Change Log

Please note that the Change Log covers all changes including Powerpack-only features. To enjoy all that Alfred has to offer, be sure to buy a Powerpack license. :)

Alfred 3.4 Pre-Release

Build 834, Saturday 27th May 2017

Clipboard and Snippets

• Added new {datetime} placeholder which allows for simple combined date and time formatting with short, medium, long and full
• Added date arithmetic to date placeholders throughout Alfred
  • Supported (Y)ear, (M)onth, (D)ay, (h)our, (m)inute, (s)econd
  • e.g. {datetime +1Y -2M +2h:medium} (See context help for more syntax examples)
  • Arithmetic can be stacked, i.e. add and substract multiple days in single equation
• Add a new "Placeholder" helper button to the bottom left of text areas which support placeholder replacements (Workflow / Snippet / Remote)
  • Added insertable examples for date, time, clipboard and cursor
• Added per-collection snippet keyword prefix and suffix
  • Allows better and faster control over how and when snippets are found and auto-expand
  • Collection prefix and suffix are edited per collection, but shown per snippet in table
  • Improved collection display in preferences, with snippet count, prefix and suffix shown
• Added toggle to enable or disable entire snippet collections
  • Applies to (Clipboard) Snippet Viewer, Snippet keyword and Snippet auto expansion
• Add batch editing of auto expansion for selected snippets
• Tidy up the snippet collection preferences to better match Alfred's preferences
• Added option to duplicate a snippet from the context popup menu in the Snippet feature preferences
• Update Snippets feature preferences search to also search snippet content
• Fix snippet keyword conflict highlighting in Snippet feature preferences table
• Improvements and simplifications to the snippets and snippet collection framework (for performance and robustness)
• Added context help button to Snippet Collection edit sheet, and updated help link on Collection edit sheet
• Fix snippet placeholder processing order to prevent double processing of certain clipboard placeholders
• Small tweak to Automatic Snippet Expansion to make conflicting keyword expansion more predictable (now always expands first matching one)

Workflows

• Output an AppleScript error on calling Alfred when the workflow id or trigger id is not found, or if the workflow is disabled
  • See context help for "External" Trigger workflow object for error codes
• Add dispatch "Count" option to the Dispatch Key Combo output object; Dispatch a key combo between 1 to 10 times
• Fix border rendering around Dispatch Key Combo output object input field when view doesn't have focus
• Fix tab field focusing order on OpenURL workflow action configuration
• Fix initial focus on keyword field in Dictionary Filter input object config sheet
• Fix unexpected behaviour when pressing - button during editing of a new workflow environment variable value
• Overhauled and simplified workflow import framework code, specifically with migrations
• Ensure that the workflow list is correctly updated when a workflow is saved (e.g. last modified date)
• Fix incorrect visual selection after using insert object from the popup menu

File System

• Show the Finder "Display Name" in File Actions panel for better consistency (specifically for file extensions)

General Improvements

• Update LinkedIn search in default web searches to latest URL
• Add a help button next to the main Alfred hotkey, linking to hotkey help and troubleshooting
• Fix quirk when right clicking for popup menu within Alfred's preferences when window isn't key

Alfred 3.3.2

Build 818, Monday 11th April 2017

• More robust threading for define and spell keywords
• Fixed eject blacklist, now respects mounts in sub folders under /Volumes/
• Improved experience when first starting Alfred Text Service (Snippet expansion) and granting accessibility access
• Added option to restore clipboard contents after using snip keyword, to match snippet auto expansion
• Respect the file preview options (don't show x types, don't show if in y folder) in clipboard history preview
• Flatten ’ (curly single quote) in iTunes mini player indexing and search (currently only flattening straight ')
• Update Alfred's built toolset on fresh new mini build server, shiny!
• Added helper to aid Corporate Powerpack license deployment

Alfred 3.3.1

Build 806, Monday 27th February 2017

• Improved logic on when to launch files and apps in background, prevents macOS launch dialogs from hiding behind Alfred window
• Fix pop-up menu from hat in main Alfred window to show with ctrl+click as well as right-click
• Fix Open With file action to correct respect Full Fuzzy app matching advanced preference
• Action panel left text side now expands to fill with wider themes instead of right preview side
• A few small layout tweaks for macOS 10.9

