Tidy up the Applications folder with symbolic links

Nov 27, '03 12:23:00PM

Contributed by: iMatt658

I'm a big fan of Mac OS X's ".app" package format for applications. Under OS 9, all but the simplest applications had their own folder inside the Applications folder, so getting to anything required extra clicks or extra contextual menus. These days, you can open most applications with just a double-click from the Applications folder.

There are a few notable exceptions, however, and interestingly they are mostly Apple spin-offs. AppleWorks, FileMaker Pro and the Microsoft family (we'll count Microsoft as a spin-off because Windows owes a lot to Mac OS) all hide their applications in a sub-folder of the Applications folder. The Macromedia family also follow this pattern.

Ideally, to remedy this one would simply place the application folder in /Library -> Application Support, and drag the application itself back to /Applications. However, many of these applications misplace their templates, plug-ins and support files, and the particularly iconoclastic programs (i.e. Excel, PowerPoint and Word) refuse to even start up when you do this.

To overcome the limitations in these programs, I dragged each folder over to /Library -> Application Support/, and then created symbolic links to the applications in /Applications. One could also use aliases, but if you replace the program with a new version, the symlink will still resolve to the correct file (assuming it has the same name of course).

To create symlinks from the terminal type (as an admin user):


ln -s /Library/Application\ Support/AppleWorks/AppleWorks.app/ /Applications/
ln -s /Library/Application\ Support/FileMaker\ Pro/FileMaker\ Pro.app/ /Applications/
ln -s /Library/Application\ Support/Microsoft\ Office/Microsoft\ Word/ /Applications/
etc...
Also be sure to remove any versioning information in the names before hand (e.g. a sym link to FileMaker Pro 6 won't work when you replace it with an app called FileMaker Pro 7).

[robg adds: If you use this hint, you might also wish to implement this one, which should force installers to follow your symbolic links -- in case they ever update any of these applications.]

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