How To Get More Done With Alfred

Save time and improve efficiency with this butler-style app

Wouldn’t it be great to have your own personal butler?

You know, that person that’s always at your beck and call, getting things for you, answering the door, and generally helping you.

Well, Alfred may not be a human version of that, but as automation goes, it’s pretty darned awesome.

Sorry… this is a Mac-only app

Allow me to introduce you — this is how Alfred describes himself.

Alfred is an award-winning app for macOS which boosts your efficiency with hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more. Search your Mac and the web, and be more productive with custom actions to control your Mac.

Ultimately, Alfred sits quietly in the corner until you summon one of the amazing features.

I access Alfred using CMD+Spacebar. This replaces Spotlight search as it’s much more powerful.

There are far too many features to mention here, but I thought I’d share some of my favourites and most used.

Clipboard history

Clicking CMD+C / CMD+V is the fastest way to copy some text and paste it somewhere else.

The beauty of Alfred is that you can store everything you copy to the clipboard for a pre-determined amount of time (I’m talking days, not seconds), and it’s there for the next time.

It’s very useful if you copy something, but you’re not quite ready to paste it.

This works for text and images. It’s one of my most used features.

Smart search

This is a goody. Let’s say you want to search Amazon for something specific. Instead of going to the Amazon site and then searching, you can launch Alfred, type Amazon followed by whatever you’re looking for. When you enter, the search will be pre-populated and Amazon will open at the required results.

Speedy.

I have this set up for use at work, for Confluence.

I just use the letter C, followed by the search phrase and it goes straight there. No more needing to launch Confluence first (or find the tab!)

We also use Jira for our tickets. I simply type J followed by the ticket number and it takes me directly to the ticket.

Want to search Google Maps? Type Maps and the search criteria (postcode, town etc) and you’ll be shown the results on the map.

There are tons of these presets, but you can create and add your own. I added another to search Unsplash or Pexels for images.

Snippets

This is another feature I use quite a lot. The ability to save frequently used text clips as snippets and auto-expand them anywhere

For example, at the end of this story, you’ll see the ‘Thank you’ paragraph.

As this is something I add every time, I just need to enter ‘ZMT’ and the paragraph is automatically added.

I mentioned Jira earlier, and I have a snippet that pre-fills the entire URL and leaves the focus at the end, where I can enter the ticket number.

Or, if I want to enter the date and time, just use ‘ZDT’ to add that information to a document.

I also have them set up for personal information so that I can quickly add a mobile number, email address or, well, anything.

Create workflows

Another time-saver is the use of workflows. For example, if I want to start a Google Meet and share the URL, all I need to do is type ‘Meet’ into Alfred.

This will start a Google Meet session and save the URL to the clipboard.

I can then paste this URL into Slack, or wherever, to share it, so others can join the call.

It’s quicker than opening a new browser tab, launching Meet then copying and pasting.

It may be small, but it saves time.

You can also use Alfred in conjunction with Apple Shortcuts and you can really unleash the power of what can be done.

There are literally hundreds of workflows available via the Forum, and if you’re into coding, then you can make it do all sorts of things.

The update in version 5 has enabled keyboard shortcuts, is more user-friendly and makes it easier to create your own workflows.

I haven’t even scratched the surface of what Alfred can do.

Alfred can be used for free, but the majority of the power (and what I’ve described) comes from the, wait for it… Powerpack.

This does have a one-off charge of £34 for a single user licence for the current version (v5). For free lifetime upgrades, it’s £59.

If you use a Mac and want to see how you can improve your productivity, then take a look at Alfred.

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