Add quick note on macOS and using Alfred shortcuts

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Following on from my exploration into shortcuts for iOS, and quickly adding notes on the iPad and iPhone (see here: Add new note with single tap on iOS)

I’ve now taken the same process and applied it to the Mac.

For anyone who hasn’t read the other tip - I wanted to be able to quickly add little bits of information that didn’t require their own dedicated note or project (like a scratchpad).

So I created a project called “Inbox” and a note within that called “Inbox”.

Any quick bit of info I need to write down (phone number, date, email address etc), will go in here and end up being deleted, or moved to a new location if I want to keep it (think of it as a pad of paper effectively).

Thanks goes to @markus.koller for the tips!

Once you’ve set up your project and note (you can call them whatever you want, but you’ll need to change the URL later on)…

First things first, you’ll need to download Alfred for the Mac - https://www.alfredapp.com

Once you’ve done that, boot it up and you’ll see the following screen.

The “Alfred Hotkey” is what you’ll use to bring up the search bar - I kept mine as “option + space”.

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If you click on the “Features” tab at the top, you’ll be presented with…

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You’ll want to click on the “web search” along the left hand side, and then click on "add custom web search, which is at the bottom right.

That brings you to this screen (minus the info I’ve already added).

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The search URL should be: agenda://x-callback-url/open-note?title=Inbox

The title can be whatever you like and the “keyword” is what you’ll type in to Alfred to perform the action.

As for the validation - That’s just for testing purposes.

So for me, I can now do the following.

Press Option and Space = Brings up Alfred search bar.
Type “z” and hit enter = Brings me to my “Inbox” note, where I can continue writing in the note.

You can use anything you want instead of “z”, but I wanted it to be quick and easy.

All of this takes less than a second once you are used to it, and is easier than clicking on the Agenda icon on the dock and navigating to the note you want to write something down in - Especially if you are in a different part of Agenda.

Oh, I added the Agenda Icon to the shortcut to make it look better (you can just drag this in from a Google search into the box).

Hope that helps anyone looking to do the same!

6 Likes
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Very nice, great tip!

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I think that using a single letter (like z) for keyword works only if you don’t use Alfred’s search bar to launch applications. If you do, you need to use a unique keyword that is not overlapping with the name of an app, otherwise Alfred will call the first app in the list. For instance, if I’d use simply a, Alfred would launch Adobe Reader. To get around that, I am using aaa. And while z seems a safer single letter, I’d still have that problem, I’d launch Zotero rather than going into Agenda. It’s a nice shortcut though

1 Like
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Alfred shows all matches. So, in your example typing ‘z’ will bring up a list of all apps, keywords, etc from which you can select whatever suits you or continue typing ‘zo’ to get zoetrope. I think, also, it prioritises the list on how often you use a particular match.

It’s quite useful in workflows or if you have a bunch of things you need to do on a particular app or workflow. You can define ‘a aaa’, ‘a bbb’, ‘a ccc’ and either choose from the list or continue typing to get the match you want.

2 Likes
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Thanks for sharing. I’m terribly clueless about shortcuts and automation.

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Hello, I would like to ask how is it possible to find “agenda://x-callback-url/open-search?query={query}” such commands within the software?

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You’ll find them all documented here: X-callback-url Support and Reference