Find an application by simply typing its name in the Alfred window. Hit "return" to launch it or, for Powerpack users, hit the right arrow to perform an action on the app.
As an introduction to this feature, here's a tutorial on launching applications.
Clearing the Application Cache
In some instances, you may have deleted an application from your Mac but Alfred still lists it. This is due to Alfred caching the available applications' names in order to present results to you quickly. Clicking the "Reload" button will force Alfred to refresh his cache and remove outdated content.
Non-Exact Search and Fuzzy Matching
You may want to find Applications using more ambiguous search terms, there are 2 ways that you can do this; By adding a Spotlight Comment or by turning on Fuzzy Matching.
Spotlight Comments
Hints and Tips
You can tag Applications with more than one term, so you could for example tag all browsers with the 'browser' keyword. When typing browser in Alfred, you will then see all of your browsers. Here is an example of this tip put into action on Anna's tips blog.
The most efficient way of finding Applications with different terms is by tagging the Application with a Spotlight Comment. This can be done in Finder -> Get Info for the Application. If you tag Firefox with the Spotlight Comment 'ff', Alfred will find Firefox when you type ff.
- In Finder, select the app you want to create the shortcut for and Get Info (cmd+i)
- Type your Spotlight Comment in the text box at the very top to set your shortcut.
Spotlight Comments for System-owned applications
If, when you try to type, you can't enter any text, follow the steps below:
- As above, select the app you want to create the shortcut for and Get Info (cmd+i)
- Check if the padlock at the bottom is unlocked: If it's locked, temporarily change the Sharing & Permissions setting for "everyone" to "Read & Write" and type your password in.
- Type your Spotlight Comment in the text box at the very top to set your shortcut.
- IMPORTANT: Change the Sharing & Permissions setting for "everyone" back to "Read only" and relock the padlock.
Only applications owned by the System will require the padlock to be unlocked in order to set a Spotlight Comment. You can change this shortcut at any time by re-opening the Info window for your application.
Hints and Tips
Spotlight Comments can also be used to ignore apps: Add "alfred:ignore" to the Spotlight Comment and Alfred will ignore the application or file. To ignore a whole folder, open your Spotlight Preferences and drag the folder to it. All of its contents will be ignored by Spotlight and Alfred.
Powerpack users can also set up File Group or Filter extensions and assign their own keywords to apps or groups of apps.
Fuzzy Matching
By enabling fuzzy matching, Alfred will match non-continuous characters of Application's name, therefore 'ff' will match Firefox and 'tm' will match TextMate. This can have an adverse affect on Alfred's performance, returning more results than necessary.
Enabling "Anchored" makes Alfred fuzzy match from the beginning of the string making this function more precise and perform better.
