Nova Launcher could soon introduce Nova AI, a built-in AI assistant complete with a chatbot, and a new Nova Plus subscription tier
there have been enough reasons to ditch nova in the past years, in case someone is still using it
- 2022 acquired by branch metrics, data harvesting company https://www.androidcentral.com/apps-software/branch-strikes-twice-with-nova-launcher-and-sesame-search-acquisition
- 2024 nearly everyone laid off https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/9/24217077/nova-launcher-layoffs-only-original-developer-remaining
- 2025 original dev left after being told to stop working on the open source efforts https://www.theverge.com/news/773937/nova-launcher-founder-left-kevin-barry-branch-open-source-android
- 2026 fb and google ads tracking https://lemdro.id/post/lemdro.id/35049920
- 2026 (this post) evidences for built-in AI that harvests your data https://www.androidauthority.com/nova-launcher-ai-plus-subscription-apk-teardown-3658932/
I was still using it because I was too lazy to migrate things over to another.
And then I saw this post, so I guess it was time. Only took half an hour to figure out how to get Lawnchair doing basically what I wanted it to.
Octopi Launcher is damn near a replacement. Learn nothing new, muscle memory for swiping up or down on dock icons to open other apps.
Those were my requirements and it nails it.
Its a shame its not FOSS. Just checked it for trackers, and according to this site, there are none.
https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.otp.octopilauncher/latest/
Never heard of it but this thing looks fully featured and very polished. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of it before since I’ve gone looking for decent launchers!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.otp.octopilauncher
Lawnchair is darn close, and FOSS. Recommending another closed source option usually leads down the same road.
How can you tell whether or not something is FOSS in Google Play?
Unfortunately not easily. Most mention it in descriptions or have links to GitHub/etc. For me, I used to search FDroid to check but I’m pretty selective about the apps I use. Now I do most things through Obtainium, but as a Graphene user I’m certainly not the norm.
I couldn’t find Lawnchair in F-Droid.
Sigh… Lawnchair is the absolute worst of the worst for install/discovery. Because it got taken over by another developer, it’s been all “beta” releases on GitHub forever, even though a truckload of people daily drive it.
Switched to Octopi as well and had to configure it a little to get it setup but now I almost forget that I even switched
Wow! This one wasn’t on my radar. I had been using Action Launcher as it seemed to be the only other one that could do the swipe folders, but it seems to have been abandoned. I’ll give this a go.
That was why I settled on Octopi
The one feature I use most of all on Nova is swipe down on the screen to search. I has that all the time and would be tough to give up. I also really like the ability to swipe up on a folder and have it launch the first app in the folder.
I’ll give Octopi a try on an older phone and hopefully it has some of these same features.
Octopi two finger swipe from above is search apps.
In settings you can enable swipe to open a folder, tap to launch one app from it.
Whahahaha motherfucker you just made my day!
I’m trying out Octopi right now, seems nice so far. But, is there any way to make folders open the first app with a tap, and open the folder by swiping? That’s how I used Nova for years and years, very hard to break away from that
It has it. It’s in launcher settings “swipe up/down on folders to open them”
Thank you! Not sure how I missed that toggle, I guess my brain expected it to be somewhere in a sub-menu.
Just curious, would you then view the folder with a swipe down?
Not seeing a way to change folder tap but you could pbly request that. It’s a single developer and I’ve been very happy to support them to get away from Nova. I’ve been using Octopi since last year and it’s been great!
You can set up individual apps with swipe up and swipe down as well though, so if there’s a main app in your folder you could break it out and at least get 2 other apps to open via swipes. Not the same I know.
I like for it to open folders with a swipe and open the first app of the folder with a tap. I have figured out how to do this in Octopi now thanks to the other reply! Although it becomes slightly an issue with how folders in the dock behave slightly differently than folders on the home pages. But I think it’s close enough to be a workable replacement for Nova finally!
lawnchair is what I swapped to a few years back. I do want to warn… be careful updating it. Always make a backup of lawnchair prior to allowing it to update because ive had it fail to update twice now and have had to restore the backup on the new version.
