Basic Search Results

[ravettb]

First problem: A only finds 40 files at most in a ("Default") search. This is woefully inadequate. Is there any way to increase this to, say, 1-200?

Second problem: There is no way, as far as I can see, to specify categories always included in the search results. That is, I would like to always find multiple file and folders matching the word I put into the search box. This could be done if the category list ("Essentials", "Extras") could be configured by percentage or, more crudely, by number. Specifically, suppose that I have a folder named "Consciousness" buried under several folders, and many pdfs with the term "Consciousness" in their titles. Well, in A as it's now set up, I will only find a max of 40 pdfs with the word "Consciousness" in their titles, and will not find the folder with that name. This does not happen when I use Spotlight; the results there are automatically divided into categories, and the folder will always be found. I don't want to have to configure a workflow to do this; that adds another step, unless that workflow can be included in the default search.

[deanishe]

Alfred is designed to be used in a fundamentally different way to Spotlight. It's not an "all-in-one" search, and you won't get good results if you try to use it that way.

 

Instead, you should create many different searches using File Filters that only look at specific types of files or locations. The default search only shows a very limited number of results because you’re only meant to use it for a very limited number of things. Applications, preferences and other absolute essentials. Everything else should be tucked away behind a keyword.

 

For your second problem, you should be using a File Filter configured to only include PDFs (and maybe directories). You can also configure it to search the PDFs' contents, just their filenames or titles etc. Or to only look in certain directories.