macOS Tahoe Transforms Launchpad Into App Library

[GlassFingers]

This is SO HORRIBLE -- please Apple, bring back LaunchPad! I need LaunchPad for custom groups of applications for different work modes I'm in. If I want to livestream (for example), and I don't remember the names of all those related apps... I just go to LaunchPad with 4-finger gesture, open the LiveStreaming folder... and by MUSCLE MEMORY see and click on the necessary app.

Whereas using Spotlight Search requires you to REMEMBER the name of the app you want to launch! But if you have TONS of apps... sometimes it's quite hard to remember that one app you rarely use, but when you need it it's extremely helpful.

Apple: just because you have shiny new Spotlight Search features.... why do you need to remove LaunchPad??? Is it really taking such a tremendous amount of developer resources to keep it around? (It provides a different functionality that Spotlight Search does not!)

 

[Mwschaf]

The new App Launcher or App Library, whatever it’s being called, is completely useless. The search feature can’t find apps including Apples own Apps and Applications. Apples software developers are no longer competent enough to write quality code. A frequent occurrence with Apple software the last few years. Apple might be smart to farm their software development out to Microsoft.

 

[adib]

And…of course, just like on iOS/iPadOS, you still cannot re-categorise the apps, right?

By the way, that surface is grey and opaque. What about liquid glass?

You can create your own folders of app aliases and categorize your apps this way. Or create sub-folders in `/Applications` and move the apps into the appropriate sub-folder category.

 

[Populus]

You can create your own folders of app aliases and categorize your apps this way. Or create sub-folders in `/Applications` and move the apps into the appropriate sub-folder category.

But that does translate to the Spotlight-integrated substitute for Launchpad, A.K.A. App Library? Or is a different method? Ideally I’d like to have Launchpad back, but if that’s not possible then, having the apps well organized in this App Library would be fine. But not organized like Apple thinks they should, but rather how I think they should.

It’s been three or four years since the introduction of App Library on iOS and they still don’t allow us to put the apps where we think they belong, or create the categories we want, I mean, c’mon! Someone has to tell them.

If the solution you’re proposing is going back to Snow Leopard having the apps on a folder on the dock, I’ll pass… And I shouldn’t need to create aliases to have an easy access to my apps. It wasn’t necessary before Tahoe, and it shouldn’t be now.

 

[Mwschaf]

But that does translate to the Spotlight-integrated substitute for Launchpad, A.K.A. App Library? Or is a different method? Ideally I’d like to have Launchpad back, but if that’s not possible then, having the apps well organized in this App Library would be fine. But not organized like Apple thinks they should, but rather how I think they should.

It’s been three or four years since the introduction of App Library on iOS and they still don’t allow us to put the apps where we think they belong, or create the categories we want, I mean, c’mon! Someone has to tell them.

If the solution you’re proposing is going back to Snow Leopard having the apps on a folder on the dock, I’ll pass… And I shouldn’t need to create aliases to have an easy access to my apps. It wasn’t necessary before Tahoe, and it shouldn’t be now.

bottom line Mac users no longer have a convenient way to organise and launch apps and applications. The suggestions offered in this forum are stupid and useless.

 

[thebart]

I have lousy vision. I like the huge icons of launch pad, using up my entire screen. I don't want small icons in a 2/3 window

With all the junk apps they include with Mac OS that I never use and can't delete, they should've kept this one.

 

[throAU]

do i like this?
no, not really

is it the end of the world and worthy of hysteria? also no

 

[HDFan]

Send feedback to Apple!

This is what I said in mine (slightly edited ):

Please restore LaunchPad!

I am finding/invoking applications every few minutes or so. Easy to do in LaunchPad using my mouse button, impossible with the Applications library.

I have 300 Applications which I had organized in LaunchPad into useable folder subcategories - books, databases, devices, disk utilities, file utilities, games, llm, media capture, Microsoft/parallels, music/audio, network, office apps/productivity, photography, utilities, video, weather, etc. The new Applications interface groups such as utilities group them all together so Disk utilities are grouped with network utilities, video utilities, weather, Safari extensions, etc.

