Launchy Launchpad

Launchy Launchpad is the free open-source Launchpad alternative macOS users have been waiting for. Fullscreen mode mirrors the classic Launchpad experience but adds richer controls, while Floaty Mode doubles as a HUD with fast toggles that match the new macOS design without changing the behavior you rely on. It scans your apps, caches icons, and keeps a responsive grid ready on every Space - a universal binary that runs natively on both Apple Silicon (M‑series) and Intel Macs.

ships with 40 languages built-in

🇪🇸 🇮🇹 🇩🇪 🇫🇷 🇵🇹 🇺🇦 🇷🇺 🇵🇱 🇬🇷 🇳🇱 🇸🇪 🇨🇿 🇭🇺 🇪🇸 🇫🇮 🇮🇪 Europe (16)

🇪🇸 Español (España)
🇮🇹 Italiano
🇩🇪 Deutsch
🇫🇷 Français
🇵🇹 Português (Portugal)
🇺🇦 Українська
🇷🇺 Русский
🇵🇱 Polski
🇬🇷 Ελληνικά
🇳🇱 Nederlands
🇸🇪 Svenska
🇨🇿 Čeština
🇭🇺 Magyar
🇪🇸 Català
🇫🇮 Suomi
🇮🇪 Gaeilge

🇵🇭 🇮🇳 🇮🇩 🇻🇳 🇹🇷 🇨🇳 🇯🇵 🇰🇷 🇹🇭 🇧🇩 🇵🇰 🇮🇳 🇮🇳 🇲🇾 🇲🇲 Asia (15)

🇵🇭 Filipino / Tagalog
🇮🇳 हिन्दी
🇮🇩 Bahasa Indonesia
🇻🇳 Tiếng Việt
🇹🇷 Türkçe
🇨🇳 中文（简体）
🇯🇵 日本語
🇰🇷 한국어 (대한민국)
🇹🇭 ภาษาไทย
🇧🇩 বাংলা
🇵🇰 اُردُو
🇮🇳 தமிழ்
🇮🇳 తెలుగు
🇲🇾 Bahasa Melayu
🇲🇲 မြန်မာ

🇦🇪 🇮🇷 🇹🇿 🇳🇬 🇪🇹 🇳🇬 Middle East & Africa (6)

🇦🇪 العربية (الفصحى الحديثة)
🇮🇷 فارسی
🇹🇿 Kiswahili
🇳🇬 Hausa
🇪🇹 አማርኛ
🇳🇬 Yorùbá

🇧🇷 🇲🇽 🇺🇸 Americas (3)

🇧🇷 Português (Brasil)
🇲🇽 Español (LatAm)
🇺🇸 English

Highlights

• Launchpad-level fullscreen - A fluid, edge-to-edge canvas with blur or solid backgrounds plus right-click menus for fast sorting, folder creation, and precise arrangement.
• Floaty mode & HUD toggle - Lightweight palette for quick launches; flip between floaty and fullscreen with a shortcut without losing your layout.
• Search-first launching - Type to filter instantly; Return opens the top match, arrows move selection, and the grid stays responsive.
• Fully featured grid - Scans /Applications, /System/Applications, and optional ~/Applications, caches icons, and keeps 7x5 pages ready while respecting custom names and hidden items.
• Context-aware controls - Right click any tile, folder, Dock, or menu bar icon to rename, hide, move, add/remove folders, show in Finder, or reset gaps without switching views.
• Hot corners & shortcuts - Global toggle hotkey, optional layout-switch shortcut, plus a hot corner trigger if you prefer mouse-only activation.
• Startup & presence controls - Launch at login, hide or show Dock and menu bar icons independently, and keep a menu bar status item for updates and settings.
• Universal & smooth - Native speed on Apple Silicon and Intel (no Rosetta), with icon caching to keep things silky even on huge libraries.
• Auto-updating & MIT licensed - Every build will be notarized, and the project will remain open source and free forever.
• Accessibility & localization - VoiceOver labels, contrast-friendly visuals, and wide language coverage so more people can fly through their apps.

Search that just works

• Bilingual smart match - Searches English and your system language at once; whichever name you remember just works.
• Normalized substring matching - Folds case/diacritics across names and bundle IDs, so "cafe" hits "Café" and "face" hits "FaceTime".
• Instant feedback - Light debounce + cached metadata for live results; hit Return for the top hit or arrows to pick another without leaving the field.

Gestures (touchpad or mouse)

• Swipe left/right anywhere on the HUD to change pages.
• Scroll wheel up/down for the same paging behavior (works on classic mouse wheels and Magic Mouse).
• Smooth scrolling accumulates movement; small flicks will still flip pages once they cross a threshold.
• Tap the background to close Launchy quickly.

Keyboard shortcuts

• Show / hide Launchy: configurable in Settings - set it to Shift + Space for a comfortable, launchpad-style trigger; Ctrl + X is a solid alternative if that combo isn’t already taken.
• Toggle fullscreen ⇄ floaty palette: configurable in Settings (no default)
• Launch search result: Return fires the first match without leaving the search field
• Page with arrows: left/right arrows flip between pages
• Open settings: Cmd + ,
• Direct page jumps: hold Control and tap a number key (1‑9 or 0 for page 10) to instantly switch pages while the launcher is visible
• Hotkey options: set hotkeys with letters, numbers, punctuation, arrows, function keys, keypad keys, and media keys (volume/brightness/playback), plus any combo of Cmd/Option/Shift/Ctrl. If a media key doesn’t trigger globally, our app may need Input Monitoring permission.

Quick tips

• Right-click any icon for rename, move, hide, Finder reveal, or folder shortcuts.
• Hold Shift while dragging to swap two icons without the grid reshuffling; hold Option to create a folder or drop into one without disturbing the grid.
• Floaty mode keeps the quick palette feel; assign a hotkey to jump between fullscreen and HUD instantly instead of mouse-only taps.
• Use the Visuals tab to pick standard, light blur, transparent, or solid color backgrounds (with a color palette) and decide if icons auto-fill gaps.
• Hidden Apps tab lets you include ~/Applications, mute noisy tools, or pin hidden entries to the top for quick toggling.
• Shortcuts tab sets the launcher hotkey, fullscreen ⇄ floaty toggle, and hot corner; Launchy still opens even if both Dock and menu bar icons are hidden.
• Reset the grid from Settings when you want a clean slate - custom names and hidden states stay intact - and enable Launch at Login so it’s ready after a reboot.
• Backups manual export/restore in Settings plus quiet auto-backups (max every 48h on unchanged refresh) in ~/Library/Application Support/Launchy/AutoBackup with the latest 14 kept.

License & support

• License: MIT. Use it anywhere, just keep the notice.

Website (currently there's not much to see)

Get Launchy

• Download Launchy for free and enjoy automatic updates.

Roadmap

Here are a few improvements planned for upcoming releases:

• Richer, but unobtrusive animations - smoother transitions, user input interpretation and calmer motion across fullscreen and Floaty mode.
• Plugin support - support for feature extensions and visual overlays through plugins

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