Unlike other folders, dragging apps out of /Applications create an alias. What controls this behavior? I usually install Cyberduck by dragging the .app bundle into the Applications folder on the root of my hard drive (/Applications). However, on macOS versions 10.7 Lion and newer, if I later decide to move Cyberduck to my desktop, Finder will create an alias by default, instead of actually moving the .app bundle.

By contrast, if I instead install Cyberduck to my user Applications folder (~/Applications), and later attempt to drag Cyberduck to my desktop, the .app bundle will be moved like any other file.

What makes the /Applications folder so special? Is it possible to add the same behavior to another folder, or—if SIP is disabled—to modify /Applications to behave like a normal folder?



A couple things I have already tried:


/Applications is owned by root:admin. However, sudo chown root:admin ~/Applications has no effect on dragging behavior.
Inside of a test VM, I renamed /Applications to /Applications2. The renamed Applications2 folder retained the same dragging behavior as before, suggesting that the functionality is not hard-coded to a specific path.
Sadly, the premise behind this question was flawed. I originally posted this observation:


  Inside of a test VM, I renamed /Applications to /Applications2. The renamed Applications2 folder retained the same dragging behavior as before, suggesting that the functionality is not hard-coded to a specific path.


Unfortunately, this only remains true until a restart of Finder. In other words, if I rename the /Applications to /Applications2, Applications2 will retain its special dragging behavior only until Finder is restarted! If I killall Finder, Applications2 will gain normal dragging behavior.

This also works in reverse—a user-created directory moved to /Applications will gain special dragging behavior when Finder is restarted.

So, I think it's safe to conclude that the behavior is hard coded to specific paths, and cannot be changed. I'm disappointed, but it does make sense. I do wonder if these hardcoded Finder paths are stored in a config file somewhere that could be changed... but knowing Apple, probably not.