I have multiple cloud backup apps. Can’t find them in any of the categories other than “all”. Roon is not listed in the Music category. Audio Tools is classified as music but it is a utility, not a music player.

Besides being impossible to find my applications ... having to invoke spotlight and then use a command key is far harder to use than just using the launchpad button which I had configured on my Logitech MX Master 3. The categories are not alphabetical so I have so scroll through 70 or more icons to find something.

When you bring it up if you click anywhere else on the screen the display disappears. I have had to do the “open spotlight/command 1” >30 times in order to write this feedback

This change is a major setback in usability. I now have to go to the applications folder and hope that I can remember the name of a program to perform a function. ... By putting applications in LaunchPad folders according to function I could easily find things, and discover applications that I had forgotten that I had installed. Now that is impossible.

Luckily I have LaunchPad manager installed (did remember its name luckily so I could find it in my applications folder) so I can bring it up to find programs. As I am continually adding/removing programs this will become less useful as time goes on.

Here is what came up when I hit the LaunchPad button on my mouse:

 

[nmeed]

I am shocked at the terrible animation. The launchpad animation has been buttery smooth since the jump. But man this one is hit or miss. Sometimes it's smooth and sometimes it kind of....glitches? Stutter? Flash? You can tell the launchpad animation was programmed ages ago and the new one recent because of the quality, or lack thereof.

 

[djplong]

This is god-awful. I was hoping it wouldn't be as bad as the beta users said it was. And it was worse. Let me count the ways. (Full disclosure, the 'upgrade' from launchpad to "Apps" worked perfectly on my MacBook Pro but not on my Mac Studio. I suspect it is because, on my Mac Studio, I had the audacity to purchase a 4TB drive and Thunderbolt enclosure and save a matrix ton of money putting my /home folder on that drive). So:

- It's small.
- It's not resizable.
- The apps are in alphabetical order.
- You can't change the order.
- You can't make folders.
- You wither have to start typing your *app name* (if you remember it)
- ..or you have to "scroll and hunt".
- You're never quite sure if your app is missing or you just couldn't find it. In Launchpad, I knew Visual Studio and Xcode and all similar apps were in my "Development" folder and if they weren't I knew something was wrong.

And don't get me started on the "Games" app where my games have to compete with what amounts to advertisement instead of me just having a folder called "Games"

 

[johnprogrammer]

I am a new Mac user. Launchpad was an interesting program, having all graphical programs in one place.

It reminded me GNOME on Linux.

The new "Apps.app" is a mess. It also requires to have "Applications" in Finder open.

 

[jaygaret]

This is god-awful. I was hoping it wouldn't be as bad as the beta users said it was. And it was worse. Let me count the ways. (Full disclosure, the 'upgrade' from launchpad to "Apps" worked perfectly on my MacBook Pro but not on my Mac Studio. I suspect it is because, on my Mac Studio, I had the audacity to purchase a 4TB drive and Thunderbolt enclosure and save a matrix ton of money putting my /home folder on that drive). So:

- It's small.
- It's not resizable.
- The apps are in alphabetical order.
- You can't change the order.
- You can't make folders.
- You wither have to start typing your *app name* (if you remember it)
- ..or you have to "scroll and hunt".
- You're never quite sure if your app is missing or you just couldn't find it. In Launchpad, I knew Visual Studio and Xcode and all similar apps were in my "Development" folder and if they weren't I knew something was wrong.

And don't get me started on the "Games" app where my games have to compete with what amounts to advertisement instead of me just having a folder called "Games"

And when people forget in a few years that Launchpad ever existed, they will start adding all the missing features that you mention as new ones

 

[nmeed]

Is it just me or is the animation when you open it sometimes glitchy?

 

[Kal Madda]

macOS Tahoe does away with the Launchpad feature that's designed to show you all of the apps on your Mac, instead replacing it with a new "Applications" interface that's similar to the App Library on the iPhone and iPad.

The Applications interface organizes apps by category, like Utilities, Productivity and Finance, Social, Creativity, Information and Reading, Entertainment, and Other. There's also a Suggested section at the top of the interface.

