So if I understand this correctly, you have to select the text as you do with Popclip and then invoke Alfred through a hotkey then act on the text?
Yes. I mapped it to double CTRL key.
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One thing I didn’t like about PopClip is it mattered how text came to be selected. Does it matter with Alfred Universal Actions? If not then this is a definite improvement.
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I don’t use PopClip, so I’m not entirely sure what you mean. In Alfred’s case, as long as something is highlighted (eg a files in Finder or a paragraph of text) and you press the hot key, Alfred pops up.
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If by how text came to be selected you mean if it will work with selection by mouse (clicking or dragging) or by keyboard (shift + arrows), I’m glad to report Universal Actions does not care and will work with either.
It will also work on selected files and other stuff I don’t recall PopClip acting on.
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I wish I could send my highlighted text to WhatsApp Desktop. I don’t see any actions created. Does anyone have such an action?
At this moment I use Alfred to send to Drafts, and then use Drafts to WhatAspp.
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I have been a long time popclip user and a fan. I have also been a long time Alfred user. This thread prompted me to see if I could replace popclip with Alfred UA so I set about defining UA work flows to replace my common popclip plugins (which are mostly trivial).
So far so good. I like popclip because it engages on its own with the little floating window, but it only engages for explicit selections and not all the time, sometimes it disappears before I can use it. Alfred UA requires me to engage it with a key combination but covers a lot more situations more reliably.
Now if I can reteach my muscle memory I think I can replace popclip.
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Try Whatsshare from the Mac Appstore: WhatsShare for WhatsApp on the Mac App Store
Only problem I have with this is that Mac share extensions are not supported by Chrome for text selected in the browser. This works with Safari and other Mac apps though.
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I’m in the same boat and have not made much use of Alfred yet. I plan on testing this too so keep us updated on how it works. I’m guessing that not all Popclip plugins will have analogs in Alfred but also that Alfred may support some that Popclip does not.
Example: I can use Popclip to share to Slack but only to one preset channel. It would be great if Alfred could do this while prompting me for specific Slack channels.
edit: This looks promising! https://github.com/yannickglt/alfred-slack
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Slight aside in case this is of use to anyone who sticks with PopClip. I use this very simple AppleScript to fire PopClip when it’s being shy. I have it run as a Keyboard Maestro Macro triggered by a hot key.
tell application "PopClip" to appear
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Having played with Universal Actions yesterday (including setting up one to make a new OmniFocus task from selected text) I can confirm either mouse or keyboard selection work fine.
I’m not sure how far I’ll go with this but it certainly makes Universal Actions more attractive to use than PopClip - though PopClip’s contextual menu is prettier…
… I’d love a contextual menu with a “More” item at the end.
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Anybody know why I don’t see “Rename” in my list of universal actions when I’ve selected a file?
AFAIK there’s no such option.
While I think one may create such command via a Workflow, assuming you’re selecting this file in Finder, wouldn’t it be far more simple to just press Return and rename the file right there?
Should you not be using Finder to select the file, there’s always the option to Reveal in Finder via Universal Actions.
But I found the file in Alfred, and whether I try to rename it within Alfred or reveal it in Finder, I find that I have to rename it the old fashioned way with a click or a right-click. Seems like an odd oversight which makes me wonder why.
Okay, wait just a darned minute. I don’t think I’ve ever renamed a file by simply hitting the ENTER key. Doh!
Just when I think I know a couple of things, the depth of my ignorance is paraded for everyone to see. 
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See this discussion:
Same for me!
That said, since you’re finding the file via Alfred Search, a quick way to “Reveal in Finder” is to hold command while pressing return/enter to act on this file. It’s way faster than navigating to the Reveal in finder action on the menu behind the right arrow.
CMD+ENTER to Reveal in Finder is a good tip. Thanks. I see that it’s on the Alfred Cheatsheet which I am trying to memorize. But I may have hit my limit for the number of handy hotkeys that I can keep at the top of my memory. 
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I had a few minutes to play with Universal Actions today and I like it. I don’t see it as a PopClip replacement though—there are a couple of PopClip extensions I use that do not have equivalents in Alfred.
However, while fiddling with Universal Actions and PopClip, I had one of those “You know, I bet I could…” moments.
I’ve been annoyed for some time that PopClip activates only by mouse-selecting text. Sometimes I want to activate PopClip after selecting text with my keyboard. Other times, the PopClip pop-up overlays something I want to see more, like the quote overlay that pops up on discourse forums.
A little Googling turned up an Alfred workflow to activate PopClip with a keyboard shortcut, and I then disabled PopClip’s mouse activation and now the pebble has been removed from my shoe.
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I raised the question of a “quick menu” that would enable Alfred to replace PopClip entirely. It’s not going to happen.
So I’ll find the two workflows:
- PopClip invoking Alfred Universal Actions.
- Alfred invoking PopClip.
Then I’ll have the best of both worlds.
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