Yeah I switched to lawn chair a few months ago because I kept seeing these stories about Nova’s parent company. I like it just fine—i haven’t had the issues you have (thankfully)—but there are a few features I miss from nova. Oh well, I’d rather have the peace of mind than the minor feature.
Yeah the only words they needed in the headline were “Nova Launcher sucks”
Sadly my custom home screen depends on features I haven’t found in any other launcher, so right now I just have internet disabled for it with trackercontrol :/
If crazy levels of customisation is the reason you use it, Total Launcher did the trick for me.
Thanks for the reccomendation, I’ll take a look :)
Yeah its the customization features. A couple replies down I listed some of the features I use that I haven’t seen in other launchers. I’ll check out total launcher and see if it could work for me
No worries friend :)
You can place things anywhere down to the pixel, not just snapped to a grid like with Nova (though, there is option for a grid of apps, also).
It’s a bit of fiddly process if it’s complicated, but you can layer and place things however you want.
There is no dock, you can however pin items to show on every screen, which is basically the same thing, so that would also fit that criterion.
Also 4 swipe directions on icons for extra shortcuts beyond tap (last I used nova, it was just up and down? It’s been many years).
Basically, can highly recommend Total Launcher, though in fairness, I have not tried some of the other launchers listed by others here.
The one time fee for pro is pretty affordable, iirc. The Dev is also pretty responsive via email
What features out of curiosity? I haven’t used Nova since like Android 7
Largely stuff like widget and home screen padding, ability to place widgets on top of one another, set a custom widget for the search bar in the dock and place widgets in the dock
Some parts look kinda jank cause I haven’t really worked on it since I replaced my phone so I never finished adjusting stuff to the different size screen, but this is my home screen right now. I just use a lot of features to make my jank ass setup work, so its hard to switch. Custom fonts would be so nice if I ever did make the leap though
Thanks for the reminder! I had switched to Lawnchair, but I just realized I had forgotten to uninstall Nova. Fixed!
Same. Just uninstalled that spyware
Anyone that gives a single shit about their data being sold to third parties should have dumped Nova a long time ago.
This is the first I’ve heard about any privacy issues. I dumped Nova recently because I found a good FOSS launcher.
Mind sharing which launcher you switched to?
Dragon Launcher. Apparently it isn’t on Play; you have to use F-Droid.
What a great advertisement for almost any other launcher.
Lawnchair is my go to if anyone wants a pretty simple and customizable launcher that respects your privacy.
What’s been everyone’s experiences in customization on it? I keep mine simple of fun background and a calendar and only the app drawer. No second pages
I second this. Lawnchair is great.
I’ve tested several popular ones and landed at Lawnchair as well. Plus point for being FOSS.
Switched about a year ago and it works perfectly!
It sounded interesting so I gave it a look and realized that I’ve been using it for years now and it’s just so unobtrusive that I forgot about it.
+1. Just last week they added the ability to import Nova backups.
I downloaded the APK for the old version before they added the spyware and bloatware, but i turned off auto updates and Google Play keeps trying to get me to update Nova launcher to the newest version 🥱
Not going to happen and the best part is there was no forced update within the app so im going to keep using the old one till it breaks.
well if you didn’t jump ship in 2022 i guess this is your time
hasn’t update this app since 2021 lol. Good thing the pre-enshitification version worked perfectly fine without updates.
Lawnchair is a pretty good FOSS launcher.
Can confirm. I switched from Nova Launcher a year+ ago. I haven’t noticed any downgrade. Lawnchair feels cleaner, better.
I guess proprietary software has no option but enshittification once an open source alternative exists. The proprietary product becomes strictly for chumps, so they make it a full on scam.
Do you know if Lawnchair can do a splitscreen with two apps? I