Search Apple/iCloud Notes

[Jasondm007]

@sballin Yeah, on my system, it's only located in: /System/Applications

[Regluke]

Hi @sballin thank you! This worked! I really appreciate it!

[Jasondm007]

@sballin The update works like a charm on my machine, too. 

 

You're the best! Thanks a ton!!

[Bo-Frost-Mann]

For me it doesn't work at all. On Catalina nothing happens. I just installed the workflow. Do I need to install something else? I am new to Alfred maybe I miss something. I would love to  use this workflow. thanks in advance

[sballin]

2 hours ago, Bo-Frost-Mann said:

For me it doesn't work at all. On Catalina nothing happens. I just installed the workflow. Do I need to install something else? I am new to Alfred maybe I miss something. I would love to  use this workflow. thanks in advance

 

Please send me the text in the debug log after you try to find and open a note. Take care to remove any private note contents if they show up there.

[pav]

This doesn't work on Catalina, right?

[bivalvegruff]

18 hours ago, pav said:

This doesn't work on Catalina, right?

 

It works for me.

[Jasondm007]

@sballin I'm still a religious user of your workflow!!!

 

Quick Question: Is it possible to create an "alias" for a note that Finder can use, like it does for other files?

 

You created that awesome URL handler, which allows people obtain links for specific notes, like URLs. And, I use it a lot when inserting cross references. Sometimes when looking at projects in Finder folders, however, I forgot that I also have a note in the Notes app that's relevant. As a result, I was hoping to add an alias in Finder that would link to the note (i.e., using the Notes://blahblahblah). Is this possible?

 

As a always, thanks for your help!!

[sballin]

1 hour ago, Jasondm007 said:

Quick Question: Is it possible to create an "alias" for a note that Finder can use, like it does for other files?

 

Yep, you can drag the notes url text out of the notes app or another text field, into the finder, and it will create a .inetloc file. If you double click that, the URL handler should do its job!

[Jasondm007]

@sballin That's awesome! I had no idea you could do that with file URLs, more generally. Thanks a ton!!

[Acidham]

A few improvements requests: 

1. Sometimes the Workflows requires some time until results will be shown. The "Please Wait Subtext..." would help to inform the user that the workflow is executing
2. Rename "Search Notes.app" to "Search Notes". Makes it easier do differentiate between reals apps and workflow when running Alfred with Keyword
3. When nothing is found, means search result in 0 hits, it would be better to write back to the script filter something like "nothing was found" or "the query does not return a note". When nothing is written back the enduser is not sure if the workflow breaks or if nothing was found. 
4. Implement OneUpdater from @vitor
5. Not sure if I am on latest version, therefore it would be great to start with using/entering version number once you release the workflow

Otherwise it's a great workflow since I moved from Evernote to Apple Notes and I am using it daily!

[sballin]

Version 2.0.0 released! The workflow now runs on python 3 and lets you copy note bodies with cmd+enter and search note bodies with a new keyword.

 

Other minor changes: include version number, drop confusing .app.alfredworkflow extension, add please wait subtext. I don't think it's possible to have text indicating that no result was found.

Edited December 29, 2019 by sballin

[deanishe]

43 minutes ago, sballin said:

python 3

 

You know that's Catalina-only, right?

 

43 minutes ago, sballin said:

I don't think it's possible to have text indicating that no result was found.

 

Just return an item saying "no results were found".

[vitor]

2 hours ago, deanishe said:

Just return an item saying "no results were found".

 

The Workflow uses Alfred filters results, so that doesn’t work. But it should.

[sballin]

Should work pre-Catalina if the user has a python 3 installation, because it calls /usr/bin/env python3. In any case the old releases are still on github. The future is now!

[vitor]

2 minutes ago, sballin said:

Should work pre-Catalina if the user has a python 3 installation, because it calls /usr/bin/env python3.

 

Not unless you’re loading the user’s shell configuration. Alfred uses it’s own limited PATH—which doesn’t include locations like /usr/local/bin—and if the user is using pyenv or another version manager, there are commands that need to be run beforehand to point to the correct Python.

So as it is it will indeed only work on Catalina.

