Applications Folder

[Glenn Wolsey]

I dont like the way that Apple has my applications folder under the computer base directory instead of your home directory.

Can I safely drag the Applications folder to my home directory (where music, movies, ect) are without any trouble?

 

[grapes911]

You can usually place applications pretty much anywhere. I wouldn't put them in your home directory though. Other users will not be able to access them. What's wrong with where they are?

 

[Glenn Wolsey]

You can usually place applications pretty much anywhere. I wouldn't put them in your home directory though. Other users will not be able to access them. What's wrong with where they are?

I just like everything to be 100% organized, and i think in the home directory is more practical. I dont care about other users, I'm the only user on my Mac.

I just thought I remembered hearing that this can cause disfunction to some Apple apps?

 

[grapes911]

If a program was installed by and installer, it might cause a problem.

I think this is silly though. The home folder is for private things that don't belong to other users. Pics, Documents, Preferences, etc. Apps are supposed to have system wide access. I don't see why it isn't 100% organized already.

 

[katie ta achoo]

As it was explained to me once, when applications are auto-updating, the program that updates them usually looks in the "applications" folder, so it's better to keep them in there.

But then again, the person that told me that could be full of it.

 

[mkrishnan]

I just like everything to be 100% organized, and i think in the home directory is more practical. I dont care about other users, I'm the only user on my Mac.

I just thought I remembered hearing that this can cause disfunction to some Apple apps?

You can install new apps to your ~/Applications folder (the folder is already there), but they are only accessible to you. No other negative to doing this.

Don't move any app that came as part of the operating system, or any iLife app. If you do, you will not get automatic upgrades correctly through software update. I thought I would make sub-folders in my Apps directory when I first got an iBook, and learned the hard way. You *might* be able to fix this by removing and re-installing the programs to custom locations. But just save yourself the heartache.

If you're really OCD about organization, though, it makes a lot more sense for the apps to not be in your home directory. Your home directory's permissions are all wrong, and you create this weird system where you have a folder that's supposed to belong to root:admin under your folder. What you want seems a lot less organized and clean to me than the way Unix OSes work in general. But if it makes you happy, have at.

 

[grapes911]

As it was explained to me once, when applications are auto-updating, the program that updates them usually looks in the "applications" folder, so it's better to keep them in there.

But then again, the person that told me that could be full of it.

This is true, but I'm pretty sure software update is supposed to check the Applications folder in your home directory too.

 

[Glenn Wolsey]

You can install new apps to your ~/Applications folder (the folder is already there), but they are only accessible to you. No other negative to doing this.

Don't move any app that came as part of the operating system, or any iLife app. If you do, you will not get automatic upgrades correctly through software update. I thought I would make sub-folders in my Apps directory when I first got an iBook, and learned the hard way. You *might* be able to fix this by removing and re-installing the programs to custom locations. But just save yourself the heartache.

If you're really OCD about organization, though, it makes a lot more sense for the apps to not be in your home directory. Your home directory's permissions are all wrong, and you create this weird system where you have a folder that's supposed to belong to root:admin under your folder. What you want seems a lot less organized and clean to me than the way Unix OSes work in general. But if it makes you happy, have at.

Okay then, I will leave it where it is

 

[VanNess]

The reason the application folder resides outside of your home directory is because OS X is designed from the ground up to be a multi-user OS. Therefore, apps are available (shared) among all users, and each user, by benefit of having their own unique home directories, would have individual preferences for the shared pool of applications to taylor them as they see fit without disturbing (or changing) another user's settings.

As wisely noted in this thread, it's a bad idea to move any of Apple's applications out of the applications folder (or worse, move the entire folder), as it can cause system and or application updates to go haywire. But as the sole user of your system, you have a couple of options for managing the applications folder. One popular method is to drag the applications folder to the dock for immediate access to it (or right-click it for contextual menu access to your applications similar to the "start" menu (lol) in Windows.

Another option is to create your own applications folder (or folders) within your home directory and drag aliases of the applications you want from the applications folder to your home directory folder(s) and organize them (apps and folder structure) however you like. Then you won't even need to pay attention to the applications folder until, say, an iLife upgrade.

 

[Kernow]

Don't move any app that came as part of the operating system, or any iLife app. If you do, you will not get automatic upgrades correctly through software update. I thought I would make sub-folders in my Apps directory when I first got an iBook, and learned the hard way.

This also happened to me recently when I upgraded to iLife '06. My nice, neat folder structure caused multiple versions of the same apps to be installed with all kinds of stupid consequences. Nothing nasty, just irritating to clean up.

I would also highly recommend not moving any Apple/iLife apps out of the Applications folder.

 

[edesignuk]

I just like everything to be 100% organized

Being "100% organized" means letting the apps be where they are supposed to be, in the Applications folder It's hardly disorganized knowing that all your apps are in the same place, is it?

 

[bugfaceuk]

Being "100% organized" means letting the apps be where they are supposed to be, in the Applications folder It's hardly disorganized knowing that all your apps are in the same place, is it?

Agreed, if you would like a smaller folder with frequently used Apps in (perhaps in the Dock) why not create your own, and fill it with alias's? I do this because my Applications folder became unweildy and when apps updated they put themselves back in there anyway when I moved them (which didn't cause any other issues than the aforementioned).

The applications folder does seem like the right place to put them though ;-)

 

[BornAgainMac]

Keep the programs in Applications and use Aliases to your Home or whatever. That solves the problem.

 

[Jaffa Cake]

I thought I would make sub-folders in my Apps directory when I first got an iBook, and learned the hard way.

This is something I quickly learnt, too – I used to be quite anal about organising my apps into little sub-folders. I quickly discovered that various apps then weren't working properly, or would crash when I tried to open them – Dictionary and iSync were two of the main culprits.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.