Duplicate application folders

When opening Apps folder, I find a duplicate of Apps and an Apps 2 folder. When I look in finder I find an endless string. Is there a reason for the duplication of folders? Id do a file search for an app name and only find 1 instance of it. Confused
2011 MBP, OSX, single user

Note that all the extra Applications folders are "aliases" (aka "shortcuts"), as signified by the little arrow on the icon. How this happened, I cannot say. But if this happened to me I would be comfortable deleting the aliases - the ones with the arrows - at the highest level of your real Applications folder. That should take care of things.

Similar Messages

Why the duplicate Applications folders and which one(s) can I trash?

I've tried to disregard the duplicate Applications folders on my HD and double Mail programs in my dock but would like to trash any I don't need (I'm the only user of my machine). I see that there's an Applications folder in my HD icon (under "Devices"); an Applications folder in my Finder window (under "Places"), and an Applications folder accessible by clicking on my name in the Finder window (also under "Places"). Although it appears there are 3 Applications folders / Mail programs, a search in Finder suggests there are actually 2: one is traceable to HD (hard disk); the other is traceable to my name. Which of these is "safe" to trash? (I don't understand why my Finder must contain two Applications folders--frequently resulting in the appearance of duplicate Mail programs in my dock. Any clarification/suggestions appreciated. Cap

Thanks. That helps me with the concept, and I see that there can only be one "real" Applications folder which is under Devices and labeled Macintosh HD. Perhaps what I'm trying to say is that the below that, in the Places area, the programs in the "Applications" of my "Home Folder" (the little house followed by my name) don't agree with the programs in the "Applications" folder right underneath it. The latter Applications Folder agrees with the one on my Hard Drive, it has the new iTunes program, etc. whereas the programs in the Applications Folder of my Home Folder are different (the old iTunes program, etc.). I guess I'm saying that the Applications Folders of my Hard Drive and of my Home Folder are at odds. I'm simply going to try following your idea--drag the Applications Folder from my Home Folder onto the desktop, replace it with the Applications Folder from my Hard Drive, then go through the eternity of trashing the old Home Folder Applications Folder
that will by now be copied on my Desktop. (Wish I new of a faster way of trashing the many programs.) I'll let you know if it works. Thanks again, Cap

New iMac seems to have duplicate, nested Application folders

My new iMac (Lion) seems to have duplicate Applications folders nested inside one another. Can I delete them, keeping only the original Application folder? I used the Migration Assistant to migrate my apps from my previous iMac to this new iMac.

I called Apple Support and they advised I simple trash the duplicates. So I dragged the first duplicate to the trash, emptied it, and all is well.
Thanks!

2 Application Folders

I migrated all of the data from my school owned ibook (g4, 1.2 Ghz) to an ibook that I purchased and I currently have two application folders. One is located under the "Macintosh HD" tab on my sidebar, and the second is located under my "user" tab. The App folder under the user tab contains the "generic" applications from Apple (for the most part) - address book, safari, automator, utilities ect. Applications that I have added to my computer are listed under the Macintosh HD tab (whenever I download a program it seeks out and finds the Application folder under Macintosh HD.
There is a subfolder for "user" which contains a Library folder.
There is a subfolder listed under "Mac HD" which is labeled Library as well as one labeled System. Under that System folder is another folder labeled Library.
My question is:
Should I consolidate those Application folders and library folders? Are they taking up additional space? Would there be duplicate data in those library folders?
Thanks in advance for the help.
ibook g4 Mac OS X (10.4.7)

The applications in /Applications are the applications that are available to ALL users. The applications folder in your Home folder are applications that are available only to YOU.
The Application folder in your (~)Home folder is not necessary. You can move any apps that are not duplicated in /Applications to that /Applications folder and do away with the ~/Applications folder. Just be sure you don't overwrite any newer apps with older ones.
Also best to backup that ~/Applications folder before you start.
EDIT: Don't touch the ~/Library folder. Or any other Library folder.
-mj
[email protected]
Message was edited by: macjack

Duplicate Applications?

