How do I remove the annoying shortcuts from Launchpad?

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Level 1

8 points

How do I remove the annoying shortcuts from Launchpad?

I Just got I new Mac Mini, my first ever Mac. There is a bunch of very annoying icons in launchpad for things like dropbox, gmail, google drive, and the like. These do nothing but start the default browser to the page for the application. I want to remove them since I will not use them or in the case of gmail and others, I the know the URL! How do I remove these bloatware icons? When did Apple start installing 3rd party bloatware shortcuts? I cannot move these to the trash or do the hold till they jiggle trick (no x shows on them), so how do I get rid of them?

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.1), null

Posted on Nov 23, 2015 4:03 PM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,210 points

Nov 23, 2015 5:08 PM in response to MaverickCCIE

Apple didn't put them there (well not directly, anyway). I would imagine they are part of some app you installed.

The LaunchPad just searches for every application installed and puts it there. I would imagine some App installed some "apps" that just point to those websites.

Use the Finder Search to find those things. Type the name in the search field and add a criteria for kind is application. Perhaps that will find whatever is putting them there.

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Answer 2

MaverickCCIE Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 23, 2015 4:43 PM in response to Barney-15E

Two problems with this. First I have not installed any apps yet, still learning the system before installing apps. Second the finder search does not find them. This is why I prefer linux and would stay with linux if not for work. Also they are not applications they are just shortcuts.

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

685,239 points

Nov 23, 2015 4:54 PM in response to MaverickCCIE

In Launchpad, try clicking and holding an icon until they start to wiggle. Then delete them by clicking the X in the upper left hand corner.

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Answer 4

MaverickCCIE Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 23, 2015 5:08 PM in response to Eric Root

I found them. Forgot I installed chrome. It put the shortcuts there. I had to do a show package contents for google chome then search it to find them. Thanks Barney for the the hint.

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,210 points

Nov 23, 2015 5:15 PM in response to MaverickCCIE

MaverickCCIE wrote:

Two problems with this. First I have not installed any apps yet, still learning the system before installing apps. Second the finder search does not find them. This is why I prefer linux and would stay with linux if not for work. Also they are not applications they are just shortcuts.

The problem with that is I have none of those items in my LaunchPad, so they are not put there by default. I have no idea how you have them in LaunchPad. I suppose they could somehow be bundled with a new Mac, but I've never heard of it or seen it myself.

If they are "packaged" inside another app, you won't be able to find them searching in the Finder.

I can't figure out how to get a webloc file into the LaunchPad, so I'm not sure how those are web shortcuts.

You can "reset" the Launchpad by deleting its database, but I'm not sure that will fix the problem. And, I'm not sure where the file is stored in El Capitan, yet.

EDIT: I guess this is OBE, now.

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Answer 6

pinkstones

Level 5

4,246 points

Nov 23, 2015 5:32 PM in response to MaverickCCIE

Google Chrome is insidious in the sense that when you download it, it downloads a whole lot of crap you don't need along with it.

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