Can't Change Alfred Hotkey

[stevengarcia]

Version: 5.5 [2257]

MacOS: 10.15.7 (Catalina)

I'm not sure why but Alfred randomly changed my hotkey from my preference of CTRL+SPACE to OPTION+SPACE.

As you can see from my attached screenshot, I am able to update the field but it has no effect. Alfred only responds to OPTION+SPACE

I tried quitting Alfred, rebooting my Mac and updating. Nothing works.

 

[Stephen_C]

Welcome to the forum.

1. What happens if you try to change to ⌘ Space?
2. Is there any other app on the your Mac that could be using the ⌃ Space shortcut?

Stephen

[stevengarcia]

Thanks for the prompt reply

1. I did try that but it remains unresponsive.
2. I poured over my System Prefs > Keyboard > Shortcuts and nothing

Even did a Command+Option+Control+Shift+Space (which I definitely never used)

But Alfred insists on the Option key. It's strange because I didn't change or update anything on my system. It just decided to ignore my preference for some reason.

[Stephen_C]

Where do you store your Alfred preferences file? Is it in the default location or somewhere else?

 

Edit: there are some general tips on this Alfred help page—Using Cmd + Space as your Alfred hotkey.

 

Stephen

Edited September 6 by Stephen_C

[stevengarcia]

Also worth noting I did enable Alfred in System Preferences → Security & Privacy → Privacy → Accessibility, so that's definitely not it.

[stevengarcia]

1 minute ago, Stephen_C said:

Where do you store your Alfred preferences file? Is it in the default location or somewhere else?

 

Stephen

~/Library/Application Support/Alfred

[Vero]

@stevengarcia Could you please provide your Diagnostics file, which you can get by typing "?diagnostics" into Alfred? You can then email them to our info@ address and I'll take a look at your current configuration.

[stevengarcia]

Done. You've got mail

[Vero]

@stevengarcia Thanks for sending them over.

 

Taking a look at your current preferences location, it's set to ~/Documents/ - Is this a recent change you did?

 

A few more questions:

1. Do you sync your Documents using iCloud? You can check in iCloud Preferences > iCloud Drive > Desktop & Documents Folders
2. Do you use Optimise Storage? (iCloud Prefs > Optimise Mac Storage)

This will tell me more about how your preferences are stored on your Mac

[stevengarcia]

Hi Vero,

Apologies for the late reply. I was unaware that this forum had a daily quota for posts. I do not use iCloud.

As you surmised the preference change was recent. My goal wasn't to change the location of the Prefs but to back them up for use on another machine.

 

[Vero]

@stevengarcia Do you use Time Machine? If so, you should be able to go back in history and find the Alfred.alfredpreferences bundle in the previous location, at a date prior to when you saw your preferences be reset. You can then revert to that file, where you'll find your preferences and primary hotkey returned to what you'd set

 

If you're using any uninstaller or "optimiser" tools, you may find that these are inadvertently deleting files essential to Alfred, so I'd recommend setting these apps to completely exclude Alfred and his preferences from manipulation.

 

 

[stevengarcia]

I dont use Time Machine. May just try to uninstall and reinstall to see if that works. The Option+Space command is not ergonomic or in sync with my muscle memory after years of use. 

[Vero]

@stevengarcia Option + Space is the default hotkey, so your original issue indicates that either:

 

1. Alfred is reverting to preferences defaults due to being unable to access your preferences file: This can happen when preferences are moved, set to a location that is not always available offline or deleted.

 

2. Alfred is unable to save changes due to lack of or broken permissions on your Mac.

 

I would recommend resetting your sync folder to the default location:

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

 

Alfred will use the preferences located in ~/Library/Application Support/Alfred/ 

 

Try changing your hotkey and saving a few custom preferences, and restart Alfred to check that they are being saved as expected.

 

Once you've done this, we can try to identify your previously customised preferences and start using those again. Did you have many customisations (e.g. custom searches, workflows, etc) previously?