I know this has been addressed but I'm hoping to finally get this straight in my head: I seem to have two sets of my applications. One set is in my Home in an applications folder and the other set is in Applications (in the "Places"). I suspect this happened when I did a re-install /archive of Leopard. When I do a "Spotlight" search, Spotlight shows me two of whatever application I'm searching for. Is it safe to get rid of the applications folder in my Home location? Thanks in advance~ Karen

There are normally two separate Applications folders on your Mac. The primary folder is located Mac HD/Applications and contains all of the original apps that came with your Mac, plus any which you may have installed yourself over time. This folder is available to all user accounts that you create on your Mac, with any restrictions which you may apply when you create the accounts. The second is Mac HD/Users/~user/Applications. This folder of apps is only available to the user in whose account it appears.
If you find the apps from Mac HD/Users/~user/Applications is a duplicate of everything in Mac HD/Applications, then I would select all of the duplicate apps in Mac HD/Users/~user/Applications, drag & drop them in the Trash and empty the Trash. Leave the actual Applications folder in your user account, it belongs there.
This should free up many gigs of HD space for you.

I have multiple application folders for some reason

Hi,
I have recently upgraded to lion, and i noticed i had duplicate applications. When i looked on my search bar under the title 'applications' six different application folders were seen is this normal?

I have the same problem - I've had it several times since I bought an iMac (27" solid state hard drive) in summer last year.I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. At one point I had Application folders nested to four levels!
These are NOT aliases - I only discovered the problem when my hard drive was running out of space!
I have certainly not done anything to cause this to happen (I am a very experienced Mac user).
Deleting the nested folders has had no ill effects (although I did have problems with emptying the Trash for a while).
Not really a problem, except in that it might be symptomatic of something seriously wrong with the system.

Stranger than fiction - Two application folders, one within the other

I have two application folders, one inside the other.
Can I just delete the one inside the other one of my application folders? I've never seen Tiger do this. I didn't do it so it had to be Tiger software. All the same applications are in both.
Thanks.

First, I'd boot from the Install CD/DVD then after you choose your language, a Menubar will show up top, find Disk Utility and run it from there to verify/Repair the HD.
Might even want to Right Click on it and Archive before trashing, but with duplicate APPs in there... this might be a sign of real trouble on the horizon.
Be absolutely certain to fix the Disk problem ASAP, I don't think there really are two of everything, just one with 2 lists or pointers !

Triplicate Applications Folders

Hello all, I did a search on this with no prevail.
For some unknown reason I have triplicate applications folders. They exist both in Macintosh HD and the separate "Applications" folder in file manager.
Here are two pictures of what is stated above...
What is the best way to "cut the fat" here? ...so to speak.
thanks in advance...
MZ
btw, 500 gig HD

All your default Apple apps should be in the top-level /Applications folder, and should not be moved.
Most other apps should be placed there, too, so all users can access them.
You may also have an Applications folder in one or more User home folders. If you do, only that particular user can use it.
It looks like you've copied an entire Applications folder inside another one, and a smaller one inside that.
Sorting that all out will not be easy, but most likely you can delete the duplicates in the lower-level folders; for example, many of the ones in the second column are also in the first. The ones in the first column are probably the most current, as that's where Apple's installer expects them to be, so you can delete the ones in the second column.
What you may want to do, however, is create a new folder, in your home folder rather than in Applications. Instead of deleting the duplicate apps, move them there temporarily. Once you've got everything in the 2nd and 3rd columns moved either there or to the main Applications folder, and the two empty ones deleted, burn the temporary folder to a DVD and delete it.
If you find you've deleted something you needed, you can recover it from the DVD.

I would like to duplicate the folders and apps that I have set up on my iPhone to my iPad. Is there a quick way of doing this without going through the whole process again manually?

I would like to duplicate the folders and apps that I have set up on my iPhone to my iPad. Is there a quick way of doing this without going through the whole process again manually?

You can restore your iPad with your iPhone backup but items that are iPhone only will not transfer. It should recreate all your folders. It can't hurt anything to try.

How do I remove duplicate applications after installing Tiger 10.7.2?

After installing Lion 10.7.2 I have ten duplicate applications, all are applications that are generally included in MAC software (ie DVD playe, iChat, iTunes, Mail, etc.). How do I remove the duplicates? I tried deleting one from the folder where I generally kept it, then replaced it with the newer version that loaded with 10.7.2. However, that created a duplicate again.

