Why do many of my applications appear twice in launchpad?

I Think I had the same problem. I guess the reason for it was that I had created folders in my Applications folder, to arrange my apps. So the new apps created by Lion appear in the Applications folder (Think all of them apple apps).

Some of my dock apps didn't work, for the same reason, they where calling my old apps.

So my solution was to remove the duplicate apps in my dock and then remove the apps in the folders I had created. Then put the apps I used (directly from the Applications folder), back in the dock.

Everything seems to work again, except I can't watch some videos in safari!! like:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/whats-new/

But they work fine in opera, and firefox, lol. Think I moved or deleted QuickTime incorrectly. although it shows in Lauch pad and the Applications folder.

Anyway, I stmbuled upon this post trying to find out how to create new folders in the Lauch Pad to re arrange my apps. Anyone?

I am having the same issue with widespread duplicates on my Launchpad. Also, I would like to know how to remove items from Launchpad without deleting the App itself. I have a number of apps that are rarely used, but they are used and do not need deleted.

I just remove xcode install because the new version is diferent and was booth versions in launchpad so i delete it from launchpad and it disapear in the apps folder too but isn't in the trash so may when restart it appear in the trash like recovery..Anyway just advice you to be carefull you don't remove the original app looks like remove it from launchpad is like delete it from the applications folder...I don't have that problem so what can i say?

May you can live with that or wait till find another solution that take the risk...

Dear mjruss,

I have the same issue... Address Book x 2, Safari x 2, iPhoto x 2, etc.

The strange thing is that when I run Address Book, 1 icon starts the app and the other throws an error.

I have deleted the *.db file in an effort to "force" Launchpad to re-create the list, this did not work.

I searched for answers and some people mentioned holding CMD, Alt and Option and then clicking on the icon to delete them. Might have worked in a dev / Beta environment, but in real life, it does not work.

So... any suggestions on how to remove items will be appreciated.

Hi,

the Mail App is also showing up twice on my Launchpad.

I think that I've figured out why:

I have an alias for the Mail app. If I delete the alias, it's only showing up once as expected 🙂

Do you have any aliases on the desktop maybe?

... or just some old or broken aliases. If I search in spotlight the aliases appear under "Documents". Maybe you can find them this way.

Well, I would say that this is just a bug in Launchpad. I think that it's not intended to show apps twice just because of an alias to that app.

I went to a page with the header LaunchPad-control, everything is in english, made the download, followed the steps and uncheked the boxes I ddin't want to see, I think that Apple will come up with a way to clear de double applications one day. For the time being it sorted the problem and free... I'm considering donate.

here is the link

http://chaosspace.de/launchpad-control/?lang=en

Yeah Launchpad-control is cool except sometimes I loose all my changes after rebooting which is a bit annoying.

I found another one which doesn't have that problem and the free version can do pretty much everything I want: http://attilamiklosi.net/launchpadmanager/home.php

Thought this would have been fixed by now and still looking for an explaination as to why this happens to begin with.

I just happen to do a fresh Lion install this weekend (10.7.2) and after installing iWork '09, two Keynote icons showed up in Launchpad. As others, I verified only one instance of Keynote.app is found.

Do we really have to rely on a 3rd party tool to "hide" this?

Edit: While not exactly a recommended "fix", moving the app to Trash, open Trash, and Put Back the app does reset the Icon to a single instance in Launchpad.

Doubt that is going to work well with core apps like System Preferences.

While not exactly a recommended "fix", moving the app to Trash, open Trash, and Put Back the app does reset the Icon to a single instance in Launchpad.

Doubt that is going to work well with core apps like System Preferences.

That totally worked for me, and was so easy! Thank you!

I had two Aperture icons - when I moved one icon to trash both icons disapeared, along with Aperture itself!!!

I now have to download and reinstall Aperture. I would advise anyone else to ignore duplicate icons, in fact ignore Launchpad altogether. Just use Spotlight and/or Finder.