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I was looking on my Mac's Launchpad today and saw a few apps that I'd like to clean out.

I can't find some of them in the Applications directory, and the standard method of clicking and holding down, then clicking the X button isn't working – meaning that the X simply isn't showing up.

Is there a directory in Finder where I can find the items stored in the Launchpad and delete it from there?

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Launchpad data is stored in a SQLite 3 database located at:

$HOME/Library/Application Support/Dock/UUID_Type_Filename.db

Example: 3BF614D8-048E-344B-9775-AA8ED64B3564.db

Whether or not you'll be able to successfully edit it depends on your SQL skills.

You could always just delete the file, probably best from Recovery HD, and it will rebuild itself when logging back in and opening Launchpad. You could also just try deleting it and then in Terminal run the killall Dock command, then open Launchpad. It should rebuild with only the currently installed apps.

Another thing to consider is maybe rebuilding the Launch Services Database may help. Note: Rebuilding the Launch Services Database may remove some customizations you've made and would need to set them once again.

In a Terminal:

/S*/L*/F*/C*/F*/L*/S*/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user

Hint: Copy and paste the command above in the Terminal to avoid typos.

The full pathname is:

/System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister

Although you can use the wildcard version, you don't need the fully qualified pathname version for it to execute.

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  • killall Dock worked for me, even without having to delete the .db file. Thanks!
    – Munesawagi
    May 8, 2016 at 12:59

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