Brandons-MacBook-Pro · 2026-09-08 · the macOS Dock at the bottom of the screen, thinned to what actually gets used
kMDItemLastUsedDate came back empty for every app in /Applications, so it
could not carry the ranking. The number in every row below is the newest modification time across
that app's ~/Library/Preferences/<bundle-id>.plist, its
Saved Application State, its Containers, its Caches, and its
HTTPStorages folder. That is a proxy for a launch log. An app that writes preferences on
a background timer will read fresher than your real usage, and an app that never writes will read
staler.Three went in the first pass for being dead or duplicated. Fourteen went for sitting idle 50 days or longer.
Red dead or duplicated icon Amber idle 100 days or more Green idle 50 to 99 days
| App | Days idle | Last signal | Reason | Path |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SoulseekQt | — | never | Broken path, the disk image is not mounted | /Volumes/SoulseekQt/SoulseekQt.app |
| Google Chrome | 5 | 2026-09-02 | Duplicate, second of three identical icons | /Applications/Google Chrome.app |
| Google Chrome | 5 | 2026-09-02 | Duplicate, third of three identical icons | /Applications/Google Chrome.app |
| SoulseekQt | 315 | 2025-10-27 | Idle | /Applications/SoulseekQt.app |
| Waves Central | 211 | 2026-02-09 | Idle | /Applications/Waves Central.app |
| Kindle | 153 | 2026-04-08 | Idle | /Applications/Amazon Kindle.app |
| Bear | 136 | 2026-04-24 | Idle | /Applications/Bear.app |
| Automator | 123 | 2026-05-07 | Idle | /System/Applications/Automator.app |
| inMusic Software Center | 111 | 2026-05-20 | Idle | /Applications/inMusic Software Center.app |
| Preview | 82 | 2026-06-18 | Idle | /System/Applications/Preview.app |
| QuickTime Player | 82 | 2026-06-18 | Idle | /System/Applications/QuickTime Player.app |
| Safari | 82 | 2026-06-18 | Idle, browsing happens in Firefox and Chrome | /System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/App/System/Applications/Safari.app |
| Phone | 80 | 2026-06-19 | Idle | /System/Applications/Phone.app |
| Notes | 74 | 2026-06-25 | Idle | /System/Applications/Notes.app |
| Screen Sharing | 73 | 2026-06-26 | Idle | /System/Applications/Utilities/Screen Sharing.app |
| Canva | 59 | 2026-07-10 | Idle | /Applications/Canva.app |
| TextEdit | 54 | 2026-07-15 | Idle | /System/Applications/TextEdit.app |
Everything below showed activity inside the last 26 days. The Downloads stack on the right side of the Dock was left alone.
| App | Days idle | Last signal | Bundle id |
|---|---|---|---|
| System Settings | 0 | 2026-09-08 | com.apple.systempreferences |
| Spotify | 0 | 2026-09-08 | com.spotify.client |
| VLC | 0 | 2026-09-07 | org.videolan.vlc |
| Messages | 0 | 2026-09-07 | com.apple.MobileSMS |
| MTGA | 0 | 2026-09-07 | com.wizards.mtga |
| Claude | 0 | 2026-09-07 | com.anthropic.claudefordesktop |
| Calendar | 0 | 2026-09-07 | com.apple.iCal |
| Epic Games Launcher | 1 | 2026-09-07 | com.epicgames.EpicGamesLauncher |
| Firefox | 1 | 2026-09-06 | org.mozilla.firefox |
| FaceTime | 2 | 2026-09-05 | com.apple.FaceTime |
| Cloudflare WARP | 3 | 2026-09-04 | com.cloudflare.1dot1dot1dot1.macos |
| Numbers | 4 | 2026-09-03 | com.apple.Numbers |
| Google Chrome | 5 | 2026-09-02 | com.google.Chrome |
| Pages | 6 | 2026-09-01 | com.apple.Pages |
| Roblox | 7 | 2026-08-31 | com.roblox.RobloxPlayer |
| Dictionary | 7 | 2026-08-31 | com.apple.Dictionary |
| Photos | 8 | 2026-08-31 | com.apple.Photos |
| Ableton Live 11 Suite | 11 | 2026-08-28 | com.ableton.live |
| Auto-Tune Central | 19 | 2026-08-19 | com.Antares.AutoTuneCentral |
| Terminal | 26 | 2026-08-13 | com.apple.Terminal |
The plist was backed up before the first edit. Restoring it puts back exactly these 17 icons, in their original order and positions: SoulseekQt (disk image), Google Chrome, Google Chrome, SoulseekQt, Waves Central, Kindle, Bear, Automator, inMusic Software Center, Preview, QuickTime Player, Safari, Phone, Notes, Screen Sharing, Canva, TextEdit. The 20 kept icons are unaffected by the restore.
cp ~/.claude/backups/dock/com.apple.dock.plist.20260908-111610.bak \ ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.dock.plist && killall cfprefsd Dock
The edit was written through CFPreferences so the preferences daemon
could not overwrite it, then the Dock was restarted. Editing the plist file directly is the way this
silently reverts.
# dry run, prints the plan and writes nothing /usr/bin/python3 ~/.claude/backups/dock/dock_prune.py --dedupe --broken --dry-run # drop dead icons and repeat entries /usr/bin/python3 ~/.claude/backups/dock/dock_prune.py --dedupe --broken # drop named icons /usr/bin/python3 ~/.claude/backups/dock/dock_prune.py --label "Safari" --label "Preview"
persistent-apps read back: 20 items apps still on disk: 17 of 17 present session_fraud_check.py --hard-only: PASS, exit 0