 

3 minutes ago, sballin said:

The future is now!

 

Technically the future was eleven years ago, when Python 3 was released. Shame that the version Apple decided to update it on is also the most broken macOS release in recent memory, and also the one where they announced those language runtimes will no longer be included in future versions! Just a stream of bad decisions coming out of Cupertino.

[deanishe]

17 minutes ago, sballin said:

Should work pre-Catalina if the user has a python 3 installation

 

It won't. Python 3 on pre-Catalina systems is installed in /usr/local/bin, which is not on $PATH (apps don't use your shell environment).

 

17 minutes ago, sballin said:

In any case the old releases are still on github.

 

I'd add the note about compatibility in the install instructions, rather than at the bottom of the page. A lot of people still won't read it, and will ask you why the workflow doesn't work, but it'll save you some support effort.

 

21 minutes ago, vitor said:

The Workflow uses Alfred filters results, so that doesn’t work. But it should.

 

Ah right. Yeah, you have to do your own filtering for that to work. I've always found it rather questionable that Alfred behaves in exactly the same way when a workflow fails and when it returns no results.

 

I think that's going to be a real issue for this workflow seeing as it will fail for a lot of people.

 

8 minutes ago, vitor said:

Shame that the version Apple decided to update it on is also the most broken macOS release in recent memory

 

It's kind of fitting, to be honest, because Python 3 is so broken. There's a reason only ~50% of Python users have migrated to v3 after 11 years.

 

I imagine Apple only updated Python because the developers have EOL'ed Python 2 in order to force people to upgrade. The Python 3 fiasco has been a great boon for the Go community…

Edited December 29, 2019 by deanishe

[petebocken]

4 hours ago, sballin said:

Version 2.0.0 released! The workflow now runs on python 3 and lets you copy note bodies with cmd+enter and search note bodies with a new keyword.

 

Other minor changes: include version number, drop confusing .app.alfredworkflow extension, add please wait subtext. I don't think it's possible to have text indicating that no result was found.

 

Updated and now nothing works. I'm on 10.15.2. 🤷‍♂️

[sballin]

6 minutes ago, petebocken said:

Updated and now nothing works. I'm on 10.15.2. 🤷‍♂️

 

As always, I'll need to see some debug logs before I can help.

[petebocken]

2 minutes ago, sballin said:

 

As always, I'll need to see some debug logs before I can help.

 

Ah sorry. Never actually enabled debugging on a workflow before. Here you go.

 

[08:03:39.469] ERROR: Search Notes[Script Filter] Code 1: xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools), missing xcrun at: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun

 

Checked my disk and the only folder I have in CommandLineTools/usr is "share".  No "bin".

[sballin]

Thanks! Could you try changing the first line in get_notes.py from #!/usr/bin/env python3 to #!/usr/bin/python3? If that doesn't work, you may need to install the xcode command line tools using the command

xcode-select --install

Sorry for the trouble, I was hoping it would work out of the box.

[petebocken]

12 minutes ago, sballin said:

Thanks! Could you try changing the first line in get_notes.py from #!/usr/bin/env python3 to #!/usr/bin/python3? If that doesn't work, you may need to install the xcode command line tools using the command

xcode-select --install

Sorry for the trouble, I was hoping it would work out of the box.

 

Thanks. Installing xcode command line tools fixed it.

[Jasondm007]

The update is awesome, @sballin!! Thanks a ton!!!

[dustin]

Is it possible to combine these results with regular Alfred results instead of relying on n, nf, nb? — just have all of it ranked with everything else?

 

Also, is it possible to search OCR text detected in images/pdfs/etc that are in notes?

[sballin]

2 hours ago, dustin said:

Is it possible to combine these results with regular Alfred results instead of relying on n, nf, nb? — just have all of it ranked with everything else?

 

Yes, you can right-click the background of the workflow, add trigger → fallback search →  connect to n, nf, and nb, then in the features tab → default results → setup fallback results → plus button → workflow trigger → notes.

 

Quote

Also, is it possible to search OCR text detected in images/pdfs/etc that are in notes?

 

Not as far as I know, unfortunately.