Alfred 3.3

Build 801, Wednesday 1st February 2017

Clipboard and Snippets

• Added new {clipboard:x} placeholder to obtain items from Alfred's clipboard history, where x is the history offset
  • e.g. {clipboard:0} is latest, {clipboard:1} the previous item and so on
  • This can be useful for snippets / snippet expansion to perform clever custom merging of the clipboard
• More efficient pre-processing of snippet results when using snip keyword
• Add "Rename" on popup menu for selected snippet collection
• Add "Edit" to popup menu for selected snippet
• Move {clipboard} processing to after {date} / {time} processing for most predictable and consistent output

Workflows

• New icons for workflow objects
• Add {date}, {time} and {clipboard}, {clipboard:x} style placeholders to relevant objects
  • Added to Write File and Large Type Workflow Output objects
  • Added to Arg and Var / JSON Utility objects
  • Note that this inherently also adds {clipboard:x} to the Copy to Clipboard Output object
• Added new "Clipboard" Getting Started guide to demonstrate new workflow features
• Fix regression preventing workflow File Action trigger from saving custom action icon
• Improved behaviour when adding Getting Started / example / template workflows, adding to currently selected category
• Updated spell / define input filter to work asynchronously, resulting in smoother performance
• Fix layout issue in Write File object configuration sheet for "Allow empty files" tick box
• Updated "All Workflow Objects" Getting Started guide with new objects
• Updated 'Should I watch this movie' example workflow

1Password

• Added vault selection to hide specific vaults from Alfred's results
• Added option to "Only show Logins" if you aren't interested in seeing all 1Password data in Alfred's results
• Added separate columns for 'type' and 'vault' added in 1Password feature preferences
• All 1Password columns are now sortable in the preferences item preview table
• Recognise multiple URLs in a 1Password web login and show separate entries in Alfred's search results

File System

• Overhauled file interactions, moving back to using Finder / AppleScript for copy, move and delete
  • Now gives a more useful feedback notification when the action fails
  • Correctly deals with permissions and app translocation
  • Gives Finder progress for larger files
• Improved, simplified logic in file actions view
  • Now also recognises file packages
• Added default cmd+i shortcut on selected file results to show Finder's Get Info view
• Added 'Macintosh HD' to the default eject blacklist

Alfred Remote

• Add new System volume control to System Commands
• Reorganise the System Command popup menu into groups matching workflow System Command
• Update System Command remote page example to include new commands

General Improvements

• New icons for File Actions and iTunes Mini Player
• A number of optimisations and improvements to further reduce the distributable size
• Added popup menu when right clicking on Alfred hat in default results which matches status bar menu
  • Gives Alfred's version number, access to Alfred's preferences, check for updates, quit
• Improved word based searching in Alfred Preferences Web Search / Workflow search fields
• Added new option in Advanced preferences to restore clipboard content after using a hotkey which obtains the current selection in macOS
  • Note that this isn't the default behaviour as there is a memory implication for buffering clipboard content
• Update LinkedIn built in web search to latest search URL
• Update Rotten Tomatoes and Wolfram default searches to https
• Improve responsiveness by opening files and apps asynchronously in certain scenarios
• Improved calculator number formatting, now properly respecting macOS grouping separator if not forced

Alfred 3.2.1

Build 768, Thursday 8th December 2016

General Improvements

• Update markdown helper to correctly interpret list items (4 space instead of 2 space)
  • Note that if you are using Alfred 3.2 or earlier, the update change log will render incorrectly until you update to 3.2.1
• Improved loading of 1Password 6.5+ 3rd party integration data
• Update Google Drive default web search URL to latest, fixing space encoding issue
• Make the usage stats header text selectable in Alfred's preferences

Workflows

• Add new "Play Sound" output object
  • Play sounds from the System sound bank
  • Play custom aif / m4a files from within the workflow's folder
• Replace out {query} before snippet dynamic placeholders in "Copy to Clipboard" workflow object allowing for:
  • {cursor} positioning to work correctly when also using {query}
  • Passed in {query} to contain dynamic snippet placeholders such as {cursor}
• Add content type tree support to the File Action trigger making it easier to show actions for type groups
  • For example, add +public.image as a file type for an action to show for all files which conform to this type
• Add workflow info to the script task error dialog to help identify and debug issues
• Improved rendering in the Workflows list in Alfred's preferences
  • Added option to show 'Last Modified' date in Workflows list

