How to remove icons from Launchpad that do not have "X"

This is a tip for people who use Steam, the game manager and online store..

Steam stores application shortcuts in the Users/<username>/Applications folder.

If you delete a game from within Steam, it will NOT remove the shortcut from the Users/<username>/Applications folder.

You will have to manually remove it (until Steam/Valve can get Steam working properly with Lion, that is).

Always keep in mind that Macintosh HD/Applications is NOT the only Applications folder that is displayed in LaunchPad. Your User folder's Applications folder is also represented.

Finder > Applications. Drag the application OUT of the Applications folder, and it should not appear in Launchpad.

(By the way, I though the X would uninstall the app..?)

Cheers 🙂

You can clean your LaunchPad by doing these steps:

1. go to user/library/application support/dock

2. trash the .db file

3. restart (a new .db file will be created automatically)

It removes all icon of the apps that are already uninstalled including all of your duplicated/alias icons (appstore and non-appstore apps).

Just discovered a very easy way to do this ... at least in MAC OS X 10.7 "Lion"

1. Search for program/application name using the search facility in Finder.

2. Once you've located the program/application, delete it in the normal way. You may asked to need to your Administrator username and password to achieve this.

3. On deleting the program/application go back to launchpad and you'll observe that the icon still exists. However, if you click on the icon you'll observe a super- imposed question mark ("?") on the icon.

4. Having confirmed the question mark character, simply drag the icon to trash.

5. Voila, icon removed from Launchpad.

I hope this solution works for you.

Ok the easiest solution is also the simplest - you don't need to install anything or enter codes in terminal. I too had items in my launchpad that wouldn't go away even when they were supposedly uninstalled (They were steam games). All I did was:

open finder > All My Files > search *name of app*

The icon showed up after putting its name in the search bar in the top right - then I moved it into the trash. I then emptied the trash, and after checking back on launchpad it was gone.

This was done on a MacBook with Mavericks OS.

If follows that model ONLY for apps purchased from the Mac App Store. Apps installed the traditional way are not deleted, nor can their icons be deleted except by actually deleting the app by hand.

The "X" is only for Apps bought from the MAS. Using it will delete the App from LaunchPad and the Applications folder.

The Lauchpad has icons for all the Apps, including any alias's for same, in your Applications folder and its subfolders.

This was perfect! Worked great, and I've been looking how to fix this for a while. Installed XCode leaves a "Developer" folder in Launchpad that I don't want, I just wanted the XCode icon. This app worked perfectly, thanks! (Why this option isn't built in to Lion I will never understand.)

Here's an easy solution I found that worked for me. Found it posted on MacRumors:

Ok...i had the same issue. Goto launchpad..click on the unused icon. It will show a "?" symbol on it.

Then hold on the icon for some time, until it wiggles. The "x" option will appear and then you can remove it.

shane3547 wrote:

Ok, aside from removing the Program from the Applications Folder. Is there any other way to remove the icon's from the Launchpad?

No. That is what LaunchPad was designed to do, show all of your applications.

You can put them in a LaunchPad folder and drag them to the last page.

Or, if the applications work properly from outside the Applications folder, just move them out.

You're missing the point of the model. The "X" thing doesn't really matter. They're trying a model that anything in the applications folder will be replicated in LaunchPad, whether it was bought on the MAS or not.

If you delete the application from your Mac, it's not in Launchpad, just the same as if the App is deleted from your iPhone.

Imagine how much howling there would have been if Apple had applied the "X" option to all of your installed apps, and people started deleting the icons from LaunchPad only to discover later that they were actually gone.

I looked up that Launchpad Cleaner program at the link above, and it seems pretty cool. I also came across and ultimately decided to go with the other one talked about in this discussion a FREE shareware program called Launchpad Controller. It's a pretty cool tiny app that adds itself to the "System Preferences" panel, and it basically adds a "Preferences page for Launchpad" to your system. Simply, it lets you turn on/off icons in "Launchpad" as you like, and does not affect any of the other functions of Launchpad.

It's actually a BETTER fix than if Launchpad was working correctly for me anyhow. As it turns out, when one checks the "x" on the icons (when they are jiggling) they are also deleting the program from their

applications folder (dumb huh) [Like what if someone had checked the "x" on an uninstall app? LAME].

So, here is the link to the website (it's in Danish I think, you can google translate it) to learn more about it, but it was a great solution to my problem.

Launchpad Controller: http://chaosspace.de/launchpad-control/