how to delete a purchased app and re load

Got to the Applications folder, Right-Click on the App and choose move to trash. You have to Authorise this. The App should show Install under Purchases now. 🙂

Unfortunately, not all "apps" are installed in the Applications Directory (contrary to what I've read elsewhere). Nor have I found the too often suggested "option-clicking" of the "Installed" button to work. I suspect that the old BOM file that used to be located in the "Recipts" folder may still exist and is what the OS and the App Store checks to confirm the app is/was installed. I'm a little paranoid of simply removing that 'reciept' however... LOL!

Can't find the App on a back-up or other partition? I can't find a single receipt for any App installed by MAS. Interesting that you've found one. Try compressing that 'reciept' and then move the original to the trash?

I can't even find the app with another app the developers created for that exact purpose! ;-) However, the App Store still thinks it's installed. That something is "installed" seems almost irrelevant So what? Why should that prevent its being downloaded again by the same person/computer?

If an app becomes corrupted, it may or may not corrupt whatever it is that the App Store uses to verify it was/is installed. I'm beginning to think that the only thing the Store really knows is that a certain user-name and Apple ID combination actually downloaded something. Whether it got installed correctly is not even know by the Store. All it really knows is that the download was complete.

Even Lion has a "Reciepts" folder, it's in the boot drive Libbrary. However, it appears to have fewer ".pkg" files as in previous versions of the OS. Instead, there is a "InstallHistory.plist" That file is a simple XML file listing (amongother items) the date, diaplyName, displayVersion, packageIdentifiers and processName for every installed app. All that data is in a <dict></dict> group. There's really nothing else in there and I may copy the current one and edit out the reference to the app I'm trying to re-download. At least that may indicate what the App Store looks at to decide what's "Installed" whether any scraps of the aps files are on the drive or not! If this works, I'll create a new thread about it as well as post back here.

Thanks for following up! My receipts folder does have some updates done by software update, but not for the latest java update for instance. I opened the plist with Xcode and sure enough, all MAS installs are listed, too. Looking forward to your results and glad I'm not the guinea pig for this. 😝

I just created a new thread explaining how I was finally able to re-download a purchased app. Somewhat related to this thread, I think.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3477979

Hope some one finds it helpful. 🙂