Ever wanted to take control of your Mac without taking your hands off your keyboard?
Alfred’s an app launcher and utility that makes that possible.
After youget everything installed, it’s time to start playing around with it.
Why Not Just Use Spotlight?
At a glance, Alfred looks like OS X’s built-in tool, Spotlight.
But once you use it, you’ll see that it’s a lot more powerful.
Press Alfred’s keyboard shortcut (Command+Space by default), and the Alfred menu will pop up.
For example, if you press Option+Space and start typingSPAlfred shows you apps that start with those letters.
The more you consistently launch an app, the higher it’ll appear on the list.
it’s possible for you to do more with the app menu if you need it.
Launch Alfred, then typequithidequitallorforcequitfollowed by the app name, and Alfred takes care of the rest.
Search Through Files
you might also use Alfred to find and manipulate files.
From the Alfred menu, bang out a few letters to search for files by keyword or name.
Doing this is pretty straightforward: launch Alfred, then bang out in Google followed by your search query.
Alfred launches your default internet tool with the Google results for that search.
punch in in the service name followed by the search you want to conduct.
Even better, if you’re a Google user, Alfred supports both Gmail and Drive.
pop in inGmailorGoogle Drivefollowed by your query to to search through either service.
Alfred also has atext expansion-likeSnippet system.
With it, you might paste a piece of text by launching Alfred and typing in a short keyword.
That’s it, now your snippet exists.
You might trigger an AppleScript or even a series of different search engines.
However, instead of worrying about making your Workflows, you might also download other people’s.
Search Tabs: Are you the bang out to have a lot of tabs open?
AlfredTweet: Alfred tweet sends out a tweet with Alfred.
Battery: This workflow adds all kinds of battery information to Alfred.
Just jot down “battery” and you’re shown all kinds of details about your laptop’s battery.
Evernote: Integrate all kinds of Evernote commands and search functions into Alfred.
Weather: Just key in “forecast” into Alfred and you’ll get the forecast for the week.
Colors: Converts CSS colors into various other formats.
Reminders: Create and manipulate Apple Reminders right in Alfred.
Check outthis listfor even more options.
From there, you might want to investigateAlfred’s Terminal supportor get even deeper into making your ownAlfred workflows.
Title illustration byKevin Necessary.
