Launchbar vs. alfred update#

Display information on someone in your Contacts.Present a clipboard history for you to select and paste from.Open a file in whatever app is associated with that file type.Launch an app (hence the generic term “launcher” for this type of app).Depending on what you type into that field, the launcher may Like Spotlight, they use a keyboard shortcut to bring up a floating text entry field. LaunchBar and Alfred are both launchers, apps that I always consider to be successors to the legendary Quicksilver 1 but which most people probably think of as similar to Spotlight. So I installed it and the Powerpack on both computers, training it in my habits and myself in its habits. It and LaunchBar do roughly the same thing and seem to be equally well thought of among Mac power users. Since I was considering wiping LaunchBar from the 2017 iMac and starting over from scratch, I thought it might be a good time to give Alfred a try.

Launchbar vs. alfred update#

Some corruption in whatever internal database LaunchBar uses to make and update its predictions? I was pretty sure the indexing rules on the new iMac were the same as on the old one, so the difference in behavior didn’t make sense to me. I assumed this was because LaunchBar needed some time on the new computer to learn my habits, but even after the better part of a year, it still seemed to be making mistakes, especially when predicting which folder I wanted to open.

The obvious question is why did I switch in the first place? After getting a new iMac in late 2017, I noticed that LaunchBar wasn’t as smart on that machine as it was on my 2012 iMac (which I had moved from my office to home and am still using). Five months is, I would say, a fair trial, and while there were a few things about Alfred I preferred, last week I returned to LaunchBar and am happy to be back. Next post Previous post Back to LaunchBarīack in October, after over ten years of using LaunchBar, I decided to give Alfred a try.