The Shifting App Grid
The Launchpad in macOS is designed to mimic the iOS home screen, providing a grid of all your installed applications. Users often spend significant time carefully arranging these icons, placing their most-used apps on the very first page and creating specific folders for utilities or games. However, macOS has a frustrating habit of occasionally resetting this custom layout. Major system updates or simply installing a batch of new software from the App Store can sometimes trigger a background routine that automatically reorganizes your entire Launchpad, throwing all your carefully sorted apps back into strict alphabetical order across multiple random pages.
Locking Your Layout
To protect your custom arrangement and stop macOS from automatically organizing or resetting your Launchpad icons, you must restrict the system’s ability to modify the underlying Launchpad database.
macOS stores your Launchpad layout in a SQLite database file hidden deep in your user library. The only way to stop the OS from overwriting it is to lock the file itself. First, arrange your Launchpad exactly how you want it. Once it is perfect, open the Terminal application. You need to find the specific folder containing your database by typing: cd $(getconf DARWIN_USER_DIR)com.apple.dock.launchpad/db/. Press Enter. Now, you will lock the database file using the `chflags` command. Type exactly: sudo chflags uchg db (you will be prompted for your Mac password). Press Enter. The `uchg` (user change) flag locks the file so that even the operating system cannot modify it. Your Launchpad layout is now frozen. If you ever want to install a new app and have it appear, you must unlock it first by running sudo chflags nouchg db.