How do I move my applications from /Applications to ~/Applications on MacOS

Question

simple question,

How do I move my applications from /Applications to ~/Applications?

This is on macOS Catalina

You simply hold the Command key while dragging it to ~/Applications from /Applications. — Todd, Commented May 30, 2020 at 22:02
It doesn’t let me. If I drag it creates a shortcut alias instead even when I press shift — Doz, Commented May 30, 2020 at 23:14
Are you trying to move the preinstalled Apple applications, or applications from the App store, or manually-installed applications, or what? — Gordon Davisson, Commented May 31, 2020 at 0:43
The osx daily link is a good read--thanks for posting @moab. Out of interest, can you tell us why you would want to do this? — moo, Commented May 31, 2020 at 7:08

nsx1luke · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-01 13:06:38Z

-1

Use drag and drop or terminal

Drag and drop: Open 2 finder windows one with ~/Applications and one with /Applications then drag the app.

Terminal: open terminal spotlight search terminal enter. Type cp file to move where you what the file

Done

answered Jun 1, 2020 at 13:06

nsx1luke

448 bronze badges

The question is, why would you want to do that? The /Application directory is system-wide, as it's supposed to be, because it contains the applications you installed on your Mac, but also the applications that came pre-installed (Safari, iTunes, etc...), plus Utilities, that are supposed to be in that directory, not in any user's. The ~/Application under your username isn't meant to host applications per se, just aliases, and some user-specific app-related files, that's it.
– user1019780
Commented Jun 1, 2020 at 13:42
I don’t know why.
– nsx1luke
Commented Jun 1, 2020 at 14:01
That’s right why.
– nsx1luke
Commented Jun 1, 2020 at 14:04
It's easy enough to try and check what you can do and not do in macOS when it comes to applications: you download the .dmg file for an application you'd like to install, and drag-drop its content in the ~/Applications folder instead of /Applications, and you see what happens. Some apps ask you if you want to install for the current user only or all users on your Mac; those usually require you to enter your admin password if you want to install them system-wide. Moving apps from the /Applications folder to ~/Applications doesn't make sense to me, but maybe it does to the OP, for some reason.
– user1019780
Commented Jun 1, 2020 at 14:17
I guess that could be the case
– nsx1luke
Commented Jun 1, 2020 at 14:29

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