What is your preferred Android Launcher in 2026?
4mon 15d ago by lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/lowspeedchase in asklemmy
I bought and paid for Nova Launcher like 15 years ago and it's been my go-to for that time; however, over the last year or so it's been abandoned and is a buggy mess.
What ship should I jump onto? (stock google launcher is giving me the ick)
Lawnchair
Will check it out, thank you!
Heard a lot of praise for it and tried to test it the other day, but noped right back out when just trying to create a folder in the dock was horribly buggy and repeatedly resulted in having a duplicate of one of the app icons in it showing on the home screen, weirdly overlapping the "at a glance" widget, and when I tried to fix it the folder just disappeared. Not sure if I was doing something wrong, but that wasn't very confidence inspiring. Stock Pixel 7, so it's not like I'm using a particularly unusual setup either
Sounds like my experience so you're not alone. Tried it on both a Pixel 8 Pro and P10 Pro XL. Its foundation is good, but it needs a lot of polishing.
I love KISS.
I change the settings to set swipes for common apps like browser and camera, set others as favorites like email and messaging apps, and then set it to show nothing else except the search bar. Tapping the search bar shows commonly used apps, or you can a search.
Works great for my "workflow", and leaves the "desktop" almost completely clear. Then I have the wallpaper set to the NASA astronomy picture of the day. Works great!
Awesome! will check it out, thank you for the suggestion!
A warning, it's different from a normal launcher. That's why I love it!
I love KISS for the minimalism. I even hide the favorite bar, hide icons and make the search bar transparent too, just tap bottom to bring up recent apps + fuzzy search.
I agree, KISS on minimal mode for me.
I use KISS but with the Launchy widget as well and it works great.
Interesting! Do you (or anyone) know of any similar one that's FOSS and available outside of Google Play?
Afraid not 😔. If you find anything please let me know
Same. I've been using KISS for years. It would feel weird to use anything else at this point.
Stock GrapheneOS
I used to spend a lot of time configuring different launchers (including Nova Launcher) but since I’ve switched to GrapheneOS, I’m actually quite happy with the stock launcher. It has everything I need — multiple home screens, widgets, folders. And I use App Search as dedicated search and secondary launch app that I’ve set up as digital assistant for gesture invocation.
Niagara. It's simple and clean. All I need is an app drawer and a few favorites, and that's basically what it provides.
Same here. It's very smooth. I wish there were a few other customization points, I'd rather use my own weather app than the built in one, and I do, but then end up with different forecasts as they use different sources.
Minor complaints, but still a little friction that could be solved.
They actually fixed my minor complaint which was allowing folders on the home screen so big props to Niagara for that one.
Agreed. They have steadily added new features that don't bloat the experience. It's just a little too constrained for my tastes, but the rest of the Polish makes up for it.
Same one I've been using for the past... 14 years? Smart Launcher. Great UI, and means when I get a new phone I don't need to learn a new UI :D
+1 for smart launcher. I got it back when the paid version was like 5 bucks. It's more now, but I've been very happy with it overall.
Lawnchair also looks great. I'd consider switching if Smart Launcher becomes enshittified or if Lawnchair has better features.
I like the categorization, so if I do end up switching it would probably be to QuickDraw. It was... Fine when I used it, just having to manually sort apps got tedious. SL has decent autosorting, so I switched back
I switched to Smart Launcher because it was the only one I found that mentioned being able to import my Nova backup. The transfer wasn't perfect, but extremely good.
Yeah, it was my second smart phone ever, and my first android (first was an iPhone 4s that my grandmother got me. I very much did not want it, and told her as much before she got it), so I didn't have a previous launcher. Just tried like 10 of them, and liked SL more than any of the others I'd tried. I think Nova was in that lot xD
kvaesito, I switched from nova a few months ago and I'm loving it.
I tried KISS, Niagara, etc. Kvaeasito is the one that stuck for some reason.
It's "kvaesitso" you guys
NGL, I copied the guy above me because I didn't feel like double checking. You right.
kavatitse
Kvasideeznutz 🫠
This is my choice as well. I like Niagara but the different way they do widgets I just can never get. KISS launcher is being true to its namesake, and I like most of it.
Kvaesitso is like a mixture of both to me. It doesn't have the notification style of Niagara, but it's simple in a different flavor to both Niagara and KISS.
