Ways to use alfred_
Text messages
Couldn't copy the page
Your browser blocked the clipboard. Open the Markdown version and copy it from there.
View as MarkdownText alfred_ from your phone, no app needed. Save your number in Settings, send alfred_ a text, and that first text verifies the number. No code is sent.
On this page
Connect your phone
-
Add your number
Open Settings → Preferences and add your mobile number.
-
Text alfred_ from that phone
Any message works. Home shows the number to text.
-
That’s it
Your first text verifies the number. alfred_ doesn’t send a code, and it can’t text you until you’ve texted it first.
What you can do by text
- Email: find, read, reply, draft, archive. See Reply by text.
- Calendar: what’s on, schedule, move, find open time.
- Tasks: add, list, check off.
- Your brief: text “brief me” for a fresh one.
- Settings: “send my brief at 6”, “turn on quiet hours”.
- Memory: “remember that…”
- Photos: send a receipt, a screenshot or a business card and alfred_ reads it.
Confirming by text
Before alfred_ sends an email, invites people to a meeting, or archives mail, it texts you what it’s about to do and waits.
| You reply | What happens |
|---|---|
| “Yes”, “send” or “do it” | It goes ahead. |
| “No” or “cancel” | It stops. |
| Anything else, like “make it shorter” | It changes the draft and asks again. |
If alfred_ asked you a question (“30 or 60 minutes?”), your next text is taken as the answer. Text “never mind” to drop it.
What alfred_ texts you
- Your morning brief, unless you chose email.
- Reminders before meetings and when tasks are due, if you turn them on.
- Alerts from email rules and results from routines.
Stop or pause texts
- Stop texts from alfred_: turn off Texts from alfred_ under Settings → Notifications. You can still text alfred_, and the web app, the iPhone app and email briefs keep working.
- Stop texts at night: set quiet hours. Anything alfred_ would have texted waits until they end.
- Stop one kind of text: turn off that reminder under Settings → Notifications, or ask alfred_ to stop a rule (“stop texting me about Dana’s emails”).
Privacy
alfred_ only sees what you text to alfred_, not your texts with other people, and it isn’t part of group texts. Photos you send are read to answer you. Your conversation, what you ask it to remember, and a record of what it did for you are kept in your account. See Privacy and your data.
Text “save yourself to my contacts” and alfred_ sends you a contact card.