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How to "open with" in Alfred


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I'd like to ask for help accomplishing the following:

 

1. select a file in Finder

2. trigger Alfred

3. search for the app I wish to open that file with

4. open that file with that app

 

 

Is this possible?

 

(I've searched the forums for "open with", which is the command I used to use in Quicksilver to accomplish this. I found ways to set up workflows to open a specific file type with a specific application. But that's not what I want. I want a more flexible way to, on the fly, search for the application I want to use with the currently selected file. Basically I am looking for a way to access, through Alfred, the functionality of the Finder's "open with" contextual menu item.)

 

Thank you!

 

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Oh, that's right! So easy. Thank you for the helpful response.

 

Some follow-up feedback: I have Advanced > Apps Matching set to "Full fuzzy match from word boundary". But this setting seems not to apply when I'm searching for an app via the "Open With" action. So for example, I can open PDFpen with "pp" in Alfred's normal search pane. But if select a PDF, hit alf+f, and choose "Open With", I'm not able to select PDFpen from the list by typing "pp". Furthermore, searching *within* Alfred's action panel doesn't work as I expect it to: I keep trying to select "Open With" by typing "ow", but that's also not allowed. (I actually think that my confusion over how to search the action panel and the resultant lists is why I turned off the "File Selection" action long ago, forgot about it, and had to ask here in the forums.)

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Yes, fuzzy search for apps using "open with" works in 3.3.1. However, for me it is still not possible to access the "open with" command itself using fuzzy search "ow" (as dgbeecher also points out), and in general the action panel commands can not be accessed using fuzzy search. I find that this interrupts the logical flow of fuzzy search in Alfred. Can this be fixed?

Edited by cands
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Alfred only applies fuzzy matching to Apps, everything else is keyword or word based throughout the rest of Alfred which is why the actions panel doesn't employ fuzzy matching. This has been by design in Alfred since the start (at a framework level), so is unlikely to change any time soon, but I'll make a note of this thread for possible considerations in the future.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

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  • 1 year later...

Sorry to revive a dead topic, but is there a way that when I'm searching for something within Alfred (my shortcut is just CMD+Space to replace Spotlight) that I can hold a modifier key, like how CMD does "reveal in Finder" to have the open with... pop up?

 

My example would be: I have .png files that I normally want to open in Preview, but every-now-and-then open in Adobe Illustrator. 

 

Thanks for the help! This thread was helpful already!! 

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  • 1 year later...
On 3/5/2019 at 7:05 AM, Voeltz said:

Sorry to revive a dead topic, but is there a way that when I'm searching for something within Alfred (my shortcut is just CMD+Space to replace Spotlight) that I can hold a modifier key, like how CMD does "reveal in Finder" to have the open with... pop up?

 

My example would be: I have .png files that I normally want to open in Preview, but every-now-and-then open in Adobe Illustrator. 

 

Thanks for the help! This thread was helpful already!!

I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but I set up a workflow like this:

- when I activate Alfred and type the keyword “png”, Alfred will limit my search to only png files.

- follow the keyword “png” with the space key, and then type the name of the png I want to open.

- hit Enter, and the png will be opened with Affinity Photo, because the keyword “png” is connected to the Open File with Affinity Photo as below.

If someone has a quicker workflow, please share.

 

976007079_ScreenShot2020-03-28at2_59_21PM.png.0f539007ae3a924ae718d610cd78663b.png

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  • 2 years later...
On 3/24/2017 at 1:06 AM, Andrew said:

@dgbeecher you can actually do this without any configuration using the file selection hotkey under Features > File Search > Actions > File Selection.

 

I have set this to alt+f. I select a file in Finder, hit alt+f which shows Alfred's action panel. You can select "Open With" from there :)

 

Cheers,

Andrew

Just in case anyone else needs it, this setting has moved in later versions of Alfred. You can set Alfred Preferences > Features > Universal Actions > Selection Hotkey to take action on the current Finder selection in Alfred 5.0.6.

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