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up vote 17 down vote favorite

When pressing alt/option in Lion's Launchpad, only some icons get the delete X overlay to remove them. How do you delete the others? I've read that control-option-command should do this, but it simply launches the app for me.

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Do you mean 'remove from Launchpad' or 'delete from the computer'? – gentmatt Nov 5 '12 at 13:51

5 Answers

up vote 7 down vote accepted

It seems that apps that the only apps that are directly removable from Launchpad have to be installed through the App Store.

For every other app, you can simply do it the old fashioned way:

  1. Open programs
  2. Select 'open in finder'
  3. Delete the app that you want to delete

Many people are using folders to reduce clutter of apps shown in Launchpad. (while eagerly awaiting either an update or some tools to manage Launchpad layouts.)

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1  
This deletes the app from the machine, not simply from launchpad. Not exactly helpful for simply organizing launchpad... which, I assume, should be a subset of Applications. Otherwise, why bother with it? – bojolais Jul 20 '11 at 21:28
2  
Well, turns out this is indeed the current design of Launchpad, and the only way to remove the icon from Launchpad for a non-MAS-installed app is to remove it from the machine. I'll mark this as answered, though I personally dislike the way Apple has restricted this. – bojolais Jul 20 '11 at 21:34
1  
You may not be aware of this, but Launchpad supports folders. Just drag an app on top of another. So you could just make a folder of all those apps you wish to hide. – Randy6T9 Jul 25 '11 at 8:51
1  
Removing an application from Launchpad runs uninstalld‌​, which deletes some other support files in addition to the application bundle. Applications downloaded outside the App Store probably don't support the uninstallation procedure. – Lauri Ranta Oct 1 '12 at 21:16
up vote 14 down vote

Launchpad-Control is what you are looking for my friend. It's a free preference pane app that lets you uncheck what you want to hide. It even backs up for safety :)

Alternatively, you could enter the following into Terminal:

sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db "DELETE from apps WHERE title='APP_NAME';" && killall Dock

Replace the "APP_NAME" with the name of the app as it's displayed in Launchpad.

To display it in Launchpad again, simply move it from Applications folder and then put it back.

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up vote 1 down vote

You can drag the app to the trash.

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up vote 0 down vote

Try LaunchpadCleaner, it's hell of a lot better than commandline hacks! Unfortunately these command line operations completely disregard even the basic sql concepts and leave the db in an invalid state. Next time you reboot your computer, you might find that your launchpad has reset to the default state.

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up vote -2 down vote

This youtube video shows the simplest and cleanest way to remove individual apps that you did not download from the Mac App Store.

You don't need any external apps. It is very straightforward.

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2  
This video instructs you to delete the app from the Applications folder. The original question is with regards to simply removing an item from showing up in Launchpad. To be clear, Launchpad shows all apps installed in the system so removing an app from Launchpad but keeping it installed on the system is not possible. – richarddas Jan 27 '12 at 9:57

protected by bmike♦ Oct 1 '12 at 21:40

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