Power up your Mac with Alfred

Use its Powerpack to browse and manage your files and their contents

- HOWARD OAKLEY.

LIKE THE PERFECT butler, Alfred is far more than Spotlight search done right. Add its Powerpack, and you can use its temporary file buffer to gather multiple files and perform actions on them, browse PDFs using a ready-made workflow, and build yourself a collection of snippets to paste.

Once you’ve installed Alfred and licensed its Powerpack, visit Privacy & Security in System Settings and add Alfred to its Full Disk Access and Accessibility lists. As you proceed, you’ll be invited to give Alfred any additional access that it requires. You should also visit Login Items & Extensions settings and check that Alfred is set to “Open at Login” so it will be loaded into the menu bar at startup.

Each of these examples begins in Alfred’s Preferences, opened using the Preferences command from Alfred’s menu. Start by familiarizing yourself with those settings, including the Alfred Hotkey you’ll use to open its regular window.

HOW TO Find and collate files

1 Enable file buffer
Open Alfred’s Preferences, select Features in its sidebar, then File Search and its Buffer view. Enable the temporary file buffer, leaving it to be cleared after actioning. Use an additional modifier key if you need to avoid any clash.

2 Find and add files