One of the first few apps I downloaded was the popular Alfred launcher. Being able to launch apps, open files, shutdown and restart my laptop with just a few taps on the keyboard intrigued me, so I decided to give it a shot. And hey, who can resist that adorable black bowler hat?
Months after, Alfred is now one of my favorite Mac apps and the most commonly used in a day. Moreover, there is this nifty upgrade called the Alfred Powerpack that contains features that enable me to do so much more with Alfred—features that will surely boost time efficiency and productivity better than ever before.
The Powerpack is definitely an upgrade many Alfred power users enjoy. In my case, my favorite Powerpack feature is the ability to extend Alfred, and it is in this post that I’ll explain briefly what extensions do as well as share a list of 20 really cool Alfred extensions you should download and try.

Yesterday, Brett Terpstra posted a fantastic little script to leverage Day One’s built-in CLI (command line interface, more information available here) to create new journal entries from the Terminal or an app launcher. Brett has posted instructions on how to use Launchbar with the script, or skip the app launcher part altogether and go with the Mac’s Terminal instead:

Day One already has a quick entry palette in the menubar. It also has a command line interface (/usr/local/bin/dayone)1 which provides some geeky options (try dayone in Terminal) and the flexibility needed to replace my current logging system. You can create entries quickly with either method, but I wanted just a little bit more out of it. I built a quick script which allows a basic syntax for starring entries and defining dates (using natural language) inline in the entry itself. It can be used from the command line, from LaunchBar (or similar) and can be incorporated into just about any scriptable workflow.
I wanted to make the script work with Alfred, my app launcher and navigation tool of choice, and it turns out the effort to modify Brett’s script is equal to zero. I simply replaced “on handle_string(message)” with “on alfred_script(q)” and ”end handle_string” with ”end alfred_script” to make it work in Alfred. Obviously, you’ll need to fill in the path to your script after you’ve followed Brett’s instructions.

Grazing Push for Alfred will allow you to push a URL to any iDevice associated with your Grazing Push account. No more having to rely on bookmarklets and the site to push data to your iDevice. Just open up Alfred and send away.

favourite new trick of @alfredapp -and it took way too long for me to find. Find app you want then press right twice to open most recent doc

The public release of Alfred 1.0 is now available and brings with it a multitude of new features as well as improvements to existing ones. For most software developers reaching version 1.0 is a special milestone. I had the opportunity to speak with Andrew Pepperrell, the developer of Alfred, about his thoughts regarding this release and this is what he had to say:

Alfred 1.0 is a meaningful release; it’s more than just the new features. Version 1.0 marks Alfred’s maturity in my own mind, and users will no longer see him as unfinished. To be honest, 0.9 should have been 1.0… maybe even 0.8
I think that sums it up extremely well considering the last couple of updates have dramatically changed the way we use Alfred. The recent addition of extensions was certainly a game changer in my opinion. Now lets take a closer look at this version and see what it has to offer.

The Mac App Store and Sandboxing

The Mac App Store is currently in transition. From March 2012, all new submissions / updates need to be sandboxed.

Sandboxing is a way of protecting users from malicious or naughty software by severely restricting the access an application has to underlying resources. It also makes the app approval process easier for Apple as sandboxed apps simply cannot do things outside their own resources. While this works remarkably well on iOS (I am personally happy to be in the “walled garden” on my phone), it really changes the landscape for OS X applications.

As you know, Alfred isn’t a self-contained application like a game, graphics package or todo list. Many of the things Alfred does are to do with OS X itself… he searches, navigates and opens files and apps on your Mac, he runs AppleScript to interact with other applications, he even allows you to create and run lower-level shell or AppleScript extensions… he is basically your quick interface into the heart of OS X. This is where Alfred starts to throw his toys out of the [sand]box.

A few users have posed the question “How can I open a particular custom search in a browser other than my default”… what a great question, perfect for a little tumble tutorial! :)

This behaviour isn’t built into Alfred by default as he is generally agnostic to the underlying OS so we must delve into [Powerpack] extensions and create a few very simple scripts.
My default browser is Safari, I am going to create a ‘wiki’ keyword which opens wikipedia for the given search term in Google Chrome. If you aren’t bothered about this tutorial, just download these extensions which give examples of opening a wikipedia custom search in Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox.

Recently, Jason Rehmus asked me, “What does Alfred give above and beyond Spotlight?” I replied with a few highlights and promised a more comprehensive follow-up. At last, here it is.

I’ve been using Alfred for many months. On the surface it’s an app launcher, and that’s how I use it most of the time. After assigning a hotkey combination (I chose Command-Space), its main window is only a tap away. From there, start typing the name of the app you’re after and hit Return to launch it. But that’s just the beginning. Here are some of the other useful tasks Alfred performs for me (note that some require the Powerpack, which is a separate purchase).

Thanks for the great scripts! I've been using your goo.gl link shortening script for awhile and just thought of replacing {query} with $(pbpaste) since I usually copy and paste the URL in anyways..it does force you to copy it first.

How to use The Hit List with Alfred.

Custom searches allow you to setup search queries for sites you use regularly.

Find out the search URL on the site of your choice, then replace the query with {query} in curly brackets. Use the test search to ensure your search works as expected then click Save to add your new query.

Ready to create your own custom searches? These custom search examples will show you just how much you can do with custom searches!