I can get a clean home page like KISS with just a clock widget.
Swipe left and I get the app drawer with search bar focused (you can turn it off). On top of the drawer you can pin favorite apps and even shortcuts, as well as let it populate with your most used apps automatically.
Swipe up from home you get a dedicated vertically scrolling widget page. The built in default widgets are useful but it's easy to add more. Downside is the widgets only stack vertically.
I'm just a bit irritated with the gestures to open the notification panel and quick access tiles because it uses accessibility system, and that freaks my bank apps to no end.
Niagara, nice simple clean
Surprised I had to scroll this far for a Niagara recommendation. Been on it since Nova sale and it's fantastic
Niagra is the bees knees
Lawnchair. An improved Launcher3 that I use in place of Lineage's built-in launcher.
I don't really like text-only "simple" launchers as the icons help with quickly figuring out what app does what. Some of the features the AOSP Launcher3 lacks are present in Lawnchair/(mainly more customization over existing features).
I tried Lawnchair the other day and found it severely lacking.
Bought nova, too. And regret. Now it is lawnchair, with a finally good update solution through obtainium, because of their confusing alpha, beta releases.
Two votes for lawnchair, thank you.
You folks are not concerned that it requires a bible of permission s and has a google search bar (aka tracker bar).
I'm actually a single person... a solitary 'folk' if you will.
Lawnchair
I've been trying different text launchers for a while, Olauncher has been pretty stable.
Nova got sold and now it's a tracking-laiden pos. That's why is gone terrible.
Niagara at the moment. There's a lot I'd change about it but it's the best I've spent the time to learn the ins and outs of so far.
It's so good. Cuts out so much crap.
I also recommend Niagara, it's an excellent launcher
A search-focused, free and open source launcher for Android
Another Kvae user I see.
I switched to Olauncher a few years ago, and I cannot use anything else now. Works well for me.
+1. Olauncher is fantastic
I've been using OLauncher. I like the simplicity it brings to my phone experience.
Smart Launcher gang checking in. I am also a Nova Launcher refugee, and I found that Smart Launcher had similar features and ease of use.
AIO Launcher
It's something different 
Lawnchair. Can't donate to the dev hard enough.
What does a launcher do, what can a non-default one do (or not do) that warrents the effort to not just use whatever the default is?
Using a non-default launcher gives you more options to customise your home screen and any other screens off to the side.
For example, Pixels always have the Google search bar right there on the home screen, and it's not removable (or not last I checked). But what if I don't want it there? A 3rd party launcher will usually give me that option.
Or another example - some launchers allow the use of gestures to activate certain things, eg open app A, start an email in app B, call a specific contact, etc. This can be gestures on empty parts of the screen or swipes on icons.
On my phone, on which I use Total Launcher, it looks like this:
Tapping each of those 12 icons opens a folder. But I can also swipe each folder icon up, down, left or right and have certain apps or activities open without ever needing to go into the app drawer.
So, if I want to make a call, I swipe left on the communications folder (top right). If I want to open Lemmy, I swipe right on the Internet folder (blue, bottom row). If I want to open my phone settings, I swipe up on the Tools folder. And so on.
That way, I can activate 48 different things while only having 12 icons on screen, keeping it quite neat and tidy, and leaving space for my little collection of widgets at the top.
My college self would be ecstatic with Total launcher. I just don't find the joy of tweaking all the options total have nowadays
Your set up looks amazing.
Thanks! 😁
Yeah, I doubt I'd go to all the trouble if I was starting from scratch now. But this is more or less what I had back when Nova was king, and I've just replicated it because of muscle memory!
Gotcha, thanks!
No problem 👍
I used to use KISS but now I love Pie Launcher, I just wish it bugged less often (sometimes I have to kill it and restart it) and I wish we could have folders to open too.
What ever comes pre-installed on the device. I stopped caring around the time when they stopped making cool new smarphones. It has became just a tool since.
TREK: Total Interface
It's Total Launcher with an LCARS theme.
I've been using it for 4 or 5 years now across two different phones.
I absolutely despise the entire smartphone menu paradigm so this is as close as I can get to departing from it and sticking with something static that doesn't move about or spontaneously change behaviors every third update.
