Tyar

Q: Persistent apps in dock

Hey guys,

 

Recently we upgraded to El Capitan 10.11.6 and everything works smoothly, except for a few apps I cannot remove from my dock, iBooks, Maps and Photo's

 

I tried dragging them out onto the desktop and removing them that way, but when I reboot or log out/in they appear again. I've found solutions online, but so far haven't hit anything that works. Even tried to remove the .plist of the dock in preferences, but logging in/out I noticed these 3 apps came back again.

 

This computer is a work station and I really have no need for these 3 apps in my dock. Could anybody help?

 

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Tyar

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Sep 7, 2016 12:46 AM

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Q: Persistent apps in dock

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Carolyn Samit,

    Carolyn Samit Carolyn Samit Sep 7, 2016 3:18 AM in response to Tyar
    Level 10 (120,579 points)
    Apple Watch
    Sep 7, 2016 3:18 AM in response to Tyar

    Make sure you have "quit" all the apps prior to trying to remove them from the Dock.

     

    If you aren't sure they are running, go to your Apple  menu then click Force Quit from the drop down menu. You can force quit apps from there. Or you can use the Force Quit keyboard shortcut:  Command + Option + Esc.

  • by ckuan,

    ckuan ckuan Sep 7, 2016 3:47 AM in response to Tyar
    Level 7 (33,247 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 3:47 AM in response to Tyar

    1. Make sure the apps are not running.

    2. Right click (or control+click) the icon on the dock > Options > select Remove from Dock.

  • by Tyar,

    Tyar Tyar Sep 7, 2016 3:55 AM in response to Carolyn Samit
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 7, 2016 3:55 AM in response to Carolyn Samit

    Tried that as one of the first things before I started looking online. Didn't help.

  • by Tyar,

    Tyar Tyar Sep 7, 2016 3:56 AM in response to ckuan
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 7, 2016 3:56 AM in response to ckuan

    Made sure they weren't running, doing this is basically the same as dragging them out of your dock, to the desktop and deleting them like that. Just to be sure I tried it this way as well, but no success.

     

    We have 5 iMac's here which recently got updated to El Capitan and all machines have the same problem.

  • by ckuan,

    ckuan ckuan Sep 7, 2016 4:28 AM in response to Tyar
    Level 7 (33,247 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 4:28 AM in response to Tyar

    Did you try in Launchpad and drag the apps to the trash?

  • by Tyar,

    Tyar Tyar Sep 7, 2016 4:36 AM in response to ckuan
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 7, 2016 4:36 AM in response to ckuan

    That would be the same as deinstalling the app.

     

    Even though I thought it wouldn't work anyway, since it's a Mac OS native app, I did give it a shot and it doesn't let me delete the app.

     

    I need a solution that'll take the app out of my dock, not off of my machine anyway.

  • by ckuan,

    ckuan ckuan Sep 7, 2016 4:48 AM in response to Tyar
    Level 7 (33,247 points)
    Sep 7, 2016 4:48 AM in response to Tyar

    Just did the Remove from Dock on iBooks and it was gone from my Dock. I did not reboot yet because I am downloading a big app at the moment.

  • by tygb ,

    tygb tygb Sep 7, 2016 4:56 AM in response to Tyar
    Level 2 (197 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 4:56 AM in response to Tyar

    Hello !

               Tyar

      So you tried to relaunch finder from your end .

    In you case three apps are stuck books , map  , photo in the dock .

     

    Try this method : click on go to go folder type ~/Library

    find Preferences folder and remove com.apple.ibooks.plist  ,   com.apple.maps.plist  , com.apple.photoBooth.plist  ,

    com.apple.systempreferences.plist

    Right click on plists and move to trash , restart empty the trash .

     

    if it doesn't work please back up your data and do a clean installation . i will not suggest terminal commands to kill dock as something can go wrong .

  • by Tyar,

    Tyar Tyar Sep 7, 2016 5:22 AM in response to tygb
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 7, 2016 5:22 AM in response to tygb

    The main issue is the dock, not the app's. I can remove them from my dock, but after a reboot or re-log they are back in the dock. I expected this to be a setting somewhere.

     

    I'm not sure if deleting the plist files from these apps will keep them out of the dock, I'll give it a shot in a moment though, but doing a clean install, won't be a solution since this is a work station and we can't afford the machine to be out of commission too long or require too long reinstalling apps (Especially Quark Xpress, which is a real hassle to install).

     

    I also appreciate it if there was a solution outside of the terminal, since I'm not experience with using this at all.

     

    Also, as I mentioned before, we only upgraded our machines a few days ago and all 5 of the iMac's are having this issue with the same 3 apps.

  • by tygb ,

    tygb tygb Sep 7, 2016 5:59 AM in response to Tyar
    Level 2 (197 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 5:59 AM in response to Tyar

    Please try to run system in safe mode for sometime and follow an article : OS X El Capitan: If an app freezes or quits unexpectedly

     

    Lastly go to to go folder type ~/Library find folders , caches , cookies , saved application state . select all contents and delete into trash ( you can use command + A to select , to delete use command + delete )

     

    Also in safari folder : select all contents except bookmarks as you might be using it and delete to trash

     

    also delete com.apple.safari.plist that will be found in ~/Library  preferences folder .

     

    Restart the computer , empty the trash .

     

    Thanks !

  • by bjarneyman,

    bjarneyman bjarneyman Sep 7, 2016 4:22 PM in response to tygb
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 4:22 PM in response to tygb

    After doing an OS upgrade to El Capitan back in July, I had the same problem with apps not wanting to leave the dock permanently and it was made worse by the fact that I could not add apps into the dock and have them stay upon re-start.

     

    I found a post for an older version of OS giving the same problem and the cure was to delete the following file:

     

    ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist

     

    I was so exasperated, I tried it and it worked!  I can add and delete apps from the dock and the changes are saved upon re-start.

  • by tygb ,

    tygb tygb Sep 7, 2016 4:41 PM in response to bjarneyman
    Level 2 (197 points)
    Mac OS X
    Sep 7, 2016 4:41 PM in response to bjarneyman

    If you deleted  com.apple.dock.plist after restart you have to empty the trash , so that fresh plist will be recreated .

  • by Tyar,

    Tyar Tyar Sep 8, 2016 6:16 AM in response to bjarneyman
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Desktops
    Sep 8, 2016 6:16 AM in response to bjarneyman

    I appreciatie the answer, but as I said in the first post of the topic, this is one of the firs things I tried.

     

    The dock was reset indeed, but after removing the 3 apps in question from the dock a re-log of the computer brought them right back in.