Unable to delete snippets

[The Real Yann]

1. Go to Alfred Preferences → Features → Snippets
2. Try to delete one snippet either via contextual menu or the minus icon at the bottom of the list
3. Confirm your choice in the pop up confirmation by clicking on "Delete"

 

The snippet is still there afterwards. I tried restarting Alfred. Still the same issue.

The edit function works as expected. Just can't delete.

 

Alfred 5.5.1 [2273]

MacOS 14.6.1 (23G93)

[vitor]

Welcome @The Real Yann,

 

The cause for that is usually that your syncing location doesn’t have the files locally or some permission wasn’t granted. See a similar post with solutions:

[The Real Yann]

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

I do have the prefs offline (iCloud → Optimize Mac Storage → off)

l double checked I had all the permissions from the General → Request Permissions... in Alfred.

 

Maybe I missed it, but I didn't see any solution in the linked post besides doing "Show Package Contents" on the prefs file and deleting the json file for the snippet manually, which does work, so that's a good short term workaround, but I wouldn't call that a solution.

 

Thanks!

[Vero]

@The Real Yann The inability to delete snippets/collections from iCloud most likely indicates permissions issues in iCloud itself.

 

A good way to clear this up is to go to Alfred's Advanced preferences and temporarily set your sync location to ~/Alfred/ - In other words, create a folder in your root user folder, which isn't synced via iCloud).

 

Next, create a fresh new folder location in iCloud - By creating a this folder, it should allow new permissions to be set and make it possible to delete snippets normally.

 

Let us know how you get on  

 

 

[The Real Yann]

Moving the prefs locally fixed the issue. Moving them back to iCloud in a brand new folder made the problem come back.

 

I'm gonna have to let this go for now… I don't have time to look more into it right now. I don't delete snippets that often, so it's not a huge deal. Maybe it will fix itself when I update macOS. But, as far as I'm concerned, this is a legitimate bug… Alfred should at the very least output some kinda of error message. The fact that it acts like it did what it was supposed to even though it didn't is in itself a bug.

 

Anyway, thanks for your help!

[Sourire168]

I have the same issue and I do agree, this bug should be fixed.

We shouldn't have to go through all those steps in order to just delete a snippets collection.

[FireFingers21]

The issue comes down to how Apple has designed iCloud Drive. The iCloud Drive folder you see in Finder isn't a "real" directory, but instead, some technical magic is done behind the scenes to make it appear as one. It doesn't function like the rest of the macOS file system, so using your Alfred.alfredpreferences file from within it can cause issues. On top of being opaque and poorly documented, its behaviour and reliability change a lot between macOS releases, thus also affecting reliability with apps like Alfred.

 

Alfred needs always-on and instant access to his preferences at all times, which isn't always possible with syncing services like iCloud Drive, so the most reliable way to avoid these issues is to use his preferences folder from a local directory on your Mac. To sync your preferences as a backup or across devices, consider instead maintaining a copy and storing that in iCloud Drive. The Backup Preferences workflow provides one such option.

 

Documented issues like these are why Alfred actively warns you against configuring specific syncing locations like iCloud Drive. You can set your sync directory to whatever you want, but you accept the risk of different syncing services negatively affecting reliability in unpredictable ways.

 

Some further reading for those interested, this technical writeup by Howard Oakley is a pretty good reference for the inner workings of iCloud Drive:

https://eclecticlight.co/2022/02/21/can-you-back-up-icloud-documents/

[The Real Yann]

Thanks. That's a very helpful comment. I like the workaround with the backup workflow.

 

I understand that iCloud is faulty, but I still think a feature that fails silently is a bug and should be addressed within Alfred. Maybe I set Alfred up too long ago to remember, but I didn't see any active warning within the UI or anything else while I was trying to troubleshoot. Just a silent failure.