PowerToys – open-source Windows utilities

If you are only looking to launch apps, do a few math calculations, and maybe search for files then Spotlight probably has you covered. In fact when spotlight stepped up its game I was a little worried Alfred has been Sherlocked [0] or that the developer might stop supporting it but thankfully that's not the case.

You can do a number of cool things with Alfred like creating "workflows" to create your own little mini-programs to do various actions. I know that sounds vague but that's because it's so open-ended. For example, I have a workflow for launching different versions+mods for a game I like (Factorio). I play with different sets of mods depending on how I'm feeling and so I have a workflow that I type "Factorio", then select my "Launch Factorio" workflow from the list Alfred provides, then Alfred gives me a list of my mod packs, I select one, and it launches Factorio after symlinking the mods/saves into the right place.

That example is super-custom to me but I have other that are more general-use. Like I have one for Zoom that will show me a list of zoom rooms I regularly connect to (Daily Standup, my boss, my coworker, my Bad Movie Night group, etc). At it's core it's a very simple map of "Label" -> "Zoom Link" but it's a really nice QoL improvement over launching the app, selecting the room from my recent rooms, and then clicking "Join".

Pretty much anything I find myself doing over and over, I'll create a little workflow to handle it. Even something as simple as running a single command, I've got one that runs DisplayPlacer (and must-have if you have a multi-monitor setup that you connect/disconnect from). Now I could probably wire up DisplayPlace to run automatically when my mac sees a new monitor but I'm fine running it manually. I have another to unmount all external drives, I have one that pings a coworker to ask if they are free to chat, I have one that formats the unix timestamp I drop in, I have one that can convert/format the Timezone on a date or timestamp, the list goest on.

Most all of my workflows are really just shelling out to call a script and display the result back to me and I could pop my terminal open, navigate to the right directory, and run the script but it's so much nicer to do it all in Alfred's popup UI.

Then you have the other features Alfred provides (some of which can be done with other apps of course). The main ones I use are snippets (text expansion) and clipboard history. Knowing I can always type "clip"+enter and see a list of the last 1000 things I copies has saved me more times than I can count. I encourage you to checkout the full list [1] of what Alfred can do. Also the PowerPack is worth every penny for me, I bought it years ago (Mega Supporter) and would pay full price again without a second thought.

[0] https://www.howtogeek.com/297651/what-does-it-mean-when-a-co...

[1] https://www.alfredapp.com/

I'm kind of a power user, since the C64 and DOS 3.3 days, and I find that Windows' current built-in stuff always works well for me. Never seen a need for a separate launcher app.

Also wonder about that FancyZones. I love how easily Windows makes basic window and desktop management - shortcuts like WIN+[arrow key] or WIN+TAB or CTRL+WIN+[arrow key] that let you move windows around, snap them, tile them, divide the screen between two, switch to another desktop, etc. All those basic functions which if you have MacOS, for some reason you need to buy separate apps just to get that basic functionality. Haven't ever felt a need for a separate app for that either.