How do I turn off syncing in Alfred?

[JackH]

I'm doing my best to disable syncing on Alfred, which I had the unfortunate (and distasteful) misfortunate of enabling. Now, every single time Alfred starts up or I try to go into its preferences, it gives me the annoying alert below. There's literally no way to disable syncing from Alfred preferences. I also tried running the following terminal command after quitting Alfred:
 

defaults delete com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-Preferences syncfolder

but although it deleted that key, it just came back when I reopened Alfred. What gives? Is the only way to solve this by resetting all of Alfred's preferences? I can't believe that there wouldn't be a way to turn off syncing other than using a kill switch. 

 

Sorry, I'm incredibly frustrated by this at the moment. 
 

Edited June 1, 2020 by JackH

[deanishe]

40 minutes ago, JackH said:

There's literally no way to disable it from Alfred preferences.

 

Clicking "Continue" in the dialog will disable it. It literally says as much.

 

41 minutes ago, JackH said:

What gives?

 

You're messing about with the wrong file.

[JackH]

14 minutes ago, deanishe said:

Clicking "Continue" in the dialog will disable it. It literally says as much.

 

I am aware that that should be the expected behavior. I have tried clicking both Continue and Quit at least ten times, and have restarted my Mac at least twice. This dialog keeps popping up. 

 

15 minutes ago, deanishe said:

You're messing about with the wrong file.

 

Would you mind elaborating?

[deanishe]

47 minutes ago, JackH said:

I have tried clicking both Continue and Quit at least ten times, and have restarted my Mac at least twice.

 

I’m not sure of the exact implementation details, but Alfred doesn’t delete the “sync folder” setting in case the settings re-appear (e.g. they’re on a network volume that isn’t mounted). Have you actually deleted the ~/Dropbox/Sync/Alfred Preferences folder?

 

If not, do that, and Alfred shouldn't ask again. Otherwise, use the "Set preferences folder…" option in Alfred Preferences > Advanced to point Alfred to ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred.

[JackH]

5 hours ago, deanishe said:

 

I’m not sure of the exact implementation details, but Alfred doesn’t delete the “sync folder” setting in case the settings re-appear (e.g. they’re on a network volume that isn’t mounted). Have you actually deleted the ~/Dropbox/Sync/Alfred Preferences folder?

 

If not, do that, and Alfred shouldn't ask again. Otherwise, use the "Set preferences folder…" option in Alfred Preferences > Advanced to point Alfred to ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred.

 

Yeah, I've deleted that folder. It still asks for some reason. I tried what you suggested and strangely it gives me this message when I select Alfred's folder in Library:

 

 

But when I try to open Alfred preferences after closing it again, it gives me the error again. Really strange. Maybe it's just me.

[JackH]

I "fixed" it by duplicating the preferences folder on my Desktop, and then setting that as my sync folder. Then I set the sync folder as the Library preferences folder. Now it's holding that as the "sync" folder (before it was blank even though this folder was technically selected):

 

 

It's kind of strange to "sync" to this folder, but I guess it's find. Sorry for my frustration and thanks for your help. 

[deanishe]

2 hours ago, JackH said:

strangely it gives me this message when I select Alfred's folder in Library

 

When it can't find your synced preferences, it creates a new, empty prefs bundle in the default location.

 

It does sound like something got a bit messed up during the changes in Alfred 4. There probably should be a "turn off syncing" button to make this whole process more straightforward.

 

2 hours ago, JackH said:

Now it's holding that as the "sync" folder (before it was blank even though this folder was technically selected)

 

Yeah. It's selected by default when no "sync folder" is set. But seeing as Alfred doesn't give you a way to unset the "sync folder", there's nothing else you can do AFAIK.

[JackH]

yeah something definitely got really messed up that time 

[dgbeecher]

I'm chiming in here because I had this exact problem, and went through all the same steps JackH initially tried, and reached probably the same level of frustration. I'm happy I came looking for help here because what in the end worked for JackH also worked for me. Thanks for figuring that out!! And yes, I agree with deanishe that a "turn off syncing" button would be a helpful and logical addition here. 

[deanishe]

Yeah, I think Alfred would benefit from being a bit clearer about what's going on regarding syncing. It's very confusing unless you already know exactly how it all works.

 

It'd be much clearer if Alfred told you which preferences it were currently using and what's going on with the sync directory ("sync directory is empty/doesn't exist") with a "Forget sync directory" button if Alfred's not actually using that directory.

 

Having the preferences in a bundle adds to the confusion: A lot of users don't realise it's actually a directory and the modified date is only for the bundle itself, not its contents.

[Andrew]

I agree that this needs improvement. At the very least (in the short term), I'll add a new knowledge base article.

 

The two steps you need to do to reset Alfred's syncing (with Alfred not running) are:

1. Copy the Alfred.alfredpreferences package you want to use into ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/
2. Delete ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/prefs.json

When you restart Alfred, he will then use the prefs in this default location.

 

Cheers,

Andrew

[Andrew]

I've created this guide:

 

https://www.alfredapp.com/help/advanced/sync/disable-sync/