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).

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.

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.

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.

There doesn't seem to be a way that still works to remove them. However, you can take all the junk and collect it into folders and then ignore the folders full of the junk.

It was designed to be like the iOS interface. When you delete an application from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod, it's icon disappears from the iOS screen. LaunchPad follows that model.

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.

TUAW has a "nuclear" option, that deletes all of the icons out of Launchpad. You can then "start over" and drag the application icons that you want to show on to the Launchpad icon on the doc.

I just found this:

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/osxdaily/~3/Om4syt-ZUsI/

Looks promising 🙂

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/

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.)