I had a bunch of old applications/games that I could not remove. In my case ~/.local/share/applications
also contained folders and subfolders!
~/.local/share/applications$ tree
.
├── gog_com-Streets_of_Rage_4_1.desktop
├── mimeapps.list
├── mimeinfo.cache
├── vlc_1_5.desktop
├── vlc_2_0.desktop
├── wine
│ └── Programs
│ ├── Diablo [GOG.com]
│ │ ├── Diablo.desktop
│ │ ├── Documents
│ │ │ └── Manual.desktop
│ │ └── Uninstall Diablo.desktop
│ ├── Sacred Gold [GOG.com]
│ │ ├── Dedicated Game Server.desktop
│ │ ├── Documents
│ │ │ ├── Map.desktop
│ │ │ ├── Quickstart.desktop
│ │ │ ├── Readme.desktop
│ │ │ └── Руководство.desktop
│ │ ├── Sacred Gold.desktop
│ │ ├── Settings.desktop
│ │ └── Uninstall Sacred Gold.desktop
│ └── SADPTool
│ ├── SADPTool.desktop
│ └── Uninstall SADPTool.desktop
├── wine-extension-chm.desktop
├── wine-extension-hlp.desktop
├── wine-extension-msp.desktop
└── wine-extension-vbs.desktop
So I had to remove *.desktop
files in subfolders also.