MacBook Pro 2021 F4 Key

[MelWel]

hello I wanted to ask if anyone knows if you can put Alfred on a button ?

Since the new MacBooks have on F4 the Apple Spotlight search.

I thought you could also use it for Alfred. Someone has an idea ?  

[David H]

I think you can do that with Karabiner-Elements. It can change function keys.

[deanishe]

4 hours ago, MelWel said:

I thought you could also use it for Alfred. Someone has an idea ?

 

You can, but you need to turn on "Use F1, F2 etc. keys as standard function keys" in System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard.

 

If that's off (the default, IIRC), then pressing the F4 key will run the special function printed on it, and you actually need to press Fn+F4 for F4.

[Ronot]

I used Karabiner-Elements to remap F4 to Alfred 5

 

You need to change karabiner.json, the file is located in the config folder of Karabiner Elements. I used Visual Studio Code but I think most Text editors will do.

1. Open karabiner.json
2. Search for "spotlight"
3. Replace "apple_vendor_keyboard_key_code": "spotlight" with "shell_command": "open -a 'Alfred 5.app'"
4. Depending on the number of keyboard-profiles you have in Karabiner Elements you need to do it for every keyboard-profile.
5. File, Save
6. Restart Karabiner

 

 

The mapping for F4 should look like this. Note that I changed F5 and F6 too but that's not relevant to this topic)

Edited April 27, 2023 by Ronot

[vitor]

5 hours ago, Ronot said:

open -a 'Alfred 5.app'

 

Make it instead open -b com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred and it’ll be more future-proof.