Presumably there'll be some file on my Time Machine from which I can reinstate all the folders I'd set up for my apps on Launchpad. Since the new RRS upgrade, all my folders have disappeared.
Can anyone point me at it please?
MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.14
indyrikki wrote:
@etresoft - Thanks for looking - I'm not super techy, but have basic understanding of terminal, so yes, it would be great to be able to get to the bottom of this, and may even help others out in the future, so let me know what you reckon. Cheers.
OK. In some cases, there is a Finder method to do things. Not in this case.
The first thing is that you have to find your configuration directory. Run the following command to obtain that path:
getconf DARWIN_USER_DIR
It will print something like, "/var/folders/8p/75lrr_8s2qzbn9hdj6h16nl80000gp/0/".
Next, you'll want to copy that path to your clipboard since you don't want to try to copy it by hand.
At this point, you could use the Finder if you want. You want to navigate to that folder. In the Terminal, that would be:
cd /var/folders/8p/75lrr_8s2qzbn9hdj6h16nl80000gp/0/
Or you can do Finder > Go > Go to Folder, and paste the path in there and click the "Go" button. This will open a new Finder window. Look for the folder "com.apple.dock.launchpad". That's the one you want.
Now, that's the location of the file. However, your problem likely stems from that folder changing on you. You'll have to locate that folder in your backup. It will be in /var/folder, but there is no way to know what the rest of it will be. It may be not the same as your current folder. If you can replace your current "com.apple.dock.launchpad" folder with your backed up version, then it might restore your settings.
But replacing these files while your system is running is tricky. It might work. You'll need to restart right away and hope it works, but it might not work. Ideally, you would log out of your current account and log in to a different administrator account. Then copy that folder from the backup to that specific folder using the other account. If your normal account is logged out, then there will be no running LaunchPad app to get confused. You could do this with the "sudo ditto" command or by copying in the Finder. If you use the Finder, you'll have to make sure to change the ownership back to the original account. When it comes to permissions, there is a lot to go wrong.
Brill detective work @etresoft. I found a db folder inside the com.apple.dock.launchpad folder just like you said.
In there, are three files: db, db-shm, and db-wal
When I looked in Time Machine, all of it was in exactly the same place, so that was encouraging.
However, thinking about how launchpad works, if I install a new app, it appears outside of my folders on the front page of launchpad. Since my last back-up but prior to the software update, I think I've added a couple of apps.
So I'm worried that if I restore to the older back-up, the system might get screwed a bit, because I'll have apps in my applications folder that launchpad won't have noticed being added. This sounds to me like a way to really confuse things.
As I've started re-roedering my apps into new folders now, I think the best thing is to forget any attempt at restoring, but I next time there's a software update, I will make a copy of this db folder, then do the update, and then replace the db folder before touching anything else.
Hopefully that will ensure my launchpad arrangement and folders will stay intact.
Thanks again for your help - Apple support had me looking elsewhere for the database, and there just wasn't a file there that they said should be.
I just used this method and it worked fine. Actually, did it on the old MBPro, copied the DB to a shared drive, then replaced the DB on the new MBPro. Worked like a charm.
Which makes me wonder why @Apple would neglect to implement something so simple in iCloud, so the launchpad sync with everything else when you first login. It should just work...love throwing that back in their faces...lol.
Launchpad pulls it icons from your Applications Folder. I'd recommend you reboot into safe mode and let the system run its automatic diagnostics and then fixes what it finds wrong.
Start up your Mac in safe mode - Apple Support
If that doesn't work you can enter this into Terminal and it should restore them to the system defaults.
defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool true; killall Dock
Safe mode didn't highlight anything. All my icons are there in Launchpad - that's not the problem.
My issue is that before the security update I had organised all those icons into folders so that I could find (for instance) all my video apps in one folder, all my art apps in another, and so on.
I don't want to restore to 'system defaults' - that's exactly what the update seems to have done.
I want to return to my own arrangement of folders.
Surely this arrangement is stored as a file somewhere, and it's just a question of restoring it from Time Machine?
That's the info I need.
Unfortunately, this is not something that you would be able to find and restore with one file. You would have to restore the entire machine.
I did find this open source project designed to save and sync your LaunchPad: https://github.com/blacktop/lporg
I don't know how well it works. Normally, it is designed to work on your LaunchPad after you've reconfigured it. But it might have an indication of where the internal preferences file or database is stored.
I spent 40 minutes with support on the phone today, and the file that's supposed to be the database doesn't seem to exist on my laptop. Baffling. It's not in any time machine prior to the problem either. But if I rearrange the launchpad, the new arrangement sticks (until my next OS upgrade I guess). Support said they hadn't seen this flagged as an issue and it must be something particular to my set of apps etc. I guess we have the same issue.
I've just seen etresoft's reply below, and although I can't see any reference to the file I'm after, it does look as though if I set it all up again, I'll be able to save it with the github app and then load it back in once an updat screws it around. Will def give that a go, as I do find it useful for my workflow.
@etresoft - many thanks for this. Although I can't work out how to restore my previous layout, this github software gives me some confidence that if I spend the time to rearrange launchpad now and then save the configuration with this 3rd party app, then if it does screw up again, I will be able to restore. That's a great help, even though not the perfect solution.
I looked at the source code and I can tell you where your old LaunchPad database is located. However, it won't be easy to track down. You would need to use the Terminal both to find the old file and reset the new one. If you want to try it, I can tell you how.
@etresoft - Thanks for looking - I'm not super techy, but have basic understanding of terminal, so yes, it would be great to be able to get to the bottom of this, and may even help others out in the future, so let me know what you reckon. Cheers.
Every time I updated the OS the app icons in the launchpad moved around. I stopped trying to organize them.
I've lost all my Launchpad folders after rapid response security upgrade 13.3.1 (a)