That's a static menu system sorted, now if I could just get my pixel 8 pro to stick to 30 minutes screen timeout after I set it once, that'd be great. It flips back to 30 seconds nearly every time I put it down and sometimes while I'm holding it.
Why isn't there a developer option for "never let the phone change settings on its own"?
I use the stock launcher because I don't care, but I would try Lawnchair too if I wanted to switch,
Personally I've not experienced any problems but that's likely because I've got an old phone with a old version of Android.
One of the tech YouTubers I like a lot did an in depth look at alternative launchers to Nova in this video.
I keep phones forever as well but like to keep them updated as long as possible (Pixel 6 is my daily driver)
The reason I bring up my phone's age is to try to explain a likely reason why I haven't experienced any bugs, at least none to my knowledge. Running the Samsung S20. Love my expandable storage and the battery still lasts decently long
I've been using Hyperion since Nova sold. I really like it, solid feature set and easy to port between phones
What is an android launcher?
Like a catapult for robots.
I also used Nova until recently. In a similar post I saw that someone mentioned Octopi Launcher, and I liked it so far. Some features that I liked in Nova are missing, but apart from that, I find it to be a good replacement for now.
TLDR: Octopi Launcher
also had nova before. same as others: switched to lawnchair. basically the same featureset (at least for the stuff I use)
I'm probably gonna get a lot of hate for this lol. I've tried quite a few launchers over the years but I'm currently using and have been using Microsoft Launcher for a few years now. There's something about it I really like. I really should go looking for another launcher...
Default oneplus launcher
I use TrinketOS for organizing and navigating apps, and Daijisho for launching most emulated games on my RP5.
I’ve used Niagara in the past and tried out Olauncher, but I’ve landed on YAM Launcher for my Boox Go Color 7 since I can set it to use my cutesy system font.hehe :3cI still use the stock Onyx Launcher for the bookshelf though. I configured it so that a swipe from left to right in YAM Launcher opens the Onyx Launcher for my bookshelf and it just feels like a book drawer, the font being consistent between launchers makes it feel really cohesive and intentional.
A trebuchet
I also switched to niagara launcher since I'm also on an old device and need something minimal. Big question though: which launcher other than nova has the most shortcut options? Not just swiping on folders, but double tapping, double tap +up etc. That's the basic thing I miss from nova.
Been using Fast Draw for a minute now. I like the simplicity and the lack of even the desire for a search bar. The only problem I have is that it can't handle a widget well, and can't handle more than one widget at all.
The default one in Lineage, since I don't use the launcher at all
Been using the Fossify suite for a while. The Fossify Launcher works well enough.
Square home 2.
I want to try Mako and Olauncher, but I'm afraid of malware and data collection. Any advice?
...Microsoft Launcher.
It does what I want, has no ads and basically is so smooth I forget I even have a custom launcher installed.
Microsoft was the only launcher I found that has the feature to swipe up on an app icon to launch a shortcut. Nova had swipe up or down that I used to launch different apps.
Smart Launcher will allow you to swipe up, down, left, and right to launch shortcuts.
The paid version will also allow you to use icons to open widgets in a pop-up.
Not sure about the latter part, but Total is another launcher allowing 4-way swiping for shortcuts. Absolute godsend.
I use Niagara. I needed something that was linear to help stave off the urge to browse.
Action launcher
Lawndesk. Its not on play store, you have to download apk from github, but it does not have a drawer.
Every app is on the desktop, i organise them into folders and have a single home page with all the apps.
i use hyperion but it keeps taking long to load my apps.
@lowspeedchase@lemmy.dbzer0.com Lawnchair since forever 💪
I find the stock Samsung launcher for one ui 3 pretty comfortable, but if I were to pick a different launcher, I’d probably just grab fossify launcher, since it’s pretty dang lightweight, especially on my old hardware.
Lawnchair
Though it is a bit buggy for me.
I use μLauncher, its a quite different foss launcher based on swipe actions. It works well for me. Check it out, its intresting.
OLauncher is great. I used Nova for a long time but I'm happy with OLauncher. It's also available on F-Droid which is pretty neat.
I don't use a launcher and haven't seen the need for one.
Agreed.
Funny that someone downvited you.
I've used Folder Organizer and Notification Toggle for so long that I have to think about how to use plain Android.
The home screen/launcher idea just doesn't work, on a phone or a PC.