Clipboard and Snippets

• Correctly calculate the visible length rather than underlying length of a snippet when positioning {cursor}
• More efficient rejection of keyword matching when checking for auto expanding snippets
• Work around macOS bug regarding mis-reported fn mod key being registered during text expansion
• More effective tidy up of expired clipboard history data

File System

• Add new "Copy File to Clipboard" file action which copies file rather than path
  • Useful for copying file for subsequent pasting into e.g. Mail.app
• Consolidated single and multiple file action code for better efficiency

Alfred 3.2

Build 759, Tuesday 8th November 2016

Workflows

• Improvements to workflow canvas creation usability
  • Drag from a connection to an empty space to create a new workflow object at that location
  • Click a workflow output to create and connect a new workflow object to the right
  • Automatically select any newly added workflow objects to allow for immediate moving or removing by keyboard
  • Hint on canvas for how to add the first workflow object with an empty workflow
• Script Filter enhancements
  • The script output can now tell Alfred to re-run the script after a set period of time
  • Scripts can now output variables
    • Variables are passed through to the object output connections when actioning results
    • Variables are passed back into subsequent runs of the script within the same session
  • New "Advanced Script Filters" getting started workflow which covers the new concepts
  • Tidy up default examples when changing script type with no script entered
  • 'quicklookurl' now also accepts file paths and internally converts to file URLs (treated as a file path if it has a / or ~/ prefix)
  • Fix cleaning stream variables before processing causing variables to be lost on looping workflows
  • Higher performance processing of JSON/XML to results
• Improvements and additions to other Workflow objects
  • 'Hotkey' trigger object can now pass currently focused application through to workflow as a variable allowing for app context filtering
  • 'Copy to Clipboard' output object now accepts {cursor} placeholder to move cursor to selected position (only works when auto-pasting)
• Fix issue where corrupted workflow prevented Alfred Preferences Workflows tab from displaying
• Improvements for symlinked workflows
  • Fully resolve path to info.plist before writing to ensure symlinked workflows are written to correct folder
  • Fully resolve workflow folder before exporting to allow for symlinked workflow folders to be exported
• Fix fn+return mod override connection behavior in default results on macOS Sierra
• Improvements to built-in Getting Started and Example workflows
  • Add new "Simple Folder Search" built-in workflow example
  • Renamed "Script Filter Output" to "Script Filter" for better consistency
  • Added new "Advanced Hotkeys" getting started guide to cover hotkey active app variables
  • Updated the "All Workflow Objects" getting started workflow to add new objects

Clipboard and Snippets

• Add {cursor} placeholder to move cursor to selected position within pasted snippets (including Alfred Remote)
• Show a warning in Alfred's Snippets preferences if an app is preventing text expansion by locking secure input
• If using option to slow down key events, slow them a little more than v3.1.1
• Prevent clipboard merging from incorrectly merging non-text clipboard entries by their description (e.g. images and file)
• More efficient processing of snippets in Alfred Text Service

File System

• Make Alfred's Application cache also convert names to latin for e.g. pinyin search
• Add "Previews" tab under File Search feature
  • Move Quick Look option from Advanced to Previews
  • New option to disable rich previews altogether
  • New options to not load actions/navigation rich previews for specified types and within specified folders
    • When the rich preview panel isn't required, the selected file type icon is shown instead
• Higher performance caching of scope folders when initialising metadata search
• Work around macOS file localiation bug (e.g. folders in the home folder weren't correctly localising in search)
• Correctly clean up file summary panel after hiding

1Password Integration

• 1Password integration updated to be compatible with 1Password 6.5+
• Alfred now shows results from multiple vaults, including 1Password Families / Teams
• All items are now shown from your 1Password
  • Logins are opened directly in your default browser
  • Other items (such as Secure Notes) are opened in 1Password mini

General Improvements

• Fix navigating out of empty folder behaviour in Copy To / Move To file actions
• Make all help subtext throughout Alfred's preferences darker for better readability
• Update references of OS X to macOS throughout Alfred and Alfred Preferences
• Prevent Alfred's Preferences Appearance tab from unnecessarily switching to discrete GPU on dual GPU laptops
• Fix issue where quickly dragging a file out of Alfred's main results could result in the incorrect file being dragged
• Update iTunes option to ignore movies and tv shows from miniplayer, also ignore music videos
• Streamlined various aspects of Alfred's core for higher performance
• Fix spelling mistake in Advanced > Proxy settings

