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How do I remove widgets from Dashboard in Mac OS X Tiger?

So sorry to ask what is I am sure a pretty dumb question, but I have downloaded widgets for my Mac OS X Tiger which don't really work in the part of world that I am (India). e.g. i can't send smses from the sms sender as no carrier here is supported. Now I want to know how to get rid of them, and the 'manage widgets' widget seems to be missing.


Dave's Answer:

I have to admit, after being pretty impressed by all the innovations that were promised with Dashboard when Tiger was released onto the world, I actually don't find that I use Dashboard at all, unless I accidentally press the f12 key on my keyboard.

Nonetheless, like you and probably like lots of other folk, I do find that I sporadically download and install new widgets because they're fun, amusing, or ostensibly useful.

Every so often, though, it's time to clean things up, and to do that in Dashboard you need to launch Dashboard, then click on the "X" in the lower left corner of your screen. It'll then push everything up and present the launch strip of widgets. More importantly, adjacent to the "X" should be a new link "Manage Widgets":

Dashboard Manage Widgets

If you don't have that link, I'd be quite puzzled: I'm pretty sure it's built in to the Dashboard system itself. However, let me step through the usual way of managing widgets, then we'll come back to that issue, okay?

Once you have the Widget Manager running, it's easy to remove any specific widgets you don't want to have running in the Dashboard environment:

Dashboard Widget Manager

You'll notice that some have a red circle icon with a line through it: if you click on that icon you can physically remove the widget from your computer entirely, as shown here:

Dashboard: Delete Widget

Unchecking a widget just means that it's still on your system, but isn't launched automatically when you bring up Dashboard in the future.

If you can't get Widget Manager to work, then you can always delete widgets manually by going to either /Library/Widgets (for those widgets installed for all system users) or /Users/yourAcctName/Library/Widgets (for those installed just for yourself). It's pretty easily understood, I think:

$ ls /Library/Widgets
Address Book.wdgt       Phone Book.wdgt         Translation.wdgt
Calculator.wdgt Stickies.wdgt Unit Converter.wdgt
Calendar.wdgt Stocks.wdgt Weather.wdgt
Dictionary.wdgt Symantec Alerts.wdgt World Clock.wdgt
Flight Tracker.wdgt Tile Game.wdgt iTunes.wdgt

Fairly straightforward, all in all.

Hope that helps you out!



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Comments

It was useful for me! Thanks. I had just the same problem and had nt seen yet the big X!!
Thanks

Hugo

Posted by: Hugo Oliveira at March 12, 2006 6:30 PM

Thanks for the information...as a new OS X user, this too had me stumped.

Posted by: Cath at November 6, 2006 1:04 PM

How to remove widgets fro my dashboard

Posted by: Helen Makarenkova at February 25, 2008 9:59 PM

Love your site. Got any idea how I can actually make the "To Do" dashboard widget work, once I download it? It just sits there and won't let me write on it.

Thanks.

Posted by: Anne at March 18, 2008 10:51 AM

Thanks for your advice Dave. I was having a lot of trouble finding and deleting widgets I didnt want, and I couldnt find any useful info online, as most websites had convoluted instructions that didnt make much sense. Your instructions were concise and easy to follow.

Posted by: J at September 3, 2008 6:38 PM

I DRAGGED MY WIDGETS OFF OF MY MAC AND I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PUT IT BACK.

PLEASE HELP ME,
MARK

Posted by: Mark McDonough at October 31, 2008 9:22 PM

Actually u can remove even the widgets which came as defaults, which u havent downloaded urself,simple type widgets in spotlight and you will get the widgets folder, open the folder and right click on the widget and move it to trash and voila ur done :)

Posted by: Swaroop at May 18, 2009 4:12 PM

In the Widget Manager, in your example, some of the icons have a red circle icon with a line through it, and others don't. The reason is that the Widgets that are installed in /Library/Widgets (for all system users) do not have the red circle icon, but those that are in /Users/yourAcctName/Library/Widgets do have it. Of course, they can be moved from one folder to the other.

Posted by: w.gallagher at June 18, 2009 4:01 AM

I have a lot to say, but ...
Starbucks coffee cup I have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but most of all I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a chai!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!









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