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Sort Launchpad Applications by Name?

Is it possible to sort Launchpad Applications by name?

Mac Pro 3.33GHz 6-Core, MacBook Pro 15'' 2.4GHz Dual-Core, iPhone 4, iPad, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 4:42 PM

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Posted on Jul 23, 2011 4:00 AM

You cannot automatically sort the launchpad. It behaves manually like iOS applications.

13 replies

Aug 16, 2012 12:10 PM in response to TESTALIASALIAS

The article gives two possible solutions. (1) Killall Dock from the command line. Didn't work. (2) Delete the Dock database file. That worked. But you also have to force the Launchpad to rebuild its database. Since I had Terminal open already, I did 'Killall Dock' again. It reloads the Dock and relaunches Launchpad, thus rebuilding the database. Reorder of applications in Lauchpad will be complete.


This is a way better alternative to having another app using resources to manage the appearence of Lauchpad.

Mar 9, 2014 2:29 PM in response to TESTALIASALIAS

The second terminal command listed in the article shared by TestAliasAlias works great (I used it on Mavericks):


rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db ; killall Dock

But please note, as he has mentioned too, that above will sort all Apple applications on one page/screen and the rest of the apps will be sorted alphabetically in the rest of the pages/screen.

Feb 26, 2016 6:52 AM in response to mfarooqi

On Yosemite and El Capitan, the easiest way to rearrange Launchpad's icons lexicographically is setting the

ResetLaunchPad
property to
true
and relaunching the Dock. This doesn't need any third-party software, like the one you suggested. Just run this command:

defaults write com.apple.Dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true && killall Dock

Sources:

Sort Launchpad Applications by Name?

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