Icons for Facetime and the App Store keep re-appearing in the dock after a restart. How to get rid of them

docksnow leopard

I’m running Mac OS X 10.6.8. I like my dock to contain only running apps, so I’ve removed all other icons from there (by clicking and dragging them out of the dock).

However, every time I restart my computer, the icons for Facetime and the App Store re-appear in the dock, even though the apps aren’t running.

How can I remove them from the dock permanently?

Best Answer

Go to /Library/Preferences (root library, not ~) and locate the file com.apple.dockfixup.plist. Open the file with an application like Dashcode or Textwrangler. Locate the following part under the 10.6.6 section:

    <array>
            <dict>
                    <key>path</key>
                    <string>/Applications/App Store.app</string>
                    <key>after</key>
                    <string>begin</string>
            </dict>
            <dict>
                    <key>after</key>
                    <string>/Applications/Safari.app</string>
                    <key>path</key>
                    <string>/Applications/FaceTime.app</string>
            </dict>
    </array>

Delete that section and then save the file (make sure you keep a backup of the original), then either log out and back in, or try killall Dock.

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