Unable to find Applications unless including Application folder in scope

[kinnell]

I noticed initially that I was unable to open certain Applications from Alfred. I refreshed the Application cache and rebuilt OS X Metadata from Alfred preferences to see if that would solve the problem but then was unable to locate any Applications at all. I was forced to include the Application folder within the search scope in order to find applications at all which I didn't have to do in the past. Unfortunately, this is far from ideal because this also throws in non-Application files from Application folders (ie: Adobe app folders) and convolutes my searches.

Note: I am running Alfred 3 and I did upgrade to El Capitan a month back.  No plans to upgrade to Sierra until I can make sure all my work & productivity apps work fine.

[deanishe]

/Applications is a default in Alfred's Search Scope.

 

Any types of files you're seeing in Alfred's default results are there because you chose to include the type. If you don't want non-applications, remove those filetypes from the Default Results.

 

If you just want to exclude a few files, add alfred:ignore to their Spotlight comments.

[kinnell]

That makes more sense. Not sure what was happening before when I had an empty Search Scope except "Include Home Except Library". I clicked reset and I see all the defaults now. 

Is there a way to ignore certain file types all together? (ie: *.cache)

[deanishe]

Nope, afraid not.

 

Alfred uses the same index as Spotlight, and it fundamentally doesn't support blacklisting.

 

The "Alfred Way" is to keep your default result set very small (to keep it lightning fast and as relevant as possible), then use workflows and File Filters to add other searches for specific contexts. (I wouldn't add ~/ to the default scope, for example: it would clutter the results too much.)

 

Those searches should also ideally have a pretty limited scope. Alfred quickly learns which results to associate with which query, so keeping the search scope limited helps you to make the most of that (and get the fastest possible searches).

Edited September 29, 2016 by deanishe