Missing moved apps: hide, recover or remove

Sometimes a moved app disappears from your external drive while the drive is connected. An updater may have renamed it and reinstalled it on your Mac, an update may have failed, or it may have been deleted. Storage Studio hides the broken entry so you never see a blank tile, then helps you get the app back or tidy up the link that's left. It always looks for a copy first, and it never removes anything without your click.

This only applies when the drive is connected. If the drive is simply unplugged, nothing is missing. See Moved apps when the drive is disconnected.

Step 1: Notice the banner

When a moved app is missing, it's hidden from the grid, the tabs, the Home screen and Tuhi's answers, and the Apps window shows an orange banner: An app you moved is missing from your fast drive. (or how many are). It adds: "We'll look for a copy you can restore before anything is removed."

Click Review….

Step 2: Let Storage Studio look for a copy

The Apps missing from your drive sheet lists each missing app. For each one it shows Looking for a copy of … while it searches:

• your Recycle Vault,
• your offloaded apps,
• the Trash,
• your Applications folders, and anywhere else Spotlight can find the app.

%% caption: What the missing-apps review offers for each app
flowchart TD
  A[A moved app is missing from the connected drive] --> B{Did Storage Studio make this link?}
  B -->|No| K[It stays hidden and is left alone]
  B -->|Yes| C{Is the app already installed on this Mac?}
  C -->|Yes| R[Remove the old link]
  C -->|No| D{Was a copy found?}
  D -->|Yes| E[Restore a copy, or remove the link]
  D -->|No| F[Remove the link and reinstall the app]

Step 3: Choose what to do

If the app is already installed on your Mac, perhaps under a new name, the sheet says so and the old link isn't needed. Click Remove link….

If copies were found, the sheet shows up to three, newest first, with the version and where each one is, such as "your Recycle Vault" or "the Trash". To restore one:

1. Click Restore… next to the copy you want.
2. Read the confirmation and click Restore.

A copy from the Recycle Vault, the Trash or a folder is copied back to your external drive, and the copy you chose stays where it is. A copy from your offloaded apps goes back onto your Mac. Either way, the app opens normally again.

If no copy was found, the sheet says so and suggests how to get the app back: from the App Store, with Homebrew, or from the developer's website. If the search couldn't finish, click Search again. When you're ready, click Remove link….

Removing a link

Click Remove link…, read the confirmation and click Remove link. Only the broken link on your Mac is removed. The app isn't on the drive any more, so nothing else is deleted. Storage Studio checks everything again just before it removes the link, and leaves it alone if anything changed since the search.

A link that Storage Studio didn't create isn't touched. It stays hidden from your apps, and the sheet says "This link wasn't created by Storage Studio".

Click Done to close the sheet.

Smart Care can tidy up too

Smart Care includes a step called Remove links to apps that no longer exist. It removes a link only if Storage Studio made it and either the app is installed elsewhere or a completed search found no copy. If a copy exists, it doesn't remove anything; it tells you the app can be restored, so you can review it here.

See also: Apps that update or reinstall themselves · Restoring something from the Recycle Vault · A moved app won't open