The best Alfred Workflow for Converting Currencies. Period.

Prerequisites

• This workflow relies on exchange rate data provided by third-party APIs

• The following services are supported, pick one of them and get an API key:

  • currency.getgeoapi.com → get your API key here (preferred)

  • exchangeratesapi.io → get your API key here (please also see issue #8 for recent changes restricting the free plan of this API)

  • currencyconverterapi.com → get your API key from here, usage is limited by number of requests per hour, also: precision is limited to few digits

Prerequisites for users of macOS Monterey 12.0 and later

Apple no longer ships php bundled with macOS from Monterey 12.0, so you need to install php manually. Our recommendation is to go with homebrew. Alfred has built-in support for php from homebrew.

1.) Install homebrew (if you do not have it already), go here brew.sh or directly run

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

in Terminal.app

2.) Install php with homebrew, i.e. run

brew install php

in Terminal.app

Installation

Installation is as easy as downloading the workflow and double-clicking it to call Alfred.

In order to do so, head over to the latest release and fetch the Ultimate.Currency.Converter.v*.alfredworkflow file, e.g. download it to your Mac. Double-click the file and you will be guided to Alfred.app which asks you, if you want to install this workflow.

Usage

Currency Conversion

You can trigger this workflow in the Alfred window with the following keyword:

• currency

Ultimate Currency Converter accepts simple and complex queries. The next paragraphs trie to transport the idea.

The workflow uses two settings. A default from-currency and a default to-currency. Everytime you start the workflow without explicitely specifying one or both currencies needed for a conversion, Ultimate Currency Converter tries to guess what you intent to do by completing your query with the default ones. See below for changing default currencies.

Most simple example

If you start the workflow and do not specify any parameters, Ultimate Currency Converter guesses a value of 1 to be converted from your default from-currency to your default to-currency.

• currency → converts 1 EUR to USD

This assumes you did not change the factory-defaults, i.e. EUR is your default from-currency and USD your default to-currency

Basic exchange rate

• currency EUR → displays current EUR / USD exchange rate
• currency EUR GBP → displays current EUR / GBP exchange rate

You get the idea: look at the first example: no second currency is given, so the workflow completes your query with USD, which is your default to-currency.

Basic conversion

• currency 23 EUR → converts 23 EUR to USD
• currency 23 EUR GBP or currency 23EUR GBP → converts 23 EUR to GBP

You may use a space between number and currency or just leave it out for brevity.

Symbols and International Codes support

• currency 23 € £ → converts 23 EUR to GBP

In addition to international three-character codes from ISO 4217 (like EUR and USD), you can also type symbols. Many are included (e.g. €, $, £, ¥, ₨, kn, …). If your preferred symbol is missing, just let us know.

Natural language support

The query string is quite flexible. Look at the following examples and use whatever order fits your needs best. Many combinations are supported.

• currency 23 EUR to £ → converts 23 EUR to GBP
• currency from 23 € to GBP → converts 23 EUR to GBP
• currency to GBP from 23€ → converts 23 EUR to GBP
• currency to GBP 23€ → converts 23 EUR to GBP

Additional Features

Integrated Knowledge Base

If you want to find out which currency is used in a specific country or which countries all use, e.g. EUR, you can use the look-up workflow. Just type a name or code of a currency or a country as query string after the currency-look-up keyword.

• currency-look-up <query>

Change the default from-currency

Use the currency-set-from keyword to set a new default from-currency.

• currency-set-from <query>

Change the default to-currency

Use the currency-set-to keyword to set a new default to-currency.

• currency-set-to <query>

Configuration

You need to configure this workflow before being able to use it. However, this basically comes down to choosing an API service, getting a key there and entering the key into Alfred.

This workflow uses the new configuration feature of Alfred 5.

Support

If you like this workflow and it helps speed up your tasks, consider supporting our work:

      

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Acknowledgements

This workflow was heavily inspired and is based partly on the source code of bigluck’s (aka Luca Bigon) original Alfred 2 Currency Converter. Released with Luca’s permission.

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References

• https://www.alfredapp.com/workflows/
• https://github.com/bigluck/alfred2-currencyconverter

License

Released under MIT License