Alfred 3.1.1

Build 736, Saturday 17th September 2016

General Improvements

• Fix macOS Sierra issue where Alfred appears to be stuck when opening a newly downloaded app for the first time. Alfred was simply hiding the macOS warning confirmation dialog.
• Add default file search option to ignore iMessage transcripts to work around macOS bug where they are incorrectly found when ~/Desktop is in the search scope
• Add null check on metadata file search attributes before attempting cleanup during a file search
• Fix Calculator bug when deleting advanced = keyword with standard calculator disabled, result remains in display
• Improved processing of array config override properties in workflows and action triggers
• Update simulated key events throughout Alfred for improved reliability
• Fix wording in iTunes mini player indexing view 'Artist:' to 'Artists:'

Clipboard and Snippet Improvements

• Added option to slow down simulated key events for snippet expansion which can help with older Macs, and with non-standard software
• Added option to adjust delay for clipboard content restoration after snippet expansion
• Updated image type recognition in clipboard when identifying data type, ensuring that images copied from clipboard aren't treated as text (urls)
• Improved clipboard history logic for when to ignore data from specified apps

Alfred 3.1

Build 718, Tuesday 30th August 2016

Workflows

• Add new "Call External Trigger" workflow output object
  • Calls trigger directly, avoiding the need to use AppleScript
  • Pass through argument and variables to trigger (in same or different workflow)
  • Ability to use variables directly within workflow and trigger fields for callback style functions
  • Update the "External Trigger" workflow object to better reflect the new "Call External Trigger" object
  • Add new "Call External Trigger" Getting Started workflow
• Add new "Hide Alfred" workflow utility
  • Gives more control when preventing Alfred from hiding in a connection
• Add new "Dispatch Key Combo" workflow output to simulate a keypress within macOS
  • Prevents the need to use AppleScript to simulate keypresses
  • Update key combo framework code to share between Remote and Workflow Object
• Update "Delay" workflow utility to accept fractional seconds e.g. 0.5
• Prevent workflow list popup menu from showing when there is a sheet showing in the preferences window
• Performance enhancements around workflow object configuration setting and getting
• When showing a direct / chained input in Alfred, and the textfield is empty, use cmd+backspace to reset Alfred to default state
• Fix "Debug" workflow utility to correctly process multi item input arguments

General Improvements

• Improved overall performance and responsiveness, especially when Mac is under load
• Added ability to drag files out of Alfred's file buffer
• Improved reliability of simulated mod key release when using Alfred Hotkeys
• Show the document preview instead of the file icon in the recent document file action
• Fix allowing cmd+s and Esc as key combos in Remote configuration
• Prevent rare scenario where auto-expanding snippet could cause Alfred to display
• Speed up Large Type fade in animation
• Improve performance of Actions panel
• Update iTunes AppleScript to disable shuffle before playing Alfred playlist (Latest iTunes 12 supports this again)
• Add updated email attachment support for Airmail 3
• Tuned metadata queries for macOS Sierra for higher performance
• Improved file preview display, showing compact style view of documents / movies etc
• Fix spelling mistake in Alfreds's preferences... From "Apples's" to "Apple's" ;)
• Fix alias files correctly opening when using file system navigation

Alfred 3.0.3

Build 694, Monday 18th July 2016

Workflows

• Fix issue which prevented argv arguments being correctly being passed to workflow scripts configured as External Scripts
• Correctly recognise number types in JSON config passed out of JSON Config and scripts doing dynamic configuration
• Update Workflow getting started guides, placing workflow name before "Getting Started" for clarity
• Fix issue preventing dictionary filter language from being correctly applied
  • If you are experiencing an issue, re-save the configuration for the dictionary filter in your workflow
• The workflow version is now set as script environment variable alfred_workflow_version

Clipboard and Snippets

• Reorganised options between snippets and clipboard preferences for better relevancy
  • 'Show "All Snippets" at top of Clipboard History' option is now in clipboard preferences
• Added new option "Show snippets when searching Clipboard History" on by default
  • Disable to prevent your snippets from showing in the default clipboard history search results
• Significant improvement to snippet database caching performance
  • Useful if you have very large snippet databases
• Use ditto for snippet collection export for wider snippet filename compatibility
• Make the snippet name field optional (but still recommended if sharing a collection)
• Fettle timing in Alfred Text Service for better support of non-standard apps
• Bring forward the logic to ignore clipboard content for specified apps
  • Also allows Adobe users to work around Illustrator memory bug on copy
• Fix correctly showing Alfred as the source app in Clipboard History when copying from Alfred's text input field
• Allow the clipboard history clear keyword to work with clipboard history persisting disabled

