A couple recent (?) oddities in visible search results?

[ron.stewart]

For some reason, Alfred has recently started showing a couple of things in its visible results that I would like to better understand how to control:

 

1. Some applications show with .app (see screenshot "a") but others don't. I don't remember /any/ of them showing that way until recently. Is there a way to control that?

 

 

2. Alfred has also started showing stuff from inside VMware Fusion VMs (see screenshot "b"). I definitely don't want that; can I exclude them somehow?

 

[GuiB]

Hi! For your first question, I think it's because some of your files have the "hide extension" option ticked in the Get Info of the file and some don't. Look at one of your file that the extension is hidden and do CMD+i in the Finder to pop the Get Info window and look for the option to hide extension. Do the same with a file that shows the extension in Alfred and see if the option is set the same

 

For your second option, your Search Scope must search in inside your VMware VM directory. Have a look inside Alfred's preferences under "Features -> Default Results -> Search Scope" and see if a listed directory is a parent of the files that you don't want to see

[ron.stewart]

@GuiB Thanks for the response; on the first one, I've checked several of them that appear in that manner (with the .app) showing, and each does in fact have the "Hide Extension" checked. I can't find any applications that don't have it checked... so it seems like it has to be something else.

 

On the second, I have "Include Folders in Home" checked (and I believe I have always have it checked) but today is the first time I've seen those results start showing up. I could uncheck that, but then I lose access to lots of stuff that I'd like to keep.

 

They are both minor annoyances more than anything...

[Vero]

@ron.stewart Alfred uses the Display Name in the metadata for the app.

 

If you take a look at the metadata for the two example apps you referred to (iTerm and iTunes), you'll likely find that one includes .app in the display name and not the other.

 

You may find that reindexing will fix that; If you just want to reindex your apps, you can drag the Applications folder to Spotlight's Privacy tab, wait 30 seconds, drag the folder out, wait another 30 seconds, then type "reload" in Alfred to refresh Alfred's cached index.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[ron.stewart]

@Vero Thanks; spot on. The apps showing in that manner definitely have the ".app" in the metadata display name. What's odd is that there doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to which apps have it or why. They are all apps I've used for years (e.g., iTerm, Firefox, Google Chrome Canary, Atom, two different versions of Opera, three versions of Komodo) and it definitely isn't everything (e.g., Google Chrome doesn't have it, nor does Firefox Developer Edition). And it seems to be just one of my several Mac's (all running Sierra, all with Alfred) behaving in this manner.

 

Reindexing doesn't seem to have addressed it, but this doesn't seem to be an Alfred issue. 

 

I'm sort of baffled by the sudden appearance of the results from deep inside the VMware Fusion VM's, as well. Where those folders live within my home folder, the only way I've found for them to not show is to uncheck "Include Folders in Home", but that has other obvious downfalls. It would be nice if I could exclude specific folders and their descendants from where Alfred provides results, but I don't see a way to do that; perhaps I'm just missing it?

 

Thanks for your help, though Top notch, as always.

 

[Vero]

@ron.stewart If you want to exclude these VMWare Fusion results from Spotlight and Alfred, drag them to the Spotlight Privacy tab. This will exclude them from results altogether, ensuring they don't clutter your results.

 

Cheers,
Vero

[NickR]

I haven't been successful in removing the VMware Fusion results by adding to spotlight privacy. This DOES prevent the results from appearing inside of Spotlight/mdfind, but they still populate inside of Alfred.

 

Is there something I need to do to refresh Alfred's cache (I tried restarting it), or is Alfred picking up everything with a .app extension regardless of whether it is excluded from Spotlight?

[NickR]

Got it! I needed to go to Alfred Preferences -> Advanced -> Clear Application Cache.