The Launchpad replacement appears to be part of Apple's big Spotlight overhaul, and it can also be used to access Actions, Files, and Clipboard, with quick access keyboard shortcuts. Apple calls these "Browse Modes."

• Command + 1 opens up Applications.
  
• Command + 2 opens Files.
  
• Command + 3 opens Actions.
  
• Command + 4 opens Clipboard.

Actions are what you can do from the new version of Spotlight, and there are options ranging from sending a message to starting a timer. Clipboard brings up your clipboard history, including images you've copied and things you've pasted.

By default, the Applications interface shows your apps in a tiled view organized by category, but there are other options. You can choose a list view that's either organized by category or by app name, or you can use the alphabetical option in a tiled view.

macOS Tahoe and the revamped Applications interface that replaces Launchpad is only available to developers right now. Apple plans to make a public beta available in July, with a launch to follow in September.

Article Link: macOS Tahoe Transforms Launchpad Into App Library

This isn’t really similar to the App Library on iOS and iPadOS, if it was truly the App Library (plus a few additional customization options like manual categorization that have been requested on iOS and iPadOS as well), I would have been much happier. This piece of crap is not even close. Categories are listed as tiny little buttons near the top of a tiny little window that only displays 20 apps at a time. Categories in the real App Library show us the 7 most used apps in each category, so often we don’t even have to open a category’s page to access an app we’re looking for. This doesn’t show us hardly anything, even on a 27” desktop monitor… The Real App Library on my 6.1” iPhone display shows me 43 apps at once, while this rubbish Apps page on macOS 26 only shows me 20 apps on a 27” desktop monitor, pathetic…

And unlike App Library, where the search bar is a search bar and not a header (the search bar design on this monstrosity breaks Apple’s design conventions everywhere else where search bars are clearly labeled as such, not only does this search bar say “Applications” instead of “Search”, but it uses an App Store icon rather than a magnifying glass. If one doesn’t pay close enough attention, it can easily be mistaken as a header. It’s just bad design.

Then you have other UI elements of this page that aren’t even labeled at all. It isn’t immediately apparent at first glance, but the top row of apps is not part of the following alphabetized list of apps. It’s a row of apps suggested by Siri. Spotlight Search on iOS and iPadOS clearly labels this as Siri Suggestions. There is no such label in this Apps page on macOS 26. It is unlabeled, and users are left to guess at what it is…. Suggested apps displayed in the real App Library are contained in an app folder labelled “Suggestions”.

The real App Library can display notification badges and update indicators. This Apps rubbish on macOS 26 displays neither…

It is nowhere near as good as App Library, it’s a major downgrade. And the iPad and iPhone have the Home Screen and the App Library. macOS 26 now just has a crappy app folder that can’t even display notification badges, and can’t display as many apps at once as my 6.1” iPhone display…

I am using LaunchNow, an app I found on GitHub, to try to replicate the Launchpad experience. So far it’s working okay, but I also want to try a couple other options I saw recommended, one called Launchpad also on GitHub, and one called AppHub. The number of these alternative apps seems to serve as a fairly good indicator that the Launchpad wasn’t “unused” as some like to try to claim…

This is just a really bad design on so many levels, I hope Apple rolls this back, and/or makes a lot of improvements to bring this closer in functionality to the prior Launchpad or the iOS and iPadOS App Library. As things stand currently, this isn’t like either, is a design mess, and is only marginally more “functional” than the Applications Folder…

 

[Kal Madda]

That looks identical to the revised launcher in Windows 11. I mean identical. Also the revised launcher in Windows 11 sucks, so boy Apple, not sure I would have cloned that particular idea.

I hate to say it, but the revised launcher in Windows 11 is actually even a bit better, because there’s a real search bar that’s labeled as such, and everything else is clearly labelled, and you can pin more apps to be visible at once on the Win11 launcher, plus there’re currently rolling out an update that even directly borrows iPadOS App Library category folders, with the same system of display the 7 most used apps in each category, allowing you to actually just go straight to one of those apps instead of having to open the whole category page in order to see any of the apps in the category like on this Apps monstrosity on macOS 26. This is truly bad design at every level. Hopefully they rework this ASAP, because this is just horrendous, and essentially amounts to just the Applications folder, though even the Applications folder shows more apps at a time then this piece of crap… 🤦🏼‍♂️

 

[Kal Madda]

Exactly. Just like every normal Mac user has been doing or should have been doing for ages. Launchpad was complete desktop bullsh1t from the start. A icon grid on a big screen is much harder to capture than a simple selection menu.

