- Typically third party apps require admin passwords to update when in the applications folder which is a pain for non admin users.
- Sometimes it is nice to put apps in a users applications folder so other users do not have access (do not have other users games cluttering launchpad).
- Sometimes you just want to put your utilities in the utilities folder.
wanted to keep 3rd party and 1st party stuff separate.
also makes copying all installed apps to another mac a 1-second thingie
on Sequoia, it's already separated. Apps shipped as part of the OS live in /System/Applications, and stuff you install (however you do it) are in /Applications.
What’s meant to go under /Users/<username>/Applications ? If I’m the only user of the machine is there a difference between that and /Applications ?
Looks like for me the only thing is Jetbrains IDEs installed themselves there hmm.
I think for the average user it's more of a remnant of NeXTStep. It is galling that Little Snitch doesn't let you use a supported feature; but I think Apple doesn't really care about ~/Applications any more, since they "solved" it w/ the Applications and System/Applications "split".
> NeXTStep
That was 30 years ago! Why should Apple stick to a decades-long rule?
IMHO the best way to do this is to install apps in the Applications subfolder of your user directory. When you do this, Launchpad and everything else treats them as if they were installed in the /Applications folder, but it's still trivially easy to tell what you need to migrate to a new machine.