1.4 Installing and Setting Up
1.4 Installing and Setting Up
Alright, let's get started with Alfred. Go to alfredapp.com. This is where you download the application.
I can tell you, I uninstalled the application yesterday as I was preparing to start recording, and today it's driving me nuts not having Alfred installed. So let's do this together. Click on the "Download Alfred" button.
We're going to come back to the website in the next video when I talk about the PowerPack, but you can already get a nice overview of the features available in Alfred. We'll cover all of this in the course—by the end, you're going to be a pro.
Now, let's go ahead and download the app. You'll see the Alfred download on your desktop. Double-click that to get started. Then drag it into the Applications folder. And now, we're installed.
Double-click Alfred to start it. Since it's downloaded from the internet, macOS will ask for permission to open it. Approve that, and now Alfred is running. You’ll see the little hat icon in the menu bar—this means it's active.
Allow notifications, then click on the menu bar icon and open Preferences. There are a couple of things you want to set up initially:
- Launch at Login: You’re going to become reliant on this application. If it’s not there, it’ll drive you nuts.
- Alfred Hotkey: The default is Control-Space. Spotlight uses Command-Space, but I switch those. I keep Alfred on Command-Space and Spotlight on Control-Space.
To do that:
- Press Command-Space to open Spotlight.
- Type “Keyboard” and go to Keyboard Preferences.
- Under Keyboard Shortcuts > Spotlight, change Command-Space to Control-Space.
- Then go back to Alfred’s preferences, click the hotkey field, and type Command-Space.
This frees up Command-Space for Alfred, which I use far more often than Spotlight.
Next, set your location. This helps with localized searches—like Amazon showing your country store. I'm in the United States, so I set that accordingly.
Finally, request all the necessary permissions. Alfred does a lot that requires user consent per Apple's rules. Get that done so everything works properly.