It was introduced to make it easier for people who only used an iPhone/iPad to switch to the Mac ... Steve Jobs said at the launch of MacOS Lion: "We took the best ideas from iOS and brought them to the Mac."

And where’s your evidence that “every normal Mac user” has been going the extremely non-intuitive and obscure way of pinning the Applications folder to the App Dock, and then hunting through their apps with no ability to actually organize them into folders or pages for specific tasks or types of apps? I doubt that most who have moved over to the Mac in the past 14 years have been doing that. There are many Mac users who have always used the Launchpad. The Launchpad just makes intuitive sense. It’s simple, quick, customizable, and uses my screen real estate far better than this little crap window that only shows a pitiful 20 apps at a time on my display… And the Applications folder isn’t much better. Launchpad made macOS actually accessible for more average users who aren’t techies. It’s the first thing I’ve taught everyone I’ve helped move over to the Mac to use for accessing their apps. It’s been a core UI element of macOS for over a decade. It makes sense, unlike the Applications folder or this piece of crap. I hate to say it, because I adamantly dislike Windows for anything beyond some gaming, but even Windows 11’s launcher is better than this, because apps can be manually pinned and arranged on it, and more apps can be visible on-screen at once. And the latest Windows 11 updates are even adding the real App Library’s app folders view for auto-categories, which are far more useful than stupid little buttons that you can’t see any of the apps in the category, and you can’t open any of said apps without having to open the whole stupid category page…

 

[Kal Madda]

I've been a "normal Mac user" since 2007. I've been using Launchpad from day one when it was introduced. Because it. makes. sense. It's Faster. It's intuitive.

But going by the comments, people aren't using gestures/hot corners like they should have been. Go figure.

Or rather, define "normal". In contrast, I'd go so far and say all the people putting their applications folder in the dock are just holding on to their "Windows Start Menu" ways. And probably only use the default programs. Some of use have MANY apps. I don't wanna have to scroll through them all the damn time.



Oh, we do know. And I indeed sometimes use it when I need that every-once-in-a-blue-moon app that's hidden away in a folder and I don't want to be bothered go looking for it. It's just not easier nor quicker for my daily workflow. Especially since spotlight became so cluttered. Just to give an example:

View attachment 2518505

Whereas in launchpad, it's not only tidy, I know exactly where the icon is located. I don't have to think about the name. I don't have to type; just a quick four-finger swipe + click. From anywhere. For my brain, it's a combination of visual/spatial and muscle memory. For my brain, it's much faster.



You don't have to swipe through four pages of apps if you organize your launchpad in a way that works for your workflow. I have two pages. The first page has all the apps I regularly us, spatially "grouped" by type (I don't use folders, but for example have all the office programs - Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Pages, Numbers, Keynote - on one row, all the messaging/communication apps on one row, anything "coding" on one row, etc). The second page has the often used utilities out and about and everything else is just neatly put away in folders.



Exactly. It's quite amazing to observe how people's brains obviously work differently. Which is totally ok. But also to see how intolerant people are of other people just doing it differently from them and claiming their way is the only and right way.



Maybe read again, if anything, it's probably 50:50. People who don't like Launchpad are those who don't use it. Which is a pretty stupid rationale for demanding it to be killed. There's plenty of dishes I personally don't like. It would be like me demanding it never be served for anyone ever again, even if it may be their favorite food. Instead, you know, I can just continue to not eat it and let others enjoy it if they like. There's no harm to me by them doing that.

