Hidden Application

You can put it in your user directory. You can create an Applications directory there and conceal its contents by making read access exclusive to you.

Like this:

Code:

mkdir ~/Applications
chmod go= ~/Applications

 

You changed the permissions of the directory, not the application itself, right? This should work. Spotlight may be falling behind.

Try adding the new applications directory into System Preferences → Spotlight → Privacy for a few seconds, then pull it back out. This should cause Spotlight to remove the directory from its index and re-index it with the correct permissions.

 

Where exactly is this local applications folder? If it's in the user's directly, it won't be visible or searchable to other users. I suspect you created a folder inside the Applications folder, right? That won't work.

 

The admin account. You only want Spotlight to re-index it. When your new applications directory is properly set up, Spotlight should not reveal its contents to other accounts. Make sure that the ‘staff’ group does not show up at the bottom of the ‘Get Info’ panel in Finder and that ‘everyone’ is set to ‘no access’ (see picture, the red line should be your username).



When you view the applications directory from another account, it should have a red prohibition symbol on its folder icon.

 

That folder shouldn't be visible to other users. My guess is that you somehow messed up the permissioning on that Applications folder. The easiest way to fix that is probably to create a new folder, move your app there, and delete the messed up Applications folder.