Apps not appearing in launchpad

Anything in your Applications folder should automatically be added LaunchPad. Can you verify the .app is in your Applications folder?

There is a free utility called LaunchPad-Control that makes it easy to add/remove items to LaunchPad

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

You can rebuild the LaunchPad database using the following terminal command

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

noshotha wrote:

Yes the apps in question are in the Applications folder, (hence the reason I'm a bit puzzled), and I don't want to start adding programs to do what the OS should be doing already.

Yeah I start basic (like are they in Apps folder) before getting more advanced. Sometimes it saves alot of time and trouble, sometimes it insults people's intellegence. Didnt mean anything by it.

You are welcome, glad you got it fixed.

Adding the icon for any installed App is easy in Launchpad. Just type its name in Launchpad's own search box found near the top of every Launchpad screen. The icon for the missing App will be displayed on a new screen by itself. Then just click on it and drag it to your desired location in Launchpad.

This solved my problem. App was already in the correct location, Launchpad just ignored it for whatever reason. Thanks!

Just a warning for newbs like me, the Terminal command posted by g_pirtle ( rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db; killall Dock ) will completely rebuild your Launchpad icons, so any customizing, cleanup and folder organization will all be gone. Unfortunately for me, this did not get the app to show up in Launchpad until I moved it out of it's subfolder and into the main Applications folder (which is strange as another app that was buried deeper in another subfolder of that subfolder did show up in Launchpad a soon as it was installed). I'm using OS X 10.8.2.

It's a good command and thanks for posting it, but wish it had come with a warning. Off to put everything back in folders in Launchpad.

BTW, the suggestion by SoCalGadgetGuy to type the name of the app in the Launchpad search didn't work for me 😟

One possible cause: the extension of the application file is ".App" rather than ".app"

I discovered this strange case sensitivity when the installer for a program I installed today placed the application correctly in the Applications folder, but for some reason, installed it with the first letter of the file extension capitalized (".App" rather than ".app"). Apparently, this prevented Launchpad from detecting the application, and also, when I added the program to the dock, I noticed that the ".App" suffix stayed on the application name. When I changed the extension of the file to the all-lowercase ".app," it immediately appeared in Launchpad and extension from the application icon in the dock went away.

Out of curiosity, I reverted the application extension back to the original ".App" to see if the icon would then disappear from Launchpad, but it didn't. It seems that once Launchpad detects the application, it doesn't forget it!

Anyways, hopes this helps someone.

Thank you! This is what worked for me. The DVD Player.app wasn't showing up on any screen. I'd drag and drop it from the finder onto the Launchpad icon in the doc and that wouldn't work. I'd search for it in Launchpad and it would show up, but it wasn't on any screen without searching. I never thought to click and drag the search result to a different screen. Seems crazy to me, but thanks for enlightening me to that solution!

Thank you for the rm command... Fixed my problem. Also thanks for the suggestion of doing a search and then dragging the app icon to the launch pad icon. It worked as well.

I went ahead and ran the RM command that was suggested above because I figure if one App wasnt showing up correctly then something must be wrong with the system and it needs to be rebuilt.

Just my 2 cents.

I had removed an app from launchpad and removing and reinstalling wouldn't get it to show in launchpad again.

It appears that renaming the app did the trick but not necessarily renaming it to *.app.

In my case it was from .app to .App that made it show up again. I suspect that any renaming of the file would have caused it to show up again in launchpad.

Another weird solution I found that works is to move the app from the app folder to the trash. Then move it out of the trash to the desktop, and then back to the app folder. I'm not sure if this just refreshed the recognition of the app but it seemed to have worked for me...

Sounds like you are installing or just dragging from a different (illigal) program. All Mac installers automatically put the .app into the app folder. If you are having issues create your own installer and then it will work. Pretty easy with Xcode.

I stumbled onto this post having the same problem, having dowloaded and installed both Carbon Copy Cloner and iPhoto Library Manager from their respective websites and NOT the appstore. I am running Maverick on a new iMac. As I read through the replies, it prompted to me to try something that solved my problem, and hopefully will yours.

1. Open Finder

2. Look in Dowloads folder

3. find icons for the programs that are not appearing in launch pad

4. drag those ipads from the Downloads folder to the Applications folder

5. Presto... they now appear in launchpad.