Applications Missing From Apps Folder

[schmadrian]

Hello.

A preface: I believe I have been the victim of ransomeware.

My Applications folder is 'empty', save for a Chrome app folder.

If I do a Search for an application and then double-click on the folder icon, I get the Applications showing up.

Has anyone experienced this? And if so, how did you make everything right again?


A/

P.S. The apps are also absent when I do a Disk Inventory X scan

iMac Late 2012, 8Gb RAM, 2.7 Ghz running 10.13.6,

 

[Cory Cooper]

Hello and welcome.

Sounds like you may be looking in the Applications folder in your Home folder. In Finder, try clicking Go > Applications in the menu bar and see if the applications come up in that window.

C

 

[schmadrian]

Thank you so much for replying.

It's been a strange day. I spent an hour with an Apple service person to sort out what I assumed was a ransomware issue that showed up as this issue. In the end, we got it all cleared up...but I noticed later on in the day that we'd ended up with aliases in the Applications folder.

So your suggestion actually added the final touch; all is now well.

(I would like to praise Apple for having such great technicians/service personnel. I've been an Apple user for a quarter-century now, and as I mentioned to the fella helping me, in all this time, and over an assortment of desktop units -from a Macintosh Plus through an LCIII to several iterations of iMac- to laptops -1400c to a PowerBook G3 through to several MBPs- I've had to yell for help less than ten times. But when I have, they've always come through.)