Hi,
I can (somewhat) speak for iChat.
iChat should always be kept in the Applications folder - so much so that it should not be put in any sub folder (I have heard of people putting it in an IM apps folder or lumping all Apple Apps in one folder).
This unfortunately causes problems in Updating (iChat gets updated from time to time in OS Updates) and in Upgrades (Such as moving to Lion) as the Apps are not "in the right place".
Does this help ?
8:41 PM Friday; November 25, 2011
Please, if posting Logs, do not post any Log info after the line "Binary Images for iChat"
 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Lion 10.7.2)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
"Limit the Logs to the Bits above Binary Images."  No, Seriously

Duplicate Application Diagnostics responsibilities appearing R12.1.3

Hi ,
Duplicate Application Diagnostics responsibilities appearing in R12.1.3 when switching from responsibility to other.
Regards,
Kavitha

I have navigated to Security- Responsibility-Define -Application Diagnostics form then quered for Application Diagnostics responsiblity.
Under Indirect Responsibility, I could see couple of rows with Application Diagnostics .Do not look under "Indirect Responsibility", just use the down arrow button to see if you have one responsibility or more.
Verify now if I run Workflow Directory Services User/Role Validation as per the note 418765.1 case 1 for Fix Dangling User/Roles , will it fix the issueYou could submit it twice (pass both parameters) and check then.
Thanks,
Hussein

Two Library and Application Folders

I have two library and application folders. one is under my mac os x drive and the other is under my home folder. i was wondering if i can combine them so they are only under my home folder.
peAce,
Matt

Leave the Library folders alone: they are there for a reason (items in the hard disk>Library folder are available to all users). However you can shift the items in the Applications folder in your Home directory to the main Applications folder on the hard disk - the only reason for having applications in your Home folder is to deny their use to another user. Don't do anything to the main Applications folder - apart from adding things to it - it's important that Apple programs such as iPhoto should reside in it.

Multiple application folders?

In preparation for installing Lion I thought I should get rid of the multiple applications folders. How do you do this?

I have the same problem - I've had it several times since I bought an iMac (27" solid state hard drive) in summer last year.I'm running Snow Leopard 10.6.8. At one point I had Application folders nested to four levels!
These are NOT aliases - I only discovered the problem when my hard drive was running out of space!
I have certainly not done anything to cause this to happen (I am a very experienced Mac user).
Deleting the nested folders has had no ill effects (although I did have problems with emptying the Trash for a while).
Not really a problem, except in that it might be symptomatic of something seriously wrong with the system.

Combined application folders on Mountain Lion?

Let me start this by saying I understand there are 2 Applications folders, only wish I had known that before. I tried to combine the two (how? don't know) and when I search for an application in spotlight, this is what happens.
The blurred out part is my home folder (which is my name). There is a copy of the application in both a folder on Macintosh HD and my home folder. Today when I was cleaning up applications, I was deleting them through the Application folder on the Sidebar Finder, but searching for them in Spotlight reveals that they are still there, in the other folder.
How exactly do I go about fixing this! Thank you!

Just wanted to add — all of my applications will launch fine from either folder. But, they show up as different applications (and show the same data within).

Application Folders

Hello!
I just purchased a new MacBook Pro. I used migration assistant to transfer my files/applications over from my old MacBook Pro and everything seems to be there except there are two things I can't figure out...
1. On my "Downloads" stack, the last thing I downloaded (a picture) isn't on my new Mac, but every other download is. At first, the new Mac was set to sort by date added and only showed very old downloads. I then set it to date created and that fixed eveything except for the one item that's missing. NOTE: My old Mac is set to sort by date added, so why isn't everything showing properly on my new Mac?
2. My Microsoft Office 2008 folder on the dock looks like a normal folder (blue) instead of the customized yellow one like on my old Mac. The same goes for my other applications folders such as Photoshop, InDesign, etc. They all have the generic blue folder instead of the folder that is specific to them.
Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!
James

http://support.novell.com/docs/Tids/.../10070115.html
Jakub Gorecki wrote:
> Guys,
> Does anyone know a reason for the application folders in start menu on WinXP SP2, to have a GUID number after their name. For example, a folder named "Web applications" appears as "Web Applications(XXXX-xxxx-xxxxxx-) , whcih lookks like its GUID number....
>
> Please advise. Thank YOu.

Duplicate application folders

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