Customise the Launchpad in Mac OS X Lion

You will need a Terminal open in order to run any of the commands below.

  1. Go to your Applications folder.
  2. Go to the Utilities folder.
  3. Double click on Terminal.

Customise what applications appear in the Launchpad:

  1. Clear all the items in Launchpad:
    1. Select all the text in the box below and press cmd + C to Copy it:
      sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db "DELETE from apps; \
      DELETE from groups WHERE title<>''; DELETE from items WHERE rowid>2;" \
      && killall Dock
    2. In the Terminal window, click Edit > Paste or press cmd + V.
    3. Press Enter. The Launchpad will now contain no applications.
  2. Go to your Applications folder.
  3. For each application you want, drag it’s icon onto the Launchpad icon in the Dock.
Reset the Launchpad to default settings:
  1. Select all the text in the box below and press cmd + C to Copy it:
    rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db
  2. In the Terminal window, click Edit > Paste or press cmd + V.
  3. Press Enter.
  4. Log out and log back in again.

7 comments

  1. @ sunny. i hope you are not still having the problem but if you are there is a system preferences preference pane you can download called ‘Launchpad-Control’ that you could use.

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