Web Search

Basic searches

Alfred is great for launching applications on your desktop. But it’s also great for helping you use the Internet much more quickly than if you were to manually click on a browser icon in your dock and only then start typing in your search.

To take advantage of this feature, simply start your search with a specific keyword. If you want to search, Google, start with "google" followed by your desired search.

Similarly, you can search specific websites with the use of specific keywords, just as in the examples below:

To find a complete list of the keywords that are currently available, just go to Preferences > Features, and tap Web Searches on the left side to have a look.

Setting keywords

The keywords for your searches are fully customisable. If a different one makes more sense to you, or you’re a speed wizard eager to shorten searching time even more, simply double click on the keyword you wish to change and then type in your new preferred change:

Which will then result in this:

Fallback searches

Sometimes, even Alfred gets confused about what you’re asking him to do. In that case, he will try to guess, usually falling back on a number of general searches you might have in mind. Most often he’ll resort to Google or Wikipedia. Admit it, you wanted the help anyway…

Forcing specific searches

Ultimately, however, you are still the master and Alfred is here to serve you. That’s why we’ve added the option to force a search option, no matter what Alfred thinks you’re looking for. To set these up, go to Preferences > General > Results and choose what happens when you hit a certain key combination instead of simple return. In the example below, pressing alt + return will always result in a Google search:

Underneath, I want to search for the word “Dropbox” on the Internet/locally/etc. and not actually open the application. I’d therefore simply type in the word and hit alt + return, which would then perform a general web search for me.

Can't find what you were looking for? Use custom searches to create your own site searches!