What happened to Launchpad in macOS Tahoe?
Launchpad was part of macOS for roughly 14 years. It gave every Mac a full-screen, paginated grid of application icons. You could move apps into familiar positions, create folders, dedicate pages to different types of work, and use the trackpad gesture to reach the entire library almost instantly.
In macOS 26 Tahoe, Apple replaced that system with the Apps view connected to Spotlight. The new interface can show applications by category or name and display them in a grid or list. It also integrates with the broader Spotlight system, which now searches apps, files, messages, clipboard history, actions, and more.
That is a substantial improvement for search and command-driven workflows. But it is a different interaction model.
The old Launchpad was a place you arranged. The new Apps view is a place you browse or search.
That distinction matters more than it first appears.
Why people miss the old Launchpad
When someone says, "I want Launchpad back," they usually mean more than a grid of icons.
They mean an interaction built around visual recognition and spatial memory. You may not remember the exact name of a utility you installed six months ago, but you remember that its blue icon is in the Utilities folder on the second page. You may not want to type "Adobe Lightroom Classic" every time you open it, because your hand already knows where its icon lives.
That is the part most generic launcher comparisons miss. There are several excellent ways to open an application on a Mac, but they are not interchangeable.
A search box is optimized for knowing what you want. A visual launcher is optimized for recognizing what you want.
For people with large app libraries, creative toolchains, games, development utilities, education software, audio tools, photography apps, or applications used only occasionally, visual browsing remains useful. The icon, folder, neighboring apps, and position all become retrieval cues.
The old Launchpad gave users four important things:
- a large visual overview of installed applications;
- personal organization through pages and folders;
- stable icon positions that could become muscle memory;
- fast activation through a key, Dock icon, or trackpad gesture.
To genuinely replace Launchpad, a solution needs to address more than app discovery. It needs to restore that whole loop.
Your options for replacing Launchpad
There is no single launcher that is best for every Mac user. Spotlight, Finder, Raycast, Alfred, and LaunchingPad are designed around different assumptions.
| Option | Best for | Main limitation for Launchpad users |
|---|---|---|
| Spotlight and Apps | Searching for known apps and taking actions | No personal page and folder layout like old Launchpad |
| Applications folder in the Dock | A simple built-in visual list or grid | Organization is tied to Finder and the file system |
| Raycast | Keyboard-first commands, extensions, search, and automation | Not primarily a spatial, full-screen app library |
| Alfred | Keyboard search, hotkeys, snippets, and workflows | Designed around recall and command input rather than visual layout |
| LaunchingPad | Restoring and improving the classic Launchpad workflow | Requires installing a dedicated launcher |
Option 1: Use Apple's new Apps view
The first thing to try is the replacement already built into macOS.
The Apps icon in the Dock opens the applications browsing interface in Spotlight. You can search for an app, move through the results with the keyboard, filter by category, and switch between grid and list views.
For many people, this is enough. If your normal workflow is "I know the app name, I type three letters, I press Return," Apple's built-in solution is fast and requires no additional software.
The limitation is customization.
Old Launchpad users could build pages around their own mental model. A photographer might keep Capture One, Lightroom, Photoshop, Affinity Photo, and image utilities together. A developer might have separate areas for editors, database clients, API tools, terminals, and virtual machines.
The new Apps experience organizes and surfaces applications for you. That is convenient when Apple's organization matches your own thinking, but it does not replace a personally arranged visual workspace.
Option 2: Put the Applications folder in the Dock
There is also a completely native workaround: add the Applications folder to the Dock.
macOS can display Dock folders as a fan, grid, or list, so this creates a simple visual application browser with no third-party software.
For a small app library, this may be all you need.
The problem appears when you want serious organization. Finder folders are file-system objects, not launcher-native groups. Building a personal taxonomy can mean managing folders and aliases instead of simply dragging one app icon onto another. The system works, but the organizational model is fundamentally different from Launchpad.
It is a reasonable workaround. It is not a true recreation of the old experience.
Option 3: Use Raycast or Alfred
Raycast and Alfred are powerful Mac productivity tools, and both can launch applications extremely quickly.
Raycast is built as an extensible, keyboard-first productivity launcher. It can search files, manage windows, run commands, use extensions, work with snippets, interact with calendars, and perform many other actions from a command interface.
Alfred similarly combines app and file search with hotkeys, keywords, clipboard history, snippets, web search, and extensible workflows.
These applications are excellent at what they do. But they answer a different question.
Raycast and Alfred ask: What do you want to do?
A Launchpad-style interface asks: What do you want to open?
For a keyboard-heavy power user who wants one command surface for many workflows, Raycast or Alfred may be the better choice. For someone who misses browsing a stable, visual app library with folders and pages, replacing Launchpad with a command launcher can feel like learning a new habit instead of restoring the old one.
The best Launchpad replacement: LaunchingPad
LaunchingPad takes a more direct approach. Instead of trying to turn application launching into a larger productivity platform, it focuses on rebuilding the visual launcher that disappeared from macOS and improving it where the original was limited.
The result is a full-screen application grid that you can actually make your own.
You can arrange icons into stable positions, move them across pages, drop apps together to create folders, and even create nested folders. The grid can be adjusted from a spacious 4×3 layout to a dense 10×9 arrangement, with configurable icon size and spacing.
This is the key reason LaunchingPad is the best fit for former Launchpad users: it restores spatial organization instead of asking you to replace it with a generic app search tool.
It also keeps the grid practical as your library changes: newly added apps can be highlighted, app icons are cached and refreshed after installs settle, app folders can have their own pages and sizing, wallpaper can be mirrored crisp or blurred, custom background images can separate the launcher from the desktop, and saved arrangements let you return to a known-good setup after experimenting.
