[Workflow Tutorial] Hotkey-Based Web Search for Selection in macOS or Clipboard Contents

[Vero]

Thought I'd share the workflow I created for the latest Alfred blog post. It's a very simple workflow where each stream only contains two objects; A Hotkey and a Web Search.

 

By setting the hotkey trigger to pass through either the selection in macOS or the clipboard contents, I can quickly launch a Google search for that text.

 

Take a look at the whole tutorial here:

https://www.alfredapp.com/blog/tips-and-tricks/tutorial-fastest-hotkey-based-search/

 

You can download the workflow itself below. However, if you're new to workflows, it's worth creating it yourself by following the tutorial, as you'll benefit from learning how it works.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/99he5q9583mvw64/Google Search selected text or clipboard content.alfredworkflow?dl=0

 

 

Enjoy

 

Cheers,
Vero

[Elevenses]

Nice, I made something similar a while a back to define words, but then I found it under System Preferences>Keyboard>Services. Still it's pretty useful, looks almost exactly like yours, "selection in macOS" > Web Search. I made a couple others too:

 

Spellcheck

"selection in macOS" > /usr/bin/osascript

"tell application "Alfred 3" to search "spell {query}"
 

Websearch Chinese

"selection in macOS" > websearch http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=worddict&wdrst=0&wdqb={query}

or wherever really

 

Also noticed you can choose which browser it comes up in, could be nice.

[RuslanI]

Also, if you combine this with BetterTouchTool you can set a quick double tap of a key to launch the search.