcome to the forum To auto-paste on return, Alfred needs Accessibility permissions here: https://www.alfredapp.com/help/getting-started/permissions/#accessibility If the permissions are already set, try removing and re-granting permissions. Click the lock icon and authenticate, then remove Alfred from the Accessibility preferences, then add him again. Recent versions of macOS can occasionally "forget" the permissions settings and re-granting resolves this issue. Cheers, Vero

@itabraham Could you activate your Powerpack and essentially replicate the exact steps you do on your main profile that result in Alfred not appearing? Could you open Console.app and see if any particularly interesting error messages appear while doing this? The reason this is key is that if everything Alfred-wise is the same, but that in the vanilla account, you're not running any third-party apps, it would help establish that somewhere on your main profile, something is interfering, perhaps getting in the way of the event thread, stopping Alfred from opening. As another possibility, though unlikely, are you using two screens? Could you check that Alfred isn't appearing on your second screen? In Alfred's Preferences > Appearance > Options, if you have "Show Alfred on" set to anything other than default screen, it's possible that macOS is reporting the second screen as active/mouse screen incorrectly, causing Alfred to appear, but not where you expect him to be. Thanks for taking the time to provide more details Hopefully we can work out why you and @OAL are seeing this behaviour. Cheers, Vero

This is key; If you run through the same process of opening Terminal or iTerm 2 on a vanilla account, Alfred continues to behave as expected?

@archelium Could you please provide as much information as possible? E.g. workflow debugger logs, any console logs that might be relevant? Saying "It doesn't work" and providing shut-down answers make it difficult to help. Our community is here to help, but no one can see what's happening on your Mac specifically or know what you do/don't have installed, so please be as comprehensive as possible in providing this information. I have removed your most recent post, and would ask that all parties in this thread please take a moment to breathe before responding. This community is intended to be friendly and helpful, and posts that do not meet our Community Guidelines will be removed.

@Skorpion It looks like you removed some of the essential information such as the file path and the mdls file metadata. If you're not comfortable sharing that information in public and you're a Powerpack license holder, you can pop an email to our info@ email address with your details and I'll take a further look. Cheers, Vero

@OAL Apologies for misunderstanding your original issue. It seems only you and one other user have reported this kind of behaviour so far, so it seems likely that another app running is affecting the event stream. Could you take a moment to create a new vanilla user account on your Mac with nothing else installed and see what behaviour you get there? If everything on that new account is working normally, return to your main account, go into the Accessibility preferences and uncheck anything other than Alfred. Do the same with any browser plugins. What behaviour do you see then? If it's all good, try re-adding the accessibility features and browser plugins one by one, and see if you can work out which one is interfering. I'd be grateful if you could share your findings since, as I said, only a couple of users appear to be affected by this, so it would be helpful to know in case it affects anyone else in the future Cheers, Vero

@quadlui iCloud files need to be stored locally, so you'll need to ensure Optimised Storage is disabled. This a feature where Apple decides which files are stored in the cloud only or on your Mac, so if you ensure your files are stored locally, they'll be found and opened by Alfred: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207236 Let me know how you get on

@johnhamill I'm not sure I understand the purpose of your Large Type in your workflow, but you have the fade set to "Very fast". If you slow it down, you should get the effect you're looking for. Let me know if I've misunderstood what you're looking to achieve. Cheers, Vero