1. It restores the full-screen visual model
LaunchingPad opens your app library as a large icon grid instead of a compact command palette or scrolling utility window.
That changes how you find applications. You can scan visually, remember positions, compare neighboring icons, and browse without first deciding what text to type.
For an application you open every hour, search speed may be all that matters. For the utility you use once every two months, visual recognition can be the difference between finding it immediately and trying several searches before remembering what it was called.
2. Your folders follow your workflow, not someone else's categories
Automatic categories are convenient until an app lands somewhere you would never think to look.
LaunchingPad lets you create your own organization. That means categories such as Client Work, Audio, Photo Cleanup, Writing, Travel, Finance, Utilities, Development, or Games can reflect the way you actually use your Mac.
It also supports nested folders, which the original Launchpad did not. A broad "Creative" folder can contain separate folders for Photography, Design, Video, and Audio. A Development folder can contain API Tools, Databases, Terminals, and Virtual Machines.
For larger app libraries, that is substantially more flexible than either a flat grid or a fixed set of system categories.
3. It preserves the activation methods people already know
A replacement is much easier to adopt when opening it does not require building new muscle memory.
LaunchingPad can be summoned in several ways, including a configurable global hotkey, F4, a menu bar icon, a hot corner, and a three-finger or four-finger trackpad pinch.
This matters because there is no universal best activation method.
MacBook users may prefer the trackpad. Desktop users with external keyboards may prefer F4 or a global shortcut. Pointer-driven users may prefer a hot corner. LaunchingPad lets the entry point match the hardware and habits you already have.
4. It combines visual browsing with genuinely useful search
Restoring a grid does not mean ignoring search.
LaunchingPad supports fuzzy search across app names, bundle identifiers, categories, and folder contents. You can begin typing immediately after opening it, then press Return to launch the top result.
This gives you both retrieval models in one place.
When you know exactly what you want, type. When you do not, browse.
Dedicated Recents and Most Used columns also surface applications you are likely to need without destroying the stable layout of the rest of your library.
5. It improves the parts of Launchpad that were frustrating
Nostalgia should not require recreating old limitations.
LaunchingPad adds capabilities that make maintaining a large app library easier, including nested folders, multi-select moves, undo, saved layouts, fuzzy search, configurable grid density, and the ability to import an existing Launchpad layout.
Saved layouts are particularly useful for users who change contexts. You can create different arrangements for work, creative projects, presentations, or focused environments without manually rebuilding the grid each time.
LaunchingPad also includes app-management tools. You can hide an application from the grid, reveal it in Finder, or review an uninstall operation before related files are removed. That turns the launcher into a practical place to maintain the library, not just open it.
6. It still behaves like a Mac app
A Launchpad replacement needs to feel immediate. It should appear where you are working, disappear cleanly, and stay out of the way between uses.
LaunchingPad opens on the active display and current Space, supports keyboard navigation, works with VoiceOver, respects Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency, and watches application folders so newly installed or removed apps stay in sync with the grid.
The application keeps its own layout rather than modifying Apple's database, and it is designed specifically for macOS Tahoe and later.
In practical terms, the goal is simple: the launcher should feel like part of the operating system rather than another productivity environment you need to manage.
Which Launchpad replacement should you choose?
Choose based on the habit you are actually trying to restore.
If you know app names and prefer typing, use Spotlight.
If you want a zero-install visual workaround for a modest application library, try the Applications folder in the Dock.
If you want an extensible command center for search, automation, snippets, workflows, window management, and other productivity actions, look at Raycast or Alfred.
But if what you miss is Launchpad itself, the answer is different.
You want the big visual grid. You want icons to stay where you put them. You want pages and personal folders. You want to open the launcher with a familiar key or gesture. You want to find an obscure app by sight when you cannot remember what it was called.
That is the workflow LaunchingPad is built around.
How to get the old Launchpad experience back
The easiest path is to treat Launchpad as an interaction pattern rather than a specific Apple application.
- Install LaunchingPad.
- Choose the activation method that matches your old habit, such as F4 or a trackpad pinch.
- Import your previous Launchpad layout or start with a fresh grid.
- Arrange the applications you use most often into stable positions.
- Create folders based on your own workflow rather than generic system categories.
- Adjust the grid density, icon size, and spacing for your display.
- Use fuzzy search for known apps and the visual grid for everything else.
After that, the important part is not the feature checklist. It is that launching an application can feel simple again.
Final verdict
Apple's decision to move app browsing into Spotlight makes sense for users who prefer search, automatic organization, and action-oriented workflows. Raycast and Alfred go even further for people who want a keyboard-first productivity system.
But neither approach replaces the reason many people used Launchpad in the first place.
Launchpad worked because it was visual, personal, spatial, and immediate. You opened it, recognized the thing you wanted, clicked it, and the launcher disappeared.
LaunchingPad restores that model, then extends it with nested folders, fuzzy search, Recents and Most Used columns, multiple activation methods, saved arrangements, layout import, multi-select moves, undo, and more flexible app management.
Those extensions are the reason it is more than nostalgia: LaunchingPad adds App Info, privacy and signing details, cleanup review, hidden apps, read-only Launchpad import, local layout storage, VoiceOver support, Reduce Motion and Reduce Transparency respect, keyboard navigation, and localized app controls on top of the visual grid.
For people who only need to search for an application, Spotlight is already excellent.
For people who want the old Launchpad experience back, LaunchingPad is the best and most complete answer.