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Third-party launchers have been a mainstay of Android that sets it apart from other mobile operating systems. To help you keep up, here are our picks for the best Android launchers you can get right now to quickly customize your device.
What We Like
Offers a novel take that’s great for users who aren’t big into apps but want a current summary of what’s going on with their device.
It allows advanced configuration for power users with integrations like Tasker.
One of the more unique launchers in this roundup, AIO turns your home screen into a vertical feed of up-to-the-minute widgets. AIO tries to give you a sense of what is going on, both with your device and with the events and communications apps and services you have plugged in, in a single glance.
For everything that is not immediately in reach on the home screen, displayed on one of the onscreen widgets, there is a universal search button hovering in the lower-right.
More than the other launchers here, AIO’s is a solidly widget-focused UI. This puts convenient features in easy reach, like a home screen calculator or timer. On top of that, it adds power user features by default, like a real-time RAM usage bar.
If AIO was simple by shoving your apps out of the way for functional widgets, Niagara is the opposite: Niagara puts your apps front and center.
Instead of a dock, your main home screen is simply the date, time, and up to eight of your most-used apps (which you pick at initialization). For all your other apps, you simply swipe down the vertically descending alphabet on the right side to bring up all the apps that start with the selected letter.
When you let go to select a letter, adjacent letters and their apps become visible, with the selected letter in the middle of the screen so you can tap the desired app.
Despite its simplicity, Niagara does give you a reasonable degree of customization. You can still set an icon pack if you want, and pick between light and dark themes. You can also decide whether to display the date or time or even the vertical alphabet (though swiping where it was still functioning as normal).
If your phone is about your apps first and foremost, this launcher is for you.
What We Like
Shutters are a truly awesome feature, and they make Action Launcher stand out.
The welcome screen walks users through notable features.
What We Don’t Like
Pushy with its Plus offering, (i.e. Leaving annoying badges on icons until you view the message advertising badge functionality on Plus.)
Plus is quite expensive at $6.99
More than almost any other launcher, Action Launcher brought gestures to the Android home screen in a big way. In that respect, it continues to forge ahead, making its mission to tackle the shortcomings of the ‘Pixel’ launcher and open the door to that experience to all devices.
Shutters are the centerpiece of Action Launcher, allowing you to swipe on an app icon on the home screen to get that app’s widget functionality (if it has some) in a pop-up window. This is really great if you have a lot of high-functionality widget options, but don’t want to dedicate pages and pages of your home screen to fit them all.
This feature, as integral as it is to the Action Launcher experience, is, sadly, only available in their “Plus” in-app purchase option.
What We Don’t Like
Sometimes you can set something that you can’t set back (like removing an app drawer for swipe drawer and not being able to re-enable the app drawer again).
Must give Nova a lot of low-level access to your device, which can be dangerous for stability and security.
Nova is a classic Android launcher that has long been known for a relatively light resource footprint and deep customization options.
As with many launchers, Nova allows custom icons and is compatible with practically every icon pack you could want to install. Its main focus, though, is customization, and it gives you plenty of them to choose from. These include basic UI elements like home screen grid size, screen edge padding size, dock look and feel, and even the page indicator behavior.
However, Nova goes much further, such as by letting you fully tweak the orientation, grid size, transparency, opening gestures, and hidden apps for the drawer. It even lets you enable a built-in night mode, which is especially helpful for older versions of Android that don’t have it integrated by default.
The final feature worth noting (though certainly not the final one you could find) is the ability to set the type and function of gestures, to a degree that is probably second only to Action Launcher.
What We Like
Gives you just enough customization on the areas that most users might want to fuss with.
Good blurring and scaling options for icon and text size (between the homescreen, dock and app drawer) let you craft a refined look.
Lawnchair Legacy is another choice that foregoes panache for a modest offering of straightforward features for users who want only minor adjustments.
In addition to the fundamentals you can expect from most of its competitors, it includes nice settings for the top Google search bar, as well as the weather and date display. Its light, dark, and black themes also afford some elegant theming possibilities.
Overall, though, Lawnchair Legacy tries not to stray too far from Android’s aesthetics and functionality, electing not to reinvent the wheel.
What We Like
Ships with a nice suite of gestures and interesting customization options, like vertical home screen paging.
The pull-out dock with quick toggles is really handy.
What We Don’t Like
Pushy with Microsoft services, including a folder of about a dozen Microsoft app icons whether you have them downloaded or not.
Animations and motion can lag a bit.
This launcher integrates Microsoft services and design considerations to give your Android device a slight Windows inflection.
Microsoft Launcher has a similar layout to the stock Android home screen, but with some extra finishing touches. First and foremost, the dock can be swiped up to reveal a second row of dock space for more apps, and some quick toggles for Bluetooth, flashlight, and other apps, as well as a brightness slider.
As is becoming more popular across Android launchers and mobile OSes in general, the left-hand page is a feed for news and personal information, such as calendar events and to-do items. This feed can be easily customized for the types of news you want to see, or to display different information in the ‘Glance’ personal feed.
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