Andrew

@Floating.Point The original reported issue should now be fixed in 5.1.3 b2175, could you let me know?

@albertkinng It looks like you're using Alfred 4 which is too new for macOS Yosemite (Alfred 4's minimum required OS is 10.11 El Capitan).
 
You'll need to use Alfred 3 which you can find here:
https://www.alfredapp.com/help/v3/
 
Cheers,
Andrew

Hah! 
 
I see that our messages have crossed!
 
I'll email the diagnostics to you ASAP.
 
Thanks again!

Thanks for the update, I'm moving this to closed.
 
I'd like to hope that the Apple bug Vitor and I raised which had a very clear reproducible and "workaround" helped this get fixed  

@iamse7en if you update to the 5.1.2 b2141 pre-release, this should now be fixed  

Alfred does check automatically (not very often right now), but again whenever doing gallery interactions such as installing workflows, or dependency resolution.
 
I'm actually going to balance these automatic checks again in the next build (in the run up to Gallery coming out of early access).

@samuelraub In Alfred's Advanced settings, set the "Selection Hotkeys" mode to "Restore previous clipboard item".
 
Cheers,
Andrew

This simply isn't possible within the limited API macOS offers for registering hotkeys (without a huge amount of hackery, or resorting to the Accessibility APIs).
 
Alfred doesn't listen for hotkeys, he registers the key combo he is interested in with macOS, then macOS decides when to notify Alfred when this event happens (agnostic of the hotkey used). It's up to macOS, not Alfred, where the event goes. In the case of Screen Sharing, macOS decides if the event goes to Alfred or the Screen Sharing app.
 
Having said that, there is actually a neat workaround which will get you very close to the behaviour you describe using a Workflow.
Set Alfred's default hotkey on your local machine to something obscure so it's no longer used. Create a workflow with a single Hotkey object set to the hotkey you want to use for Alfred. Right click on the hotkey you set > Trigger Behaviour > Pass through modifier keys (Fastest) Set the Action to "Show Alfred" Select the "Related Apps" tab, select the option that the hotkey is only active when specified apps "don't have focus" Drop Screen Sharing.app into the list of apps below With this workflow, the hotkey you want will now show Alfred locally, except for when the Screen Sharing app is active, in which case, the hotkey goes to the remote Alfred.
 
Cheers,
Andrew
 
 

@albertkinng I've removed your link as I wouldn't recommend people installing python manually.
 
Python 2 was removed from macOS 12.3 Monterey. Python 3 is now automatically installed by macOS when first accessing /usr/bin/python3. macOS does this by prompting to install Apple's developer tools, which is a fully automated process.
 
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/01/28/apple-removing-python-2-in-macos-12-3/
 
Alfred's Dependency Resolution also automatically installs Apple's developer tools as part of the Homebrew install, so you get Python 3 automatically without having to do anything manually.

Most of the script environment variables available in Alfred 5 were also available in as far back as Alfred 2.
 
Manually copying out from the Alfred 2 code so I may have missed one or two:
 
alfred_version alfred_version_build alfred_theme alfred_theme_subtext alfred_theme_background alfred_preferences alfred_preferences_localhash alfred_workflow_uid alfred_workflow_bundleid alfred_workflow_cache alfred_workflow_data alfred_workflow_name  
I think you're safe to not need to code in fallbacks

@Christine Vole This looks like Alfred is unable to persist preferences. This is usually caused when you have Alfred's preferences set to sync to a non-local folder (i.e. Dropbox with Smart Sync, or iCloud with Optimised Storage).
 
Could you type ?diagnostics into Alfred and email the exported output to our info@ address, as that'll let me see if there is an underlying permissions issue in the location where Alfred is trying to write the preference.
 
Thanks,
Andrew

You can just delete the one you aren't using. Again, temporarily back it up first just in case.

Alfred will be using the preferences location shown in the Advanced prefs. Any other .alfredpreferences files you see will be unused.
 
If you'd like to return the preferences back to the default location, take the following steps:
Quit Alfred Temporarily back up any of the .alfredpreferences files just in case something isn't done correctly (i.e. just copy them to a safe location). If the prefs in Dropbox are the ones you want to use, copy them ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/ (replacing the preferences package already there). Delete ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/prefs.json in your home folder, this file tells Alfred any custom sync location Restart Alfred From this point on, you can manually backup the Alfred.alfredpreferences in Alfred's App Support folder if this is what you were looking to achieve.
 
Cheers,
Andrew
 

@rob213 this isn't the default as the return key can also have some actions within the object configuration itself, which would lead to some confusion.
 
Use ⌘S on a workflow object configuration sheet to save it.

@rob213 you're typing ⇧⌃⌥Z into the key combo field, and Typinator is subsequently "typing" ⌘C to bring text into itself, then you'll see ⌘C in Alfred's key combo field, as that was the last "typed" combo in macOS.
 
If you'd like Alfred to simulate ⇧⌃⌥Z as the Key Combo, type Z as the combo into the field, then right click and add in the modifiers manually.
 

 
Cheers,
Andrew

Fun fact: You can even select some text and it'll work too, e.g. select this and use the file selection hotkey: ~/Desktop/
 
Interesting info though, thanks. I'll look at updating that blog post.

This option refers to when using Alfred's file system navigation mode, which by default uses return to navigate into the folder. Selecting this option doesn't change the behaviour in Alfred's default results.
 
If you would like to navigate into a folder from Alfred's default results, you can use cmd+down arrow.

Update: This was resolved via email by resetting the file search scope to "Applications and Home". The sample process revealed that there was something in the home folder which was delaying the automatic home folder scope discovery.

I can confirm that with Alfred 5.1.1 [2136], the issue is indeed fixed on my end too. Thanks a bunch!

Here is a super simple workflow which opens Alfred's Preferences directly to the Workflow tab from a hotkey.
 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x11jsej4b8t9mja/Workflow Prefs.alfredworkflow?dl=1
 
Alternatively, if you want to use BTT, open the following URL instead of using AppleScript:
 
alfredpreferences://navigateto/workflows  

Here is a super simple workflow which opens Alfred's Preferences directly to the Workflow tab from a hotkey.
 
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x11jsej4b8t9mja/Workflow Prefs.alfredworkflow?dl=1
 
Alternatively, if you want to use BTT, open the following URL instead of using AppleScript:
 
alfredpreferences://navigateto/workflows  

Instead of setting up snippets, you could setup a workflow which simply has keywords linked to clipboard outputs, then you have full control over what is typed and what is output... i.e. you could have 'foo' which pastes some text.
 
Cheers,
Andrew

In a workflow, you can chain as many objects and actions as you need. For example, what you need may looks something like this:
 

 
The Snippet Trigger responds to typing :test which is connected to a Copy to Clipboard output object. You place your snippet text in this object and configure it to automatically paste.
 
Adding a Delay Utility (set to something very small, e.g. less than a second) will allow a short amount of time for the underlying app to respond to the paste. The Dispatch Key Combo object will simulate the key presses you like. Just add more delays, key combos, and copy to clipboard objects as you need.

@user01 the searches you are referring to are the default fallback searches. You can leave all the web searches enabled (as these will only show when you use their keywords).
 
To change the default fallback searches, use the "Setup fallback results" button under the Features > Default Results tab.
 
If you set duckduckgo as your top default result, then you can type bang searches directly into Alfred
 
Cheers,
Andrew

I'll take a look at tweaking this wording in the next update for clarity.