Imagine this.
You’ve unlocked the secret to hypermac speed. You now have ‘Mac superpowers’!
With these new Mac superpowers, you can do three things at lightening speed:
- A google search without even having to open a browser. No more reaching for the mouse, or trying to navigate to the dock to open safari, chrome or firefox so you can scramble for google.com. A few quick keystrokes and you have your google search results staring you in the face. A process that normally takes you about 5-10 seconds done in less than 2!
- Launch any Mac App from anywhere on your Mac without reaching for your mouse or trackpad. Your Mac superpowers have made your dock a thing of the past.
- Retrieve a file from anywhere on your Mac with just a couple of keystrokes. No more hunting through finder while praying that you can remember which folder you’d put that file in. A few short keystrokes to summon Alfred and voilà … Alfred does all the heavy lifting for you! Seconds later you’re working with the file that previously might have taken you minutes, if not hours to find!
And you know what else? This last process doesn’t just work on finding files … it works on finding folders too!
Have I got your attention?
The ‘secret’ I’m talking about is the Alfred Mac app. You can download it here or at the Mac App store.
Quick overview on the Alfred app and how it makes you super human.
Put simply, Alfred is like spotlight on steroids! It ‘watches’ your behavior on your Mac and creates algorithms based on your past behavior. It looks at which apps you tend to use most and which ones you used most recently etc and uses that information to predict your future behavior. That’s how it serves up exactly what you need.
So anyway, here are 3 ways (of many) in which Alfred can give you Mac Superpowers and have you operating at hypermac speed!
1.How to do a Google search without having to use a browser (1 minute and 25 seconds into the video above)
Let’s say I want to do a search for the word “time-saving tips”.
- Type in the keyboard shortcut command to activate Alfred (Command + Spacebar)
- Start typing in the words “time saving tips”.
- Alfred brings up a whole lot of results that it has already indexed on my computer and from google which have the word “time saving tips” in the title
To completely bypass the Alfred searching within the computer (i.e. to go straight to google type the words “Google time saving tips” and you have google search results opened up in your browser of choice.
2. How to launch an App (e.g. RescueTime) with short keyboard shortcuts using Alfred. (2 mins and 40 seconds into the video above)
- Type in the keyboard shortcut command to activate Alfred (Command + Spacebar)
- Start typing in the name of the app – in this case “Rescue Time” and Alfred brings up the most recent and relevant app which fits that description.
3. How to retrieve a file from anywhere on your Mac with Alfred (45 seconds into the video above)
- Type in the keyboard shortcut command to activate Alfred (Command + Spacebar)
- Hit Spacebar again
- And then type in the name of the file you looking for (in this case productive insights.XLS)
- Double click on the correct option from the drop down list
So there you have it. Three ways in which you can use the Alfredapp to dramatically increase your productivity and become “super mac”!
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