Introduction: In this video, we’re going to take a closer look at the Launchpad. I mentioned in an earlier video that the Launchpad is another way of opening and even organizing our Mac’s apps. Let’s take a look at the Launchpad on the Mac. Let’s go to My Mac.

Launchpad Location: Now. The Launchpad is just another application, and by default, it is located on the left side of your doc. Let’s go and open up My Applications folder. I’m going to go to the menu bar, and we’re going to go to Applications. When I open this up, you’re going to see when I get to Ls’ here; these are arranged alphabetically. You’re going to see that I have Launchpad. It’s just another application, but what this application allows us to do is organize our apps in the Launchpad as well as open and delete apps if they came from the Mac app store.

Navigating the Launchpad: Let’s go and open up the Launchpad to open it up. All I have to do is double click on this, or what I’m going to do is I’m just going to click on the Launchpad in the doc because this is usually how you’ll do it. Now, if you have an iPhone or an iPad, this is going to look very familiar. To open up any one of these apps, click on it, and it’ll open up. You’re going to see, I have a row dots here, which means I have multiple screens. I swipe over to the left, and I have more apps. If I were to keep swiping, I’d be able to see all of my apps. I’m going to go swipe back over to the first screen. If we want to search for a specific app, then what we do is we go up to the top here where it says search.

Searching for Apps: I click in here, and then I start typing, so let’s say I wanted to search for numbers. I type in here numbers, and you’re going to see I have one result. I click on it to open it up. I’m going to click on the X to clear the search.

Organizing Apps in the Launchpad: Now I can also organize these. You’re going to see that I have a folder here called Other. How did I create this folder? Just like with the iPhone and the iPad, what we need to do is we need to tap and hold on any one of the icons. I’m going to tap and hold on iTunes here, and now you’re going to see that they start jiggling. From here, what I can do is I can rearrange these or if I place it on top of another icon, if I place iTunes here on top of voice memos, what it’s going to do is it’s going to create a folder and then what I can do is I can go and name that folder. To remove an item from a folder, again, just like with the iPhone or the iPad, all we have to do is drag it out, and then that item is removed from the folder and being that there’s only one item in the folder, the folder is deleted. When we are done, we click and hold again, then it stops jiggling, and I can click on any app to open it.

Creating Folders in the Launchpad: Now when we create a folder, it does not create a folder in the actual applications folder. In other words, I have this folder here called Other. Well, let’s go and take a look at my applications folder and see if I can find that Other folder. I’m going to hit the escape key. This is one way of getting out of the Launchpad. Another way is to click outside of any one of the icons. Now, I have in the Launchpad a folder called Other. These are arranged alphabetically, and if we look here, you’re going to see I do not have a folder for Other, so when we create folders in the Launchpad such as this folder here, it only shows up in the Launchpad. It does not show up in the actual applications folder.

Deleting Apps in the Launchpad: Now, what about deleting apps? Just like with the iPhone or the iPad, I click and hold again. Then you’re going to see an X above an app. that can be deleted. Now, why can only some of these apps be deleted via the Launchpad and others not? The only apps that we can delete via the Launchpad are apps that we’ve downloaded through the app store. I’ve downloaded Garage Band through the app store so I can delete it. I downloaded Numbers through the app store so I can delete it. The Mac, by default, installed Calculator; I can’t delete it. If I installed an app outside of the app store, which we’ll talk about how you can do that in another lesson, but if I installed an app outside of the app store, I also would not be able to delete it. The only apps that we can delete are apps that we’ve installed from the app store. I’m going to click and hold, and they stopped jiggling.

That’s how we work with apps in the launch pad on the Mac.