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I have three copies of Skype. How do I remove them from Launchpad?

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  • Thanks for that Nathan! I knew there was a better word than "multiple" or "copies." Had it on the tip of my tongue.
    – Dante
    Dec 22, 2011 at 7:58
  • Do you need another answer or is there something we can provide to get an accepted answer to this?
    – bmike ♦
    Feb 21, 2012 at 19:29
  • Oh, right. I ended up following Salam's advice by deleting Skype completely. Seemed pretty straightforward in retrospect.
    – Dante
    Feb 22, 2012 at 7:10

4 Answers 4

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First make sure you don't really have three copies of the Application. You can use spotlight to clean out any duplicates and keep one copy of the application mounted.

Once that is resolved, you can delete the duplicates from Launchpad one by one; if they all go, just reinstall Skype.

You can also force Launchpad to recreate its database, if it is corrupt, or just to refresh the apps alphabetically by using this hack:

  • run Terminal
  • execute sudo rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db
  • execute sudo killall Dock to restart Dock and Launchpad

Just be aware that you will use any user-defined grouping/sorting etc. this way.

Another wonderful high-level (and safe with undos and backups) GUI solution is Launchpad control, which is a system preference panel.

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  • Don't delete the database. Instead use defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true; killall Dock to flag the database for reconstruction, then to restart the dock.
    – CyberSkull
    Nov 14, 2015 at 22:45
  • @CyberSkull Your method will remove all the shortcuts in LaunchPad! Don't use! (El Capitan 10.11.6)
    – WangYudong
    Oct 5, 2016 at 2:37
  • @WangYudong I'm not sure by what you mean by shortcuts. Aliases won't be effected, but custom groupings will be gone.
    – CyberSkull
    Oct 5, 2016 at 2:45
  • @CyberSkull Custom groups and user-installed apps shortcuts except system-installed ones are all gone.
    – WangYudong
    Oct 5, 2016 at 2:52
  • @CyberSkull I'm sorry for my carelessness. All my apps icons are located at the second and third screen. Nothing is removed except the groupings.
    – WangYudong
    Oct 5, 2016 at 3:01
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Pretty simple, in the new OS X (OS X El Capitan), follow the following instructions:

  1. Open Launchpad
  2. Hold Alt/Option and click the Application
  3. Re-open Launchpad and hold Alt/Option again, click the big X near the application.

Hope this helped! :D

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I couldn't find where the duplicate was with spotlight so I just launched it, right-clicked it's icon on the Dock (or ctrl + click), selected Options -> Show in Finder and found the duplicate. After deleting it I entered the following command in Terminal (not sure if this step was necessary):

killall Dock

Then in Launchpad I deleted the duplicate (whose icon was displayed with a question mark) by long clicking it and then clicking the X button.

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  • killall Dock seems to have been the trick in my case.
    – Wtower
    Sep 15, 2022 at 12:56
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Search for the app in your Finder by typing in the name of the app into the Search box in the upper right hand corner. For example, if you have three Gmail apps which you are attempting to remove, type in Gmail. All the apps with that name will appear. Search for the apps you want to delete and drag them into the trash. It is really THAT easy.

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  • 1
    -1 since your answer basically requites the first two sentences of the accepted answer "First make sure you don't really have three copies of the Application. You can use spotlight to clean out any duplicates and keep one copy of the application mounted."
    – bmike ♦
    Sep 13, 2015 at 14:25

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