So I turned off LaunchBar and began using Spotlight exclusively. It sucked. I hung on that long only because I kept thinking, “Surely it’s going to improve as it learns my habits.” It didn’t. It was unbearably slow when I started using it, and it was still unbearably slow when I finally decided to pull the plug on it yesterday.

How slow? Finding files and folders—even files and folders that I had been searching for and opening for a few days—typically took several seconds (yes, s…e…v…e…r…a…l seconds). Finding and launching apps with Spotlight was much faster, but even that had a noticeable delay. You may remember that Quicksilver was so-named because it was quick—so are LaunchBar and Alfred. Spotlight, despite being a system feature, is not.

So I’m back to LaunchBar. A new release came out during my Spotlight experiment, which was heartening, as I’ve been worried about LaunchBar’s continued viability as a product. I upgraded and reindexed my system (which took only a few seconds), and it feels like I’m back at my Mac again.

Source: Launchers and me

There’s a reason why I find the crowd of old Mac users (like me) a delightful read. There are some neuroses that can never be discussed enough. Launchers squarely fall into that category - like text editors and task management systems.

Like Dr Drang, I also terribly miss Quicksilver (please don’t download) and I am closely following Tuna to see if it’s a replacement.

However, looks like the new Spotlight in Tahoe is definitely not it. Looks like its biggest proponent, Jason Snell is also back on Launchbar.

Personally, I’ve never really gelled with Launchbar and after dabbling with Raycast, I’ve settled back into Alfred, which continues to be where my muscle memory works best. I also really have a ton of Alfred workflows that work just the way I want it to on my Mac.

If you also love reading people nerd out about launchers, you might be interested in reading Alfred vs Raycast.