Apps on my MacBook Pro

How do I find my apps on my MacBook Pro? I downloaded them, and I tried looking in LaunchPad and my dock, but do not see them.

Solution 1:

• Open Finder, press Shift-Cmd-A and look for them
• Press Cmd-Spacebar to open the Spotlight search window on top right and type (part of) the name (followed by Enter if found)

Solution 2:

The answer depends on a few variables...

Applications downloaded from the App Store on your Mac will install directly to your Applications folder. You can access your Applications folder by opening a new Finder window and locating "Applications" on the left of this window. Alternately you can access your Applications using Launchpad, either by clicking on Launchpad (circular silver icon on your Dock), pressing F4 on your keyboard or invoking Launchpad with a 4 finger pinching gesture on your trackpad.

Applications downloaded from the internet, using a web browser such as Safari or Firefox, will go to your Downloads folder by default. You can access your Downloads folder by opening a new Finder window and locating "Downloads" on the left of this window. Often applications will be downloaded as a Disk Image, a virtual disk of sorts. You can open the Disk Image by double clicking on it's icon. Once opened you will see it's contents, often the application and a "read me" text. Often installation consists of dragging the application to your Applications folder. Once the application is in your Applications folder you can then drag it to the Dock in order to create a shortcut, so you don't have to navigate to Applications every time you need the application.

Alternately, you should be able to use Spotlight (the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of your screen - command+spacebar is it's shortcut) to search for the new app. The only time I can imagine this not working is if it's downloaded as a disk image with an abbreviated name.

Hopefully that helps!

Solution 3:

Apps do not get placed in the dock when you download them from the Mac app store. They do get placed in Launchpad - so if you don't see them (especially after searching by name), then some sort of problem or corruption has arrived on your Mac.

You also could have a problem with Spotlight and need to remedy that if searching for the app in normal spotlight (or spotlight within Launchpad) can't find an app you know you downloaded.