Alfred custom searches are amazing (in case you didn't know already)
Disclaimer: This was supposed to be a post about how to redeem Mac App Store codes with Alfred, but I was a tad too enthusiastic and it turned out bigger. Enjoy the additional content!
Alfred is pretty useful, you know that already, but what you probably didn’t know that its Custom Searches are even more useful than you would have known. This function essentially lets you call every URL scheme that you want. Alfred allows you to pass arguments to the URL which is great for many things.
Here are some examples:
- Redeem iTunes Store Promo Code: Use
https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/freeProductCodeWizard?code={query}as search. Now just call the search and paste your promo code, iTunes will open and your app/song/voucher is redeemed. - Redeem Mac App Store Promo Code: Directly redeem a Mac App Store code from Alfred. Use same technique as above.
- Daily Diary: You’re probably sick of me telling you about Daily Diary. If you don’t like scripts, just use Alfred.
dayone://post?entry={query} - QuickCal, Sticky Notifications, add OmniFocus tasks, search Dropbox.
I could continue this list endlessly. Check out alfredtips.com for more info on custom searches.
A screenshot of my custom searches:
To create your own:
- When you’re on a page that has a search. Search for something general like
"asdf"and hit search. - Copy the URL and paste it into a new Custom Search in Alfred.
- Now look for your “general” search term and replace
asdfwith{query}. - You can now try your new search. If it doesn’t work you might need to replace whitespace with + (available as option on double-click).