TheBloke

I'm a long term Alfred user, but somewhat on-and-off-again due to my coming in and out of using macOS.  I'm now back in macOS and hopefully for a good while now.  And I signed up at this forum specifically to post this feature request, which has been one thing that's bugged me about Alfred's Clipboard feature since I first stated using it in 2012 or so.
 
On Windows I use Ditto and I have my expiration set at 12 months, but that was only for space considerations as  Ditto doesn't have Alfred's ability to give different time limits to text versus image data.  If it did, I would set Text to "forever".
 
Why not use snippets?  I do.  But the point of the forever history for me is to retrieve things I didn't know I needed to make a snippet.  "What was that long command I ran on server X last year? I can't access the server but I know I copied it at least once.. it started with.. <SEARCH> that's it!"   This doesn't happen every day, but it does happen periodically.  I've pulled long-ago copied data out of my Ditto clipboard history many times.  Sometimes I even need to browse through dozens of results, eg if I'm looking for a phone number I thought I'd only need once, and all I have to search for is the first two digits, 07.  But I can very often work out the right entry by looking at the date it was copied.   
 
The important thing is that I have the option, and in practice I've found it very useful.  I don't want to have to think, every time I copy something, "should I make this a snippet just in case I need it in 9 months?"  And more often or not I have no idea that I'll need it again, until I do.  I have my shell history (Bash and ZSH) set to never truncate for exactly the same reason, and that is regularly invaluable.
 
Beyond that, I honestly don't understand the reason not to add the option?  The default will always be low; 1 month or whatever it is now.  Only people who actually want longer need set it, and as they have the flexibility to only do so only for Text, there's really no space worries.  
 
So I have to say I find it surprising and a little disappointing that there appears to be so much resistance to implementing such a simple feature.  Lots of people are asking for it.  It's surely easy to do.  And it need not affect anyone who doesn't want it.  Why not put it in?
 
If there's some technical limitation - Alfred gets really slow when there's too much history, perhaps?  - then just put a warning up and let us take our own chances with it.  But if you're using SQLite or similar I really can't imagine there'd be a problem - it's certainly not for Ditto, which searches a huge DB just fine.
 
At the moment I am regularly checking every new clipboard manager that I discover to see if it can replace this part of Alfred, and give me the forever history that I want.  I just wish I didn't need to and could forget about it and just always use Alfred, which is perfect in most every other way.
 
Thanks very much.

I don't. I use Roam as my second brain. I 100% agree that this is a first world problem. 😆 🤷🏽‍♂️  But then again isn't that the point Alfred? To improve workflow? Asking "Why don't you just switch to Apple notes?" is like asking "Why don't you just open the /Applications folder and double click on the app you want to open, instead of using Alfred?"
 
The clipboard workflow gives us a unique workflow which I find very valuable because I can quickly access snippets without having switch contexts or define/name a snippet. I don't have to plan for reuse (because often I don't know that i'll need to reuse until I do). That's the whole point. All the arguments here about other ways to accomplish the same time are all completely valid. They're also completely besides the point.
 
 

I understand performance implications, but I personally would be more than happy to pay potential performance/battery price in order to achieve longer history.
So to circle back to the original question - why can't you add couple of more options - as optional choice (as it is now) before you implement full-scale solution? I believe users can decide themselves whether they are willing to pay performance price or not. In the worst case scenario I can always switch back to the current limit.

I'm a long term Alfred user, but somewhat on-and-off-again due to my coming in and out of using macOS.  I'm now back in macOS and hopefully for a good while now.  And I signed up at this forum specifically to post this feature request, which has been one thing that's bugged me about Alfred's Clipboard feature since I first stated using it in 2012 or so.
 
On Windows I use Ditto and I have my expiration set at 12 months, but that was only for space considerations as  Ditto doesn't have Alfred's ability to give different time limits to text versus image data.  If it did, I would set Text to "forever".
 
Why not use snippets?  I do.  But the point of the forever history for me is to retrieve things I didn't know I needed to make a snippet.  "What was that long command I ran on server X last year? I can't access the server but I know I copied it at least once.. it started with.. <SEARCH> that's it!"   This doesn't happen every day, but it does happen periodically.  I've pulled long-ago copied data out of my Ditto clipboard history many times.  Sometimes I even need to browse through dozens of results, eg if I'm looking for a phone number I thought I'd only need once, and all I have to search for is the first two digits, 07.  But I can very often work out the right entry by looking at the date it was copied.   
 
The important thing is that I have the option, and in practice I've found it very useful.  I don't want to have to think, every time I copy something, "should I make this a snippet just in case I need it in 9 months?"  And more often or not I have no idea that I'll need it again, until I do.  I have my shell history (Bash and ZSH) set to never truncate for exactly the same reason, and that is regularly invaluable.
 
Beyond that, I honestly don't understand the reason not to add the option?  The default will always be low; 1 month or whatever it is now.  Only people who actually want longer need set it, and as they have the flexibility to only do so only for Text, there's really no space worries.  
 
So I have to say I find it surprising and a little disappointing that there appears to be so much resistance to implementing such a simple feature.  Lots of people are asking for it.  It's surely easy to do.  And it need not affect anyone who doesn't want it.  Why not put it in?
 
If there's some technical limitation - Alfred gets really slow when there's too much history, perhaps?  - then just put a warning up and let us take our own chances with it.  But if you're using SQLite or similar I really can't imagine there'd be a problem - it's certainly not for Ditto, which searches a huge DB just fine.
 
At the moment I am regularly checking every new clipboard manager that I discover to see if it can replace this part of Alfred, and give me the forever history that I want.  I just wish I didn't need to and could forget about it and just always use Alfred, which is perfect in most every other way.
 
Thanks very much.