Alfred does not show files and folders by default, like Spotlight does. Instead, press the Spacebar to trigger File Search, and then type the name of the file or folder.
Unless you enabled it, Alfred doesn't show files in its default results. Use the 'open' keyword to find files, or press the Spacebar before typing the filename.
You can type ?hotkeys to get a list of all hotkeys, and opening an item opens the Alfred Preferences page where you can change it.
This is documented on https://www.alfredapp.com/help/getting-started/preferences-search/.
So nothing happens when you search for something and immediately press Return?
There's this option in Preferences > Appearance > Options:
But as the description says, it's just visual. Pressing Return should open the top result regardless.
Why not use the "lucky" keyword to go to the first Google result? Unfortunately Google puts a page in between, so you'll have to press Tab and Enter to go to the actual page.
Or switch to DuckDuckGo and simply type "! your search query"
@rehashed Have you tried typing only the first few characters of the application name and choosing the application you want? After a few times Alfred will put the application as the first result, and you will commit to muscle memory which characters to type. For example, for Slack you would type "sl" and press Enter.
Given that /usr/bin/php was removed in macOS 12.0 and it's still in the dropdown, probably none until Alfred drops support for macOS versions that still ship those binaries.
As mentioned in Andrew's second screenshot, Alfred always copies the selected text to the clipboard. I think even when you use the "Restore previous clipboard item" option, the selected text will still be in your clipboard history.
The "Mark item as transient" option only makes it so the modified text doesn't show up in the clipboard history as well.
Are you sure that's how you searched for folders before? Alfred doesn't return files and folders by default, you have to press space bar and then type the folder name.
If that did work before, maybe you don't have Folders checked under Default Results.
Will there be an option at some point to have a different display text for custom web searches in the action panel, like the built-in web searches have? Alfred doesn't replace {query} in the action panel results, so it looks a bit silly