General Improvements

• Improve deployment and update mechanism in preparation for macOS 10.12
• Fix compatibility issue for macOS 10.9 in List Filter workflow object configuration
• Fix font menu showing with ctrl+click as well as right click in theme editor
• Fix spell / define keywords to automatically detect language when "Default" language is used
• Provisioning for Powerpack activation when sharing a bootable external drive between multiple Macs (requires defaults write)

Alfred 3.0.2

Build 676, Tuesday 14th June 2016

Corporate Licensing

• Alfred 3 corporate licensing now available
  • We will be rolling out updated corporate licenses to current corporate users in the coming days
  • If you are interested in corporate licensing for your business or team, please contact our info@ email address

General Improvements

• Recognise 'alfred3workflow' file extension in the same way as 'alfredworkflow' for installing workflows
  • Helps helper libraries such as Alfred-Workflow by Dean Jackson (deanishe) with features such as auto-update
• Fix intelligent selection list wrapping (in e.g. Clipboard History view), making it more predictable.
  • The wrapping from last item to first item and first item to last item will now only occur with a key press, not a repeated key hold.
• Only treat clipboard history image data as images if there isn't associated plain string data.
  • This allows copying from apps such as Numbers and Excel in the correct text version
• Prepend workflow folder to PYTHONPATH environment variable when running Python scripts
• In text service, reset buffered chars when characters typed with ctrl key down
  • Allows for e.g. ctrl+c terminal, then typing snippet.
  • Also helps expansion when using e.g. emacs bindings
• Always set the argument for a workflow dictionary filter, this allows 'not found' words to be processed in the same way as matching words

Alfred 3.0.1

Build 671, Tuesday 31st May 2016

Snippet Improvements

• Enhanced performance and reliability for automatic snippet expansion
• Allow spaces in snippet keywords
  • Render spaces as ␣ in the snippets table view to make it clear when there are spaces being used
• Limit characters in snippet collection names to allow for maximum sharing and syncing compatibility
• Sanitise snippet filenames on import to ensure reliable syncing
• Tidy up export of snippets
• Reorganise the text expansion code for higher performance and more resilience to external influences
• More reliable dead key state resetting in Alfred Text Service
• Fix date regex for arbitrary {date:} replacement tag. Was incorrectly matching multiple date formats in single paragraph.
• Strip out characters from snippet filename when saving which may cause syncing issues (i.e. emoji with Dropbox)

Clipboard Improvements

• Add actual word count and character count to clipboard history text items summary view
• Improve performance of clipboard history viewer and auto pasting by only reloading text for pasting if necessary
• Make clip truncation in the clipboard history viewer more intelligent
• Fix the "Clear History" button in Alfred's Clipboard preferences

Workflow improvements

• Ensure that number values are correctly passed into environment variables when running scripts
• In Arg and Var workflow object, ensure that Arg {query} is replaced with empty string if passed in argument is empty
• When running scripts, fall back to decoding as ASCII string if UTF-8 fails. Fixes rare scenarios when scripts unexpectedly return empty contents.
• More resilience against unexpected CSV data when dragging CSV into the list filter
• Improve the dynamic file search workflow example
• Correctly process the JSON Utility output, deeply replacing {query} and (query)
• Switch default parsing method for Script Filters to be JSON
  • This essentially means that if there is an error and the return format cannot be identified, a JSON related error will be shown.
  • Significantly enhance the debug output of failing JSON output from a Script Filter, showing generated output and possible error cause

General improvements and fixes

• Option to touch alias files after opening them in Alfred to enhanced ranking, on by default
  • This is useful if you want to make aliases for applications, and add aliases to Alfred's default file types.
• Fix issue with AppleScript files running twice when finding them for running in file search mode
• Fix default results auto-complete for no-argument items
• Improved wording on activation error sheet
• Add Ukraine to locations
• Fix help button in migration assistant
• Improved alias resolution code
• Don't start Alfred 3 if Alfred 1 is running to prevent clashes
• Improve reliability of initial migration, specifically if users had Alfred 2 synced in the past
• Add checks around file url when checking and removing Alfred from login items to handle unexpected data
• Fix iTunes indexing progress display when track name is nil
• Fix theme rendering colours in positioning view of appearance options
• Tidy up naming on imported themes
• Update change log markdown generation to use system font, and refine sizes

Alfred 3.0

Build 652, Thursday 19th May 2016

We've updated almost every aspect of Alfred for this huge release as you can see from this extensive change log.

