Mac Automation Hacks (Using Alfred — the basics)

What is Alfred?

At its most basic this is like the built-in Spotlight feature but if Spotlight didn’t just search for files. This can do so much more than that. You can control your mac and different apps and perform all sorts of tasks just from what is effectively a search bar. You can even do text expansion so it serves as a basic way into that without specifically using something like TextExpander.

Search Feature

The main feature of Alfred and it’s principle purpose is a search and launch bar. This means you should be able to search for anything on your computer and if it’s a file or application also launch it from the Alfred search bar. This is largely how the built in Spotlight of Mac OSX also works. Where Alfred takes this further is in the depth of the search by searching for anything possibly related and not necessarily exactly named, as well as going beyond your computer too by letting you search the web too, as well as seeing previews of your results. The launch aspect is much more efficient letting you set hotkeys etc to quickly perform opening or some action on results.

Clipboard Feature

Not only can you use snippets as you would in TextExpander but there is also a clipboard history manager. This means you can also pull out anything you’ve copied to reuse it, without having to look for and copy it again. This can be a huge time saver and why clipboard applications exist. Usually when you copy and paste it’s a once only operation, so as soon as you copy anything else that previous thing you copied is lost from that copy memory.

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