Asks for password when moving apps!

Hello,


Every time I want to move an application from one folder to another, finder asks for my password.


Also, it won't let me move the app directly from the stacks into another stack, I have to move the application out of the stack onto the desktop (type my password in), then into another stack (type my password in).


It only happens with apps downloaded from the app store.


I find it extremely annoying because I like to organise my apps in different folders.


Can someone please tell me how to stop this?


Thanks,

OscarUser uploaded file

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.7)

Posted on May 8, 2011 5:20 AM

Reply
25 replies

May 8, 2011 6:07 AM in response to Ozzmystro

why move an app from a stack? just open the apps folder and move the app from there


HOWEVER, I repeat, you should NOT move apps


if you want different stacks for different types of apps, create folders for games, graphics, web... then populate them with shortcuts


also, I did a couple of tests, and I could move two test apps almost anywhere on my HD, that confirms that you're doing something that should not be done..

May 8, 2011 10:19 AM in response to Ozzmystro

It is well established that in Mac OS X moving apps outside of the Applications folder causes issues. The Apps folder is where Mac OS X expects apps to be located and moving them elsewhere may cause issues for you with the app in the future. If you are creating sub-folders inside the Apps folder, that is not really a problem, as you know, one folder already exists there by default, the Utilities folder.


As far as having to give your admin password, that is part of what makes Macs secure. Remember that the Mac App Store is actually part of Mac OS X Lion that has been released early to get folks used to it and to work out the bugs for the release of Lion later this year. One of the things that viruses and such try to do is to make changes on your computer secretly. Lion will be even more secure than Snow Leopard because it will be harder to make changes without an administrators permission. That need for an admin password to make changes came with the Mac App Store, which is why currently it only applies to apps that you acquired through the MAS. You will see more of that in Lion.


However, supplying a password to approve an app move is barely two seconds. You make it sound like you have to do it all day long. Is that all you do all day is rearrange your Mac? It is starting to sound like OCD.


I would consider the recommendation to use aliases, rather than moving the actual apps. That is why aliases are actually there.

May 9, 2011 1:00 PM in response to Ozzmystro

The Applications that were oringinally installed in the Applications folder should stay there. Software Update looks there when it checks for updates to those apps. Trying to move them is asking for trouble.


If you want some of them to be somewhere else, Control-click on that app and select "make Alias".


You can move that Alias anywhere you want and it will act just like the original app.


You can make a new folder and name whatever you want. Put your aliases in that folder. You can put all of your non-Apple apps (3rd party apps) in that folder. Put that folder anywhere inside your Home folder. You can also drag that new folder to the Dock.


Now you have what you want without causing problems with your system.

Sep 9, 2011 5:32 AM in response to MSiLight

That solution just provides an opportunity to generate the problems mentioned above. Just because moving Apps (especially those native to the OS) requires an Admin pw doesn't make it bad or cumbersome.


Apple puts a lot of thought into designing an OS that is very function, intuitive and secure. The result will not satisfy everyone. Most of us would like to see some changes. Those desired changes will vary with the individual. The integrity and security of the OS have to take precedence over some of those changes, and this is one of them.


Move the Apps at your own risk, and accept ALL consequences.

Feb 5, 2012 9:00 PM in response to Enrico CHP

Macs and OS X are supposed to be user-friendly. Yet what could possibly be more user-unfrendly than not allowing one to organize apps to suit his work style?


Unless one can readily move (even Apple's own) apps into subfolders of /Applications, one is left in the situation of wasting a lot of time finding the app one wants among dozens and dozens at the top-level in /Applications. It takes me much longer to do that than, when as in SnowLeopard, I could just click a folder for the category -- Database, Internet, Utilities, etc. -- and then select the desired app from a much smaller subset than the set of all apps.


Begin rant:

I regard this "feature" of Lion as Apple-Nazification (like the "soup-kitchen Nazi" of Seinfeld fame).


And completely unnecessary, too: if the excuse offered is that it's just that way so that Software Update can find the Apple apps for updating, what in the world is so hard about the subfolders being checked automatically, too? That sort of idiocy is akin to web sites that cannot handle hyphens in phone numbers or the slash-character as separator in dates.

End rant.

Feb 5, 2012 9:13 PM in response to murrayE

If you understood Lion you would realize that you can do just that using the Launchpad. Create folders and arrange apps until your heart's content. And none of it will mess up the Mac OS X Application folder's hierarchical filing system. Click the Launchpad icon (sliver circle with a black rocket) in the Dock and have instant access to all those folders that you mention and the apps inside them. Click an app's icon and it launches.

Feb 6, 2012 8:01 AM in response to Dah•veed

Dah•veed wrote:


If you understood Lion you would realize that you can do just that using the Launchpad. Create folders and arrange apps until your heart's content. And none of it will mess up the Mac OS X Application folder's hierarchical filing system. Click the Launchpad icon (sliver circle with a black rocket) in the Dock and have instant access to all those folders that you mention and the apps inside them. Click an app's icon and it launches.

But I do understand Lion! Launchpad is not the way I want to work to open apps.


I normally have several Finder windows open. It's much more natural for me to open an app (not already on the Dock) by going to the (maybe already-open) Applications folder, click, say, the Database sub-folder I have there, and then click the icon for the app. Much more natural - and quicker, too - than getting to Launchpad via its Dock icon or a keyboard shortcut or a hot corner.


Just because the very-small screenspace of an iPhone or iPad is an environment where a Launchpad-like organization makes sense by no means implies that the same organization is appropriate for all users on a Mac.


Anyway, that's jus responding to your response to my previous "rant". I was hoping for some expert help from experts on making my Mac work the way I want to work.

Feb 6, 2012 8:20 AM in response to murrayE

Here is the expert help that you asked for.


Roll your Mac back to the last version of Mac OS X that worked for you the way that you want it to work and never update the OS again. Because Mac OS X, like iOS are on tracks that appear to be preparing to merge and they will be one and the same. That is the future of Apple and its OSes. You can get on board and come along for the ride into the future or you can stand on the paltform and watch the train pass by while you rant and sputter into the whirlwind.


If you are not already a bitter old man fawning for the glory which was the past, you likely shall soon be.

Feb 6, 2012 8:45 AM in response to Dah•veed

Dah•veed wrote:


Here is the expert help that you asked for.


Roll your Mac back to the last version of Mac OS X that worked for you the way that you want it to work and never update the OS again. Because Mac OS X, like iOS are on tracks that appear to be preparing to merge and they will be one and the same. That is the future of Apple and its OSes. You can get on board and come along for the ride into the future or you can stand on the paltform and watch the train pass by while you rant and sputter into the whirlwind.


If you are not already a bitter old man fawning for the glory which was the past, you likely shall soon be.

Unfortunately, that is not helpful advice suited to my needs or technical expertise; it's just a defense of whatever Apple does.


I upgraded to Lion because of its many productivity-enhancing improvements, e.g.:

  • so much quicker to resize a window now that you can drag anywhere along an edge and not just the lower-right corner;
  • automatic saving and versioning (if only all important apps, e.g., Mathematica, would take advantage of it);
  • restore open windows automatically;
  • iCloud to sync settings, etc.

Not to mention apps that won't work in earlier OS X versions, e.g., iBooks Author.


All I'm trying to do now is work around some of the productivity degradations in Lion.

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Asks for password when moving apps!

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