While we've added many new features, there have also been numerous improvements under the hood, with extensive code analysis. As such, the downloadable file has been reduced in size by nearly 40% (less than 3MB at the point of release) and you will find Alfred to be faster than ever, with a tiny memory footprint.

General Improvements

• Migration assistant to help transfer all settings from Alfred 2 to Alfred 3
• Move Alfred to macOS 10.9+ allowing Alfred to use newer macOS technologies
• Added version number into macOS status bar hat menu
• ⌘W to close the Alfred window at any point
• The LC_CTYPE environment variable is now set to en_US.UTF-8 by default
  • Can be overridden per workflow in the new Workflow Variables
• Migrate Alfred's threading to GCD / Thread Pooling for higher performance
• Update selection list actioning framework to support actions when no items are visible (i.e. file navigation or iTunes transport)
• Removed native support for Growl (workflows can still use growlnotify if required)
• Updated help tab with link to Getting Started guide
• Updated Alfred's auto updater
• Improved, higher performance image caching
• Overhauled keyboard handling, now aware of DVORAK-QWERTY
  • Higher performance key caching when switching keyboards
• Improved knowledge / learning with faster latching to keyword based items such as workflows

Workflows

Workflows have received a significant upgrade in Alfred 3, with new "Getting Started" guides available from the + button, exploring many of the new abilities.

Overhaul to the workflow architecture

• Now allows arbitrary object layout and connection
• Chaining of objects of all types, including input objects
• Dynamic and scriptable workflow object configuration using JSON
• Ability to veto Alfred's window from closing in the connection configuration
  • Useful for input chaining to prevent window from closing / flickering
• Improved script task handling, particularly in regards to stderr handling
• Placeholder titles are no longer required fields for filter inputs for better chaining / direct use flexibility
• Version number added to workflow (variables) config, shown in description field when editing a workflow

Brand new Workflow editor

• Better visual clarity of connections
  • Assign colours to objects
  • New object notes to clearly annotate your workflows
• Multi selection / reorganisation of objects
• Intelligent cut, copy and paste of multiple objects
  • Strip pasted hotkey config only when necessary
• Copy and paste configuration between matching objects
  • Removes the need to delete and re-add object when reusing
• Add objects using right-click on the canvas at the location for editing
  • Insert objects before or after an object, with automatic reconfiguration of connections
  • Replace a selected object with a different object without losing its connections
• Standardise the ⌘S shortcut for saving workflow configuration sheets
• Use arrow keys to move selected objects around the canvas (+shift for moving further)
• New "Open Workflow folder in Finder" button in every workflow configuration sheet, next to Save / Cancel buttons
• New "Open in Terminal" option on workflows popup menu
• Canvas zooming, contextually zooming on selected items. Also, supports Apple trackpad pinch to zoom gesture.
• You can now search by creator in the workflow list (at least the first name needs to be typed to match)
• Remember canvas location and zoom within a session (for e.g. switching between workflows / easier copy and paste)

Improved Debugging

• Make filtering debug output by selected object a selectable option
• Debug logging is now clearer with colours
• Timestamp added into debugger
• New alfred_debug=1 environment variable on scripts when the Alfred debugger is visible in preferences
• Close button added to debug view

Improved workflow import

• Now shows the workflow readme before importing
• When updating, option to not migrate settings, which helps 'reset' a workflow when importing.
• Intelligent workflow import when updating a workflow, migrating keywords, variables and hotkeys
  • Variables are merged with variables a user may have changed or added
  • Keywords are not migrated if the new version starts with a { as this assumes it contains a variable

