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Tutorial to hide apps from Launchpad

L

legarejp

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 21, 2011
20
0
Montreal, Qc, Canada
UPDATE!
ChaosCoder created a prefpane that is way simpler to use than this tutorial! Check it out, it's free!
http://chaosspace.de/dev/launchpad-control-hide-apps-from-launchpad/

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Hi, I just created an account to share what I found minutes ago, how to hide "crap apps" that you don't want to see on the Mac OS X Lion Launchpad.

When the update came out in the Mac App Store, I jumped on it. Been a Mac user for 2 years now and the last update is just amazing! Only one problem though, the Launchpad shows every single application or executable that are in your Applications folder.

Only with Adobe CS5, I had a page filled with "naib"s, "Flash Player"s, "Uninstaller"s, etc. That's annoying! So i searched the web. The best solution that I found was to create a crap folder and to put it on the last page. That's not even a solution!

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So I put my gloves on and started digging the new OS. Here's my temporary solution until Apple fix that (I hope) :

1. Download SQLite Database Browser -> http://sourceforge.net/projects/sqlitebrowser/

2. Open Launchpad

3. To follow the first suggestion, put everything you don't want in a folder, and put this folder as the very last icon, in the very last page. *I'll explain later.

4. Go to Finder and press Shift+Cmd+G. It should ask you which folder you want to access, type ~/Library/Application Support/Dock. You should now see a .db file.

5. Open SQLite Database Browser and drag the .db on the dock icon. The database file should open immediately.

6. Click on Browse Data. Select groups in the drop-down menu.

7. Find the name of the folder of step 3, double click on the number(item_id) next to it and add a minus. Exp : 411 -> -411.

8. Save with the top-left icon and restart your session. The folder should be invisible now! :D
 
Last edited:
*The reason of the folder is because it's simpler to unhide after.

If you hide your apps separately, using the same " - " workaround, you'll end up with holes in your apps pages.

When you will download new apps, these holes will get filled. So then when you will unhide your apps they will try to show on already filled pages, exceeding the maximum number of apps per page thus hiding the lasts apps. These hidden apps won't show on the next page of the Launchpad cause their allocated page number hasn't been change on the Launchpad database.

TO FIX THIS: Move the first app of a page where the bug occurred to an other position and put it back at it's original place. Your hidden apps should have reappeared on the next page!
 
Nice work,so it would be easy to create a small App called Launchpad-Improver to hide items and to rearrange items too
 
For example to hide all the Adobe Uninstaller:

I've got a folder "CS5 other", there I have all the uninstaller in it.

Now you can hit in the terminal (or have a script):

> sqlite3 /Users/yourAccount/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/YourDatabaseFile.db "Update apps set item_id = -1 * item_id where title like \"%uninst%adobe%\" or title like \"%Acrobat%uninst%\";"

Don't forget

> killall Dock

and now the Uninstaller are hidden, type it again and voilà, they're shown again
 
This is disconcerting. Are you telling me that I'm going to want to jailbreak my friggin workstation like my iPhone to make it right after Lion?>:rolleyes:
 
srf4real said:
This is disconcerting. Are you telling me that I'm going to want to jailbreak my friggin workstation like my iPhone to make it right after Lion?>:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Jailbreak?:confused: Jailbreaking means to cause a security breach in the system to modify it and allow custom packages installation.

This here is simple database editing. Put simply, Launchpad stores data like a server, and we edit it.
 
legarejp said:
Jailbreak?:confused: Jailbreaking means to cause a security breach in the system to modify it and allow custom packages installation.

This here is simple database editing. Put simply, Launchpad stores data like a server, and we edit it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I used the term loosely to describe the process of tricking the OS into behaving how you want it to ui wise with customizations and preferences that Apple should have implemented in the first place...:rolleyes:

But I don't have Lion yet, I'm not knocking it I guess. "Crap apps" was my pet peeve on the iPhone and bossprefs SB fixed that with hide settings. Sounds like I may be donating money to a lot of third party devs for tweaks to Lion now tho.
 
legarejp said:
I did say that it was a temporary fix, but I don't really think Apple will release soon such features to Launchpad as it's purpose is to show every app on your mac, not only the ones you want.
Click to expand...

Ok. I'm from the space coast (area code 321 babe). When I think of Launchpad I think of the starting point when it's time to get to business.. not the time to sift through every piece of trash that clutters my computer. I would envision about four or five apps that should be in my Lunchbox i mean Launchpad. So I guess Lunchbox is the "new" Apps folder, I see.. I pray the dock is still useable and customizable?

settings: >Launchpad disable<

Sorry to be getting off topic, having fun here. Read my sig. :p
 
Don't worry, it's the same old dock and the Application folder still exist, you can hide the Launchpad icon in your dock but as Launchpad is part of the dock code, not a new app, it will still show up when you will download a new app from the Mac App Store.
 
I discovered by accident that you already can do much of this from within Launchpad itself.

1. You can move icons around to reorder them like on iPhone,

2. Clicking and holding an icon makes it "wiggle" (like on iPad) and deleting it uninstalls the app (at least with Apps downloaded from the App Store; haven't tried it with others).

3. Dragging one app icon on top of another puts them in a folder, which you can rename as you like. So you can put all the unused stuff into a single folder. Or put all your games in a single folder. Etc.

There's probably more. I just figured this out by messing with it a bit.
 
Last edited:
eba said:
2. Clicking and holding the icon makes it "wiggle" (like on iPad) and deleting it deletes the app (at least with Apps downloaded from the App Store; haven't tried
Click to expand...

That uninstalls the app too, doesnt it?

anyway, what the OP posted is just far too much work.. Much simpler to make a group like "dont use", put all the junk apps into it, and then move that group off to an empty page..
 
Tearabite said:
That uninstalls the app too, doesnt it?

anyway, what the OP posted is just far too much work.. Much simpler to make a group like "dont use", put all the junk apps into it, and then move that group off to an empty page..
Click to expand...


Right. I meant that it uninstalls the app.

Agreed on the last point. That's exactly what I did with all the Adobe trash.
 
The wiggle thing only deletes apps purchased from the app store. Third party apps you downloaded will not have the x on them to allow deletion.

OP and fiveyears, thanks for the info. One question I have, does this work for Parallels apps? I have a ton of exe files from my Windows 7 parallels install that Im not sure how I would code in the DB. Same method? I should just try it! LOL
 
ChaosCoder said:
I developed a small app which allows you to hide/unhide the apps (or groups) from Launchpad. It's called Launchpad-Control.

Check it out - it's free:
http://chaosspace.de/dev/launchpad-control-hide-apps-from-launchpad/
(Screenshots and other info on that site)
Click to expand...

This is the best user created app for Lion I've seen so far! I already had all my apps grouped up and it was so quick and easy to just get rid of an entire group. My Launchpad looks much 'cleaner' now.

Now we just need one to rearrange the desktops in mission control and a way to rename them.
 
ChaosCoder said:
I developed a small app which allows you to hide/unhide the apps (or groups) from Launchpad. It's called Launchpad-Control.
Click to expand...

I don't know which method you used to write that prefpane, probably something pretty close to what i posted :), but it works perfectly and I thank you a lot!

I'm going to update the first post of this thread with a link to your site if you don't care!

By the way, you get the same bug I explained in my tutorial. If you hide something on a Launchpad page, fill the page and then unhide, the last items will disappear and won't rearrange on the next page until you force the .db update by moving an app on that page.
 
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