Exactly! It’s frustrating that you see these people in these comment sections who condescend people for liking the Launchpad, and act like everyone should do it their way, even though Apple’s own tutorials have taught people for the past 14 years that the Launchpad is the place to find your apps! Not to mention all the third party tutorials and videos. For one, not everyone loves having to use keyboard shortcuts, I rarely ever use any keyboard shortcuts because I have a hard time remembering them, and I’m a more visual person, GUI works better for me…

If these people’s “everyone should use Spotlight” attitude should be taken to its logical conclusion, why not just remove app icons for GUI access to apps all-together? Then they could just tell you “I use the terminal to open my apps, so it’s not a big deal, and you should have known better and been using the terminal to open your apps”. Or what about this argument: “GUI doesn’t make sense for the Mac, it makes it too much like an iPhone/iPad, so Apple should cut away the GUI for Mac so that it doesn’t risk looking anything like iOS or iPadOS (the horror of it all, we couldn’t have any semblance of visual unity between the platforms, or borrow features people love from iOS and iPadOS and incorporate them into macOS to make it more appealing to more people) and so it appeals to all us keyboard-only users…”. 🤦🏼‍♂️

How about let others use it different from you… The Launchpad added to the Mac experience, it didn’t subtract anything. If you wanted to use Spotlight Search, you could very easily do so… If you wanted to pin the Applications folder to your app dock, you could do that too. Launchpad being available didn’t harm anyone… The people in here that are like “good riddance”, etc. come across as lacking any empathy for any who use their computer different from them… Why would anyone cheer for the removal of a simple, intuitive tool that many others loved? I have a very hard time understanding this kind of attitude…

 

[NotPr0n]

To anyone interested in having an "Apps" folder in the Dock containing only the apps you want, in the order you want them (which requires right-clicking the "Apps" Dock folder and choosing Sort by: Date Added), I made an improved version of my earlier shell script using AppleScript, which you can easily turn into a Shortcut using the Apple Shortcuts app:

-- This is the list of folders to search for your apps
set app_dirs to {"Macintosh HD:Applications", "Macintosh HD:System:Applications", "Macintosh HD:System:Applications:Utilities", "Macintosh HD:System:Library:CoreServices:Applications"}

-- This is the filesystem path to your "Apps" folder
set app_aliases_dir to "Macintosh HD:Users:yourname:Documents:Your Apps Folder"

-- The content of this text file defines the sequence of apps in the "Apps" folder in the Dock when it's sorted by Date Added
set app_names_file to "Macintosh HD:Users:yourname:Documents:Your Dock Apps Folder Content.txt"

set app_names to paragraphs of (read file app_names_file as «class utf8»)

tell application "Finder"
    delete (every file of folder app_aliases_dir whose kind is "Alias")

    repeat with app_name in (reverse of app_names)
        -- Ignores empty lines
        if length of app_name > 0 then
            repeat with app_dir in app_dirs
                -- Assumes that each app's full filename has the extension ".app"
                set app_path to (app_dir & ":" & app_name & ".app")

                if (exists file app_path) then
                    set app_alias to (make alias file to app_path at app_aliases_dir)

                    -- Removes the ".app" extension from the name of the Finder alias file
                    set name of app_alias to app_name
                    exit repeat
                end if
            end repeat
        end if
    end repeat
end tell

After changing the paths in the above AppleScript, you also need to create a text file at the filepath which the string "Macintosh HD:Users:yourname:Documents:Your Dock Apps Folder Content.txt" in the above AppleScript refers to, and put each app's filename (without the ".app" extension) on a separate line in that text file, like in the following example:

Feedback Assistant
Home
Find My
iPhone Mirroring
Activity Monitor
Disk Utility
Keychain Access
Automator
Image Playground

This kind of a "Dock folder of app aliases" workaround can be improved by adding a trackpad/mouse gesture that expands the Dock folder. You can do this in BTT for example by mapping some gesture to the following AppleScript:

tell application "System Events"
    tell process "Dock"
        click UI element "Apps" of list 1
    end tell
end tell

I think the biggest annoyance with this workaround is the arrow badges in the alias icons:

 

[Kal Madda]

Send feedback to Apple!

This is what I said in mine (slightly edited ):

Please restore LaunchPad!

I am finding/invoking applications every few minutes or so. Easy to do in LaunchPad using my mouse button, impossible with the Applications library.