New Workflow objects

• Utilities
  • Argument and Variables
    • Modify or switch the current input argument being passed through the workflow
    • Insert or update new variables into the workflow stream
  • JSON Config
    • Modify the flow of data through Alfred allowing for:
      • Updated argument / variable replacement
      • Dynamic configuration of connected objects
      • Workflow variable insertion / configuration
    • Button to tidy the written JSON
  • Junction
    • Merge connections, multiple in and out
    • Also nice for keeping a workflow's connections tidy
  • Filter
    • Only continue if input matches / does not match string or regex
  • Delay
    • Schedule a workflow stream to continue execution after specified number of seconds
    • Yields execution back to workflow
    • Dynamic icon in workflow editor to hint specified seconds
  • Transform
    • Trim, upper, lower, camel, reverse, strip diacritics, strip non-alpha
  • Replace
    • Replace string / regex within input query with specified string
    • Mode for "empty input" allowing for defaulting of arguments
  • Debug
    • Write text out to the Alfred workflow debugger
    • Sensible default which shows input and all variables
    • Debug info shown with default 'interesting information' selected in debugger
    • Option to clear the debug log, useful for debug objects at beginning of workflow stream
• Outputs
  • Write Text File
    • Write the input to the specified text file
    • Option to skip, overwrite or append if file already exists
    • Option to create intermediate folders before writing file
    • File can be written to absolute path, or relatively to workflow data folder or workflow folder itself

Updated Workflow objects

• Triggers
  • Hotkey
    • Now shows the hotkey mode to the right hand side: simulate mod release, wait for mod release, pass through mods
• Inputs
  • Script Filter
    • Updated script output format for adding results into Alfred
      • New JSON feedback format, easier to read and configure
      • Updated XML feedback format for new mod features
      • Legacy support for Alfred 2 XML format
    • New ability to directly run external scripts of any type without the need to bootstrap
    • Simplified query argument processing, allowing use of argv in place of {query} replacement
      • When using argv, file lists (e.g. from an Action trigger) are passed as separate arguments
    • New option for Alfred to filter the returned results
      • Script is run once, Alfred subsequently filters as user types - extreme performance
    • More result flexibility including separate control of validity, subtext and argument for modifiers
      • Mod results no longer need a configured mod output connection, they pass out default connection instead
    • New 'quicklookurl' XML tag / JSON property to override and provide a custom Quick Look for a result
  • List Filter
    • Simple configuration of items into Alfred's results
      • Configure the title, subtitle, argument and icon for each result
      • Intelligent inheritance of icon (workflow -> object -> item)
      • Batch import CSV of items into list configuration for easy mass editing
  • Dictionary Filter
    • Access macOS's word lookup with a workflow object
    • Configurable language settings
• Actions
  • Open File
    • Offers new text field to manually enter static file to open
      • Easier to see full file path of dropped file
      • Allows for filename variable replacement
      • Allows for opening of a file which may not yet exist
    • If not absolute path, treats file as relative to workflow
    • If static file defined, this is now correctly passed out to the connected objects
    • Now aware of relative paths, searches first in workflow's own folder, then the workflow's data folder
  • Open URL
    • Now defaults the search URL to {query} to work for passed in URLs
    • Significantly improved URL encoding (see "Web Searches" section of change log)
  • Reveal File in Finder
    • Now aware of relative paths, searches first in workflow's own folder, then the workflow's data folder
  • Browse in Alfred
    • Now aware of relative paths, searches first in workflow's own folder, then the workflow's data folder
    • The browsed path is now correctly passed out to the connected objects
  • Run Script
    • New ability to directly run external scripts of any type without the need to bootstrap
    • Simplified query argument processing, allowing use of argv in place of {query} replacement
      • When using argv, file lists (e.g. from an Action trigger) are passed as separate arguments
• Outputs
  • Copy to Clipboard
    • Option to mark the copied data as transient, preventing it from appearing in clipboard history apps (including Alfred)
  • Large Type
    • Now configurable large type text with query and variable substitution, consistent with other output objects

Workflow environment variables

• Default environment variables set per workflow configuration sheet
• {var:varname} placeholders can be used in workflow object configuration text fields
• Can be set dynamically throughout a workflow
  • Using Argument and Variable utility
  • Using JSON (JSON utility, or JSON output from a script)
• Workflow variables are set as environment variables when running script objects
• Variable values are migrated when upgrading a workflow
• Readme moved to variables configuration for better contextual explanation of workflow setup
• The theme selected result background colour is now set as a script environment variable

