I’m in the diehard LaunchBar camp, and Instant Send is one of my favorite super powers.
[EDIT] LaunchBar makes doing so many things easy and w/o having to take your fingers off the keyboard. For example, I have created search queries to search all my most used websites directly from LaunchBar. It sounds not that important. After all, how hard is it to press command-L and type a search in Safari? But if you have multiple monitors and your browser is lost or buried on one, you invoke LaunchBar, type the shortcut, press enter, enter your query, and press return. Voila! Your browser gets the focus, and your search is executed. I use it dozens of times throughout the day.
I connect to some network volumes at home. It used to be a pain to connect and disconnect. I’d go to Finder, Press command-K, connect to the server, select the shares, and then have to close a half dozen finder tabs that opened once the volumes mounted. I made life easier by creating two simple AppleScripts (saved as applications) to mount and unmount the shares that I normally access, and just launch the scripts from LaunchBar.
Want an easy way to switch from Dark Mode to Light Mode? There’s a LaunchBar action for that.
I like instant send and the way launch bar drills through folders. But, I use Alfred because I can pause during typing - sometimes as I get older I have to pause longer. When I use Launchbar I feel a little rushed because I need to get all the letters in before my time runs out.
Not being a LaunchBar user, I’m not sure I follow what the instant send is doing. To do a search in your default browser using Alfred, simply enter the query and press ctrl+return and it will run the query in your browser using the default search engine. There are also settings to use different search engines if you desire.
Instant send is separate from what I’m talking about. I was describing a search template. “With the Instant Send feature, LaunchBar’s fifth superpower, you select an item before you invoke LaunchBar, thus sending that item to LaunchBar when you invoke the bar. And, LaunchBar is then primed to let you do something with the item by sending it along to some target, such as an app, action, service, location, or search template.” Excerpt From: Kirk McElhearn. “Take Control of LaunchBar (1.1).”
I much prefer LaunchBar over Alfred. It looks and feels like more native to macOS to me than Alfred.
I also use it for for file navigation and find it better than Alfred. The ability to select a file or a few files, invoke instant send, and then copy or move them to other folders depending on which modifier key you’re holding down (Option to Copy, Command to Move etc.) is something I can’t do without, and ties in with macOS.
I agree that Alfred seems to be more actively developed though, and the forum, shared workflows etc. does make LaunchBar start to feel that it’s only being maintained versus developed.
Because of this I’ve started to try Alfred again, but it soon became clear why I like LaunchBar so much. I don’t like the look and icon style versus LaunchBar. Alfred’s look pretty ugly versus LaunchBar’s more macOS look and feel. I like how easy it is to create custom Spotlight searches/filters for specific file, file types etc. In Alfred, but I’ve still managed to the same thing in LaunchBar (admittedly with more work).
I’m hoping that the devs are working on updating LaunchBar instead of just bug fixes, but I’m not optomistic.
I’ve only used Alfred and I’m not a power user and so, I like the simplicity of Alfred to launch app and search for files. I also use Alfred for simple arithmetic calculations and, unit conversion (with a workflow). I also use it to quickly create emoji to be included in emails and chats (again a workflow). I think I invoke Alfred tons of time a week doing the above. It serves me well and I didn’t find I needed any alternatives.
Yes. I’m a longtime old LaunchBar user, first purchased in 2003, and I still have v.6.x on my system, but I don’t use it as I find Alfred to be faster and not as obtuse/complicated as LaunchBar. (LaunchBar can be more powerful in some cases but I don’t need those features.) And you can make it look practically any way you want.
Sorry, I can’t comment on LaunchBar but I’ve been curious about it for years. The main reason I haven’t installed it though is that Alfred has turned out to be VERY customizable and easy to use together with other apps e.g. Keyboard Maestro.
With about 500 workflows (e.g. turning on/off lamps, automatic GTD routines, easy access to ‘hot apps’ and ‘hot paths’, scripted integration between Drafts and Notes, remapping of some keys for precise but easy actions, auto logins, references, various ‘tool kits’ for different applications, toggling WiFi, Bluetooth, connecting AirPods)—and a number of custom searches (spanning encyclopedias, services, a number of e-mail templates using the mailto: protocol), easy navigation of hard drive (including the part organized according to Dewey Decimal Classification), mathematical/statistical computations (using Python libraries), integration with devices s.a. Logitech’s Spotlight, and easy to create more actions on the fly (or in the deep) and more… I haven’t found many things I wasn’t able to create an easy solution for in Alfred.
The only time I resort to Keyboard Maestro is for workflows that depend heavily on keystrokes, waiting times, and detecting certain states of apps or environment.
I must admit though that another contributing factor for all this use of Alfred was that it appeared at the right time when I had been using QuickSilver and other tools for some time but was looking for upgrades. After some testing I judged Alfred’s potential so high that I payed a one-time fee for the Powerpack version. (Later I even made some more donation because it was so useful and essentially replaces a secretary about 20–40 percent of full time.)
Disclaimer: I am not connected to the company in any way.
A few recent comments here in the forum have prompted me to up my Alfred game a little bit. I did some searching and found a few useful workflows that I’ve installed. I’m also going to be setting up some custom web searches and exploring other opportunities to make it even better. It really is a great app. I also purchased the lifetime power pack (or whatever it’s called) a while back, and it’s some of the best money I’ve ever spent.
In case you haven’t come across this yet, a quick way to add a Custom Web Search is to invoke Alfred and type “?add”. This will take you right into the web search creation form.
You can also access other Alfred Preferences using the “?” prefix. For example, “?work” to jump into Workflows and “?def” to quickly access Default Results.
One of many nice touches I’m discovering as I dive more deeply into Alfred.