I have 300 Applications which I had organized in LaunchPad into useable folder subcategories - books, databases, devices, disk utilities, file utilities, games, llm, media capture, Microsoft/parallels, music/audio, network, office apps/productivity, photography, utilities, video, weather, etc. The new Applications interface groups such as utilities group them all together so Disk utilities are grouped with network utilities, video utilities, weather, Safari extensions, etc.

I have multiple cloud backup apps. Can’t find them in any of the categories other than “all”. Roon is not listed in the Music category. Audio Tools is classified as music but it is a utility, not a music player.

Besides being impossible to find my applications ... having to invoke spotlight and then use a command key is far harder to use than just using the launchpad button which I had configured on my Logitech MX Master 3. The categories are not alphabetical so I have so scroll through 70 or more icons to find something.

When you bring it up if you click anywhere else on the screen the display disappears. I have had to do the “open spotlight/command 1” >30 times in order to write this feedback

This change is a major setback in usability. I now have to go to the applications folder and hope that I can remember the name of a program to perform a function. ... By putting applications in LaunchPad folders according to function I could easily find things, and discover applications that I had forgotten that I had installed. Now that is impossible.

Luckily I have LaunchPad manager installed (did remember its name luckily so I could find it in my applications folder) so I can bring it up to find programs. As I am continually adding/removing programs this will become less useful as time goes on.

Here is what came up when I hit the LaunchPad button on my mouse:


View attachment 2550371

One thing that may help you out is an app from the Mac App Store called AppGrid. All of the core functionality is free to use, and you can import the data from your old Launchpad into it. The files it uses are still there in macOS 26.0, and even 26.1 Beta 1. I’m running the beta, and I used the import tool in AppGrid, and it restored all of my folders and the way I had everything organized! I hope that helps you out! 👍🏻

 

[Ankaa]

One thing that may help you out is an app from the Mac App Store called AppGrid. All of the core functionality is free to use, and you can import the data from your old Launchpad into it. The files it uses are still there in macOS 26.0, and even 26.1 Beta 1. I’m running the beta, and I used the import tool in AppGrid, and it restored all of my folders and the way I had everything organized! I hope that helps you out! 👍🏻

Does AppGrid work with gestures to pull it up?

 

[Kal Madda]

Does AppGrid work with gestures to pull it up?

Not by default, sadly I don’t think any of these 3rd party alternatives can do that by default. Another third-party tool like Better Touch Tool can probably map it to that trackpad gesture, or another similar one. 👍🏻

 

[NotPr0n]

I think the biggest annoyance with this workaround is the arrow badges in the alias icons...

With a lot of work, you can get rid of those annoying arrow badges on app icons in the Dock folder by replacing each alias with a wrapper application created using Automator that runs the Launch Application action (although this in turn introduces another annoyance in that the Dock folder makes a big bounce whenever you use it to launch an app). You can then assign the correct icon to each wrapper app like this:

1. Show the Inspector window in Finder by pressing Option-Command-I.
2. Select an app in Finder.
3. Click the app icon in the upper left corner of the Inspector window and press Command-C.
4. Select the corresponding wrapper app in Finder.
5. Click the wrapper app icon in the upper left corner of the Inspector window and press Command-V.

My previously posted AppleScript used for reordering Dock folder apps by the Date Added should be changed to something like the following:

set apps_dir to "Macintosh HD:Users:yourname:whatever:Apps"
set pending_apps_dir to "Macintosh HD:Users:yourname:whatever:Pending Apps"
set app_names_file to "Macintosh HD:Users:yourname:whatever:Dock Apps Folder.csv"

set app_names to paragraphs of (read file app_names_file as «class utf8»)
set current_volume to alert volume of (get volume settings)
set volume alert volume 0

tell application "Finder"
    move (every file of folder apps_dir) to folder pending_apps_dir
    
    repeat with app_name in (reverse of app_names)
        if length of app_name > 0 then
            set app_path to (pending_apps_dir & ":" & app_name & ".app")
            
            if (exists file app_path) then
                move file app_path to folder apps_dir
            end if
        end if
    end repeat
end tell
set volume alert volume current_volume

And to hide the .app extensions you'd need to disable Show all filename extensions in the Finder Settings > Advanced.