Clipboard History and Snippets

• Multimedia Clipboard
  • Images
  • File Lists
  • Hex Colours
• Vastly improved Snippets with Auto Expansion
  • Automatic snippet expansion into any macOS text field via the snippet's keyword
    • maintains previous clipboard contents when using auto expansion
  • cmd+s on a clipboard item in Alfred's clipboard history to quickly save snippet from a clipboard entry
  • Snippet collections
  • Export and Import collections
  • Move snippets between collections
  • New JSON file format
  • Hotkey directly to snippets, toggle between clipboard and snippets viewers with respective hotkeys
  • Snippets are no longer copied into clipboard history on use
  • When adding a snippet into Alfred Remote, popup menu shows snippet collection hierarchy
• New option to "Load More" at bottom of clipboard history list to load next batch of history
  • Helps find clipboard history data if you can't remember a part of it for searching
• Improved clipboard history performance, uses practically zero CPU
  • Items pasted out of Alfred are marked as Alfred clipboard data; clipboard isn't re-processed by Alfred
• Added new option to move items to top of list when used from clipboard history (on by default as per v2 behaviour)
• Improved clipboard fast append matching algorithm
• Arbitrary date formatting with the {date:FORMAT} placeholder (using Unicode Technical Standard #35)
• When clearing the clipboard database, the database is now deleted then recreated

Theming and Appearance

• New Alfred 3 default themes
• Brand new theme editor
  • Intuitive point and drag to change sizes, click for colour, right click for fonts
  • Font mode to drag up/down through default fonts
  • Change between theme mode and font mode with T and F
• Share themes on alfredapp.com directly from the theme editor
• Easy to read JSON file format
• When creating a new theme with the + button, base it on the default theme. Use duplicate theme menu to duplicate selected
• Use System font by default throughout Alfred (in views where theme fonts aren't applicable, e.g. Clipboard History preview)
• Arbitrary font selection from all installed fonts
• Undo / Redo support in the theme editor
• Intelligent shadow invalidation for more reliable theme transparency
• Improved logic on vertical alignment of fonts in the search field paving the way for non-standard 3rd party fonts
• Imports v2 Theme URLs and migrates theme to v3 (e.g. from Packal)

File Search and Navigation

• Improved file actions (copy/move/delete) with success / fail notifications
• Abbreviate file path subtext (e.g. ~/ instead of /Users/andrew/)
• Abbreviate the iCloud Drive subtext file paths (e.g. iCloud Drive/Pages/document1.doc)
• Bug Fix: When browsing an empty folder and backspacing on the folder (e.g. ~/Applications/) that it jumps up a folder.
• Improved layout for secondary views (FS Navigation / actions panel etc) with larger preview
• Now uses Quick Look panel to show preview of document
• Show full filename at bottom of FS Navigation view
• In areas where you configure user defined file types (default results, file filter workflow object), prefix type with + to search type tree
• Fix when typing a path into Alfred e.g. /Applications, then selecting all and typing a string (e.g. 'andrew')
  • Now correctly returns to the default results instead of staying in the FS navigation mode with no results
• e.g. "public.folder" searches kMDItemContentType, "+public.directory" searches kMDItemContentTypeTree

System Commands

• New Sleep Displays command with keyword "sleepdisplays", to sleep displays
  • Also added for Alfred Remote
• Moved to using pmset for sleep command and new display sleep command
• Make the default eject scope "Local Mounted Volumes"
• Better organised "System Commands" Alfred Remote example page with new "Sleep Displays" command

Contacts Integration

• More intelligent height truncation for long contact cards
• Updated Microsoft Outlook email attachment support

Web Searches

• Make Amazon searcher https by default
• Updated Bing to use https and .com by default due to certificate inconsistency
• Updated Wunderground to be use https by default
• Added new default web search for Pinterest
• Unified custom web search sheet save button to use cmd+s
• Significantly improved URL encoding
  • Add intelligent {query} encoding based on wether it's a URL parameter, or part of the URL string.
  • Allow for flexible space encoding in {query}, e.g. - _ + /
  • Applies to Custom Searches, Open URL workflow object and Remote Open URL

Accessibility

• Improved Accessibility
• Alfred can now read the selected result using Voice Over

The Alfred 2 Change Log is still available for your browsing pleasure!

Latest Blog Post:

Quick Tip: View Your Recent Alfred Query History