crisb

I know of two, each with its own tradeoffs (I assume it's OK to post this here as neither is a direct Alfred competitor): If you can live without the tab search, Contexts is an excellent app switcher. It has a search mode which can find windows based on partial typing of the app name or window title. I like this app so much I tried using it for a while, and just not using Chrome tabs at all (using one window per site). That proved unwieldy. I have asked the developer if browser tab titles might be supported, and was told it was a frequent request that would be considered for the future. I'm keeping an eye out on that. So now I'm using Optimal Layout. This is a window manager that's useful enough just for that purpose, but it also has a built-in app switcher with search. It can find browser tabs. The caveat is that it excludes Chrome tabs by default. This can be changed in the preferences, but there's a warning that Chrome tab support comes with bugs. I've found that to be true, but it's worth living with as the only workable solution for me so far. Note I did refer to a 'different' tool, not a perfect one (yet)

That's precisely what I'm not after. I want to hit one keystroke to search for and then jump to any open app, window or tab. Not to have to think "is this task in a window or tab?" and then choose between a bunch of workflows/keystrokes. I have used multiple desktops in the past but tend not to at the moment (I fell out of the habit). I think my current workflow tends to involve too much flicking between disparate groups of small windows than really fits siloing them in separate desktops. Also my natural tendency is more verbal than spatial -- I think 'project name' not 'desktop 3'. But it's definitely worth thinking about, so thanks for the suggestion. Having given all this a bit more thought, I've realised Alfred is probably the wrong tool for this particular job, excellent and flexible though it is in general. For it to suit my case, Alfred would need to have the capacity to plug workflows into the Default Results (ie. to inject open app names, and window and tab titles in amongst the app and file search results), as opposed to launching a separate workflow. AFAIK this isn't possible. I have found a different tool that I think suits this particular job better.

I'm giving Alfred another try after not having used it for a while. I'm mainly considering it as an alternative to an app switcher called Contexts (https://contexts.co/) which, while generally excellent, suffers some unfortunate side-effects that Alfred doesn't. I work with many apps running on the mac, and jump between them often. Cmd-tabbing through a long list is too slow. So I want to use the Alfred popup window to search for my already-open stuff and jump there. For apps, this works nicely -- if the app is open, Alfred finds it and its window is brought into focus; if not, it the app is found and launched. Perfect. The scenario it doesn't cover (but Contexts does) is for web apps open in seperate browser tabs (or windows for that matter). I use Trello, for example. Rather than jumping first to Chrome, and then finding the Trello tab, I want to start typing "Tre.." and have Alfred offer it. Note the crucial thing for me is that all this is one integrated action (search for running apps and tabs/windows). I am not, for example, looking for a 'search browser tabs' workflow. That adds the load of deciding which Alfred operation to perform (standard Alfred search, or search tabs workflow), dozens of times per day. Is this something Alfred can do? I'm currently on Alfred 2 but will upgrade to 3 if Alfred can do what I want.

Ah, that's the issue. I only use the beta these days but have had the app store version in the past. And sure enough there's a stale bookmarks-default.json in ~/Library/Containers/(etc). Thanks again.

Got it! I manually added the path to bookmarks-default.json, and Alfred picked up all the logins. This solves my problem, but it presumably means Alfred was automatically looking in the wrong spot? Anyway, I'm happy now.

@ Hi Andrew -- thanks for the reply! That's not it in this case. Here's an example of an entry in bookmarks-default.json but not showing up in Alfred: ["[hash]","Udacity","https:\/\/udacity.com"] That's typical of the missing bookmarks. They don't seem to differ in any obvious way from the ones that are showing up, though I confess I haven't spent the time to look through thoroughly yet. I've been using Alfred for ages, but for some reason never got around to using the 1Password integration, so have only just discovered this issue. Cheers, Cris.

I haven't counted them up, but the list of 1Password 1-click passwords in Alfred prefs -> Features -> 1Password is missing many entries in my bookmarks-default.json. Alfred does find the file (set to 'discover automatically' in the Advanced dialogue), and a subset of the bookmarks. But some are missing (I've looked at bookmarks-default.json in a text editor and can see many bookmarks there that are not found by Alfred). There's nothing obvious in bookmarks-default.json to distinguish the bookmarks Alfred does find from the missing ones.

Maybe it's just a matter of not having developed Alfred-y habits yet (I'm a new user), but I often find myself starting to type in Alfred, then remembering it's a file/dir I'm looking for, so having to backtrack to prefix the search term with ' or a space. Is there a way to quickly switch to file search mode mid-stream?

Great, I missed that. Thanks.

By default, in the absence of a keyword, Alfred offers me Google, Amazon and Wikipedia to search for a term (that isn't an app name). How can I either add to this list (to make further searches available with cmd-<numeral>), or change it (eg. to replace Google with DuckDuckGo). I realise I can use keywords to select different searches, but I'd prefer a different set of defaults.

Good idea. Done.

It would be great to be able to add files to the buffer from a workflow. This would make possible workflows such as: - add currently-selected files in frontmost Finder window to buffer - add paths on clipboard to buffer etc.

Is it possible to add files to the Alfred buffer from a script? This could make for some really nice workflows -- eg. adding the current Finder selection to the buffer via a hotkey.

Ah, thanks. I'm new to Alfred and hadn't realised how simple it is to use a file filter in a workflow. Nice.

Is there any way to get Alfred to list folders at the top of the File Search results?