Wish you didn’t have a million apps in your dock? (ok, well not a million but a lot…)
Want a really fast way of opening any app (or files) that aren’t in your dock?
Have trouble finding stuff on your Mac?
Well a little app called Alfred might just be the answer.
It can do all the above and so much more.
Alfred App
Alfred App is a ‘quick launcher’ along the lines of the Google Quick Search Box and Quicksilver, but I think it beats all other competition hands down.
Watch Alfred in action and see just how great it is:
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You open Alfred using a keyboard shortcut (I use crtl+space, but you can change this) and when the box appears, start typing!
Type to find and open apps, start a web search (on Google, Wikipedia, Amazon and many more) or type in some math or spelling and Alfred will tell you the answer. Alfred can even shut your Mac down for you (I can’t remember the last time I used the Apple menu to shut down!)
Alfred App is free, but there’s also an add-on Power Pack (£12) which adds lots more goodies including file system navigation, an iTunes mini player (which is very cool), clipboard history, address book integration, recent documents (when opening an app you can choose what recent doc to open, this saves me so much time!) and ability to create terminal shell and applescripts to extend Alfred even more!
You can also create your own themes (and even use the theme I created to match ‘smoke theme’ on Growl.)
If you’re a Mac user and haven’t tried Alfred, download Alfred or get Alfred from the Apple App Store! I’ve been a user since early beta days and can’t imagining using a Mac without it now.
Phil says
I’ve been using Alfred for a few months after a friend recommended it. I love it! It’s a fantastic app. My wife doesn’t use it, however. That makes using her computer–which is otherwise way sweeter than mine–an unappealing proposition. That’s how much I rely on Alfred.
James Cooper says
I rely on Alfred a scary amount as well!
Chandos says
If you don’t feel like installing an app, you can also do most of this through Spotlight. Including web/wikipedia searches, dictionary, calculations…etc. And its keyboard shortcut is cmd+spacebar. And the keyboard shortcut to shutdown is cmd+option+ctrl+eject 🙂
Phil says
I used to use Spotlight instead of Alfred. I just really felt like Alfred was much faster.
James Cooper says
You can indeed use spotlight, but as Phil says, Alfred is warp speed to spotlight’s push bike!!!
Jared Erickson says
when you have a lot of files spotlight becomes sluggish, love alfred for being so speedy
Matthew Snider says
I honestly tried to use it for about a week. Just not part of my workflow and really didn’t need anything aside from my folders and icons on my bar itself.
GREAT app and design although.
James Cooper says
Yeah, not for everyone. I didn’t think I’d use it as much as I do…
Don Parr says
Pre Alfred days, I was convinced absolutely nothing would ever be able to acquire the kind of user loyalty (from me) that Quicksilver (QS) had. Not only has Alfred (alfredapp.com) done that, but did it so well that even though QS appears to be back in active development, though I doubt by Nicholas Jitkoff (Alcor), I’m not interested (in QS), as I now have what I consider to be my personal (mac) computer assistant – Alfred :).
Jeremy says
If you like Alfred you would LOVE LaunchBar. It’s not free, but the power of launch bar is extraordinary. It is the one thing I miss most when forced to go back to a Windows PC. There are so many reasons it is great that I can’t even begin to explain it. Mac Power Users did a podcast on it a while ago.
Phil says
I love Alfred, but I really love free! I have heard good things about Launch Bar, but the Alfred price tag is unbeatable.
Henry says
As a fairly recent convert to the Mac platform, I was not liking having a lot of icons on the dock, so I did some searching and came across Pathfinder, which is a cool replacement for Finder (though not completely). Pathfinder has a quick launch utility as well, but I’ve found it too laggy, at least the first time each day. I’ve gone back to Spotlight and have found it to be faster and flexible as well. Might have to try Alfred though. Thanks for the tip!