flash

Flash and Alfred

Alfred is “An award-winning app for macOS which boosts your efficiency with hotkeys, keywords, text expansion and more”. The core launcher is free; the Powerpack (clipboard history, snippets, workflows) is a one-time £34, or £59 with lifetime upgrades. It runs on macOS 10.14 and later, Intel and Apple Silicon, with 5.8.1 in September 2026 and Alfred 6 announced. Like Raycast it is a launcher, not a hint tool.

	Alfred	Flash
License, price	Closed; free core, Powerpack one-time	MIT, free
Platforms	macOS 10.14+	macOS 14+
Permissions	Accessibility (snippets, key events), Full Disk Access (file search), Contacts, Automation, sometimes Input Monitoring	Accessibility; Automation per browser for tab lists; Screen Recording only for :screenshot
Launcher	Apps, files, web search, calculator; workflows from a gallery of hundreds	flashlight: apps, browser tabs, tmux windows, native windows, emoji, math, units, currency, plugin data
Hints, modes	None	Hints in every app, NORMAL mode
Clipboard, snippets	Powerpack	Clipboard and snippets plugins
Windows	None built in	Named positions, proportional frames, placement rules
Configuration	Preferences window, visual workflow editor	One TOML file
Maintenance	5.8.1, September 2026	1.0.0, October 2026

Where Alfred is stronger

• Workflows with a visual editor that are “easier to write and to debug” than code, and a gallery of hundreds.
• File search that goes deep into the file system, with Full Disk Access.
• Snippets with text expansion and a mature clipboard history.
• Runs on very old macOS versions, with one-time pricing and no account.

Where Flash is stronger

• Acting on the screen. Alfred has nothing like hints or a modal layer.
• Fewer permissions. Alfred’s own permissions page lists Accessibility, Full Disk Access, Contacts, Automation and sometimes Input Monitoring; Flash needs Accessibility, and Automation only when a browser’s tabs are listed.
• Free and open, with a file instead of preferences and a Powerpack.
• Tabs, tmux windows and native windows in the same search as apps.
• A bar and widgets.

Flash features you might like

• :flashlight for apps, tabs and windows, with inline math and currency.
• @menus runs any menu item of the frontmost app by name.
• Clipboard history and the snippets plugin cover the everyday part of the Powerpack.
• app_open --name= as a hotkey, without a workflow.

Moving from Alfred

Alfred	Flash
Launcher hotkey	["flash", "enter_command_mode", "--input=:flashlight "]
Calculator	Type the expression in flashlight
Clipboard history	Flash’s built-in Clipboard page
Snippets	The snippets plugin
Hotkey to launch an app	["flash", "app_open", "--name=<App>"]
File search, web search	Keep Alfred’s free core
Workflows	Keep Alfred, or a Flash plugin for the ones that feed search

Alfred’s free core and Flash coexist without conflict.

Checked 2026-10-14 against alfredapp.com, its permissions page and changelog.

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