Oops. Big Newbie Error

[Kelvin]

As a new start to the Mac book pro, I did a silly thing. In dropped the Hard Drive Icon into my Apps folder. BIG error. This has caused it to unpack. I know have loads of icons in my apps folder that relate to what is on the hard drive. Have tried to drag and drop to trash can, but no luck. Can anyone help this foolish person please on how to remove them and clean up my folder.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome. Sorry we didn't get back to you sooner.

I am a little confused on what exactly you did.

-It sounds like you dragged the HD icon from the Desktop and dropped it into the Applications folder, correct?
-What do you mean by "This has caused it to unpack."?

If you did a drag-and-drop, you should see an icon of the HD with a small arrow in the lower left-hand corner:



Do you see this? If so, right-click on it and choose Get Info. If it lists Alias under Kind: you can simply drag it to the trash.

-Do you have any form of backup (Time Machine, etc.) prior to this happening? Don't delete anything until you have a backup of all your important files.
-Are there duplicates of anything in the Applications folder?
-Is the Mac running normally otherwise?

C

 

[Kelvin]

Cory,
I have taken a screenshot of the problem but do not know how to show it. Can you help. The Mac is running normally and there are no duplicates in the applications folder. The icons only show when the launchpad is opened. They are not shown in the applications folder through finder. In the finder window under all my files, there is a folder called developer. This has 142 files in it labelled.html. Is this anything to do with it.

Cheers

Kelvin

 

[Cory Cooper]

Kelvin,

Here's a link to how to attach your photo to a post:

Attatchments and Images

Developer folder - did you install Xcode or any Apple Developer software? Shouldn't have anything to do with your issue.

If issue is only with Launchpad, then we'll focus there.

We can move forward when I can see the screenshot you have.

C

 

[Kelvin]

Cory,
Have attached screen shots Hope it works. Have not installed Xcode or any Apple Developer Software. Only Launchpad is affected. The Icons labelled Untitled you see have the files in them.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Kelvin,

Since it is only Launchpad that is affected, it's not as big of a deal. You can simply ignore the extra icon folders, or we can reset/rebuild the Launchpad database. It is an actual SQLite 3.0 database stored in your User folder.

Launchpad is similar to the Dock, but it updates itself automatically as applications are added/removed from the Applications and Utilities folders. Icons in the Dock can be removed and the application itself is untouched. In Launchpad, if you remove something, it removes the application from your HD as well. When you install software, it is automatically added to Launchpad. You can only delete apps added from the App Store, by clicking and holding on icon until they all start shaking, then clicking the X in the upper left of the icon - similar to an iOS device. System files and apps installed manually from discs/DMGs cannot be removed this way.

You can reset the Launchpad itself to the default by entering a few commands into Terminal:

rm ~/Library/Application\ Support/Dock/*.db

killall Dock

This will delete the current Launchpad database, then kill the process in the system. It will then rebuild the Launchpad database the next time you open Launchpad.

As always, make sure you have a current backup before performing any troubleshooting steps provided here. If the rebuild still contains the extra untitled folders, we can explore further.

C

 

[Kelvin]

Thanks for your help Cory. That sorted it.

 

[Cory Cooper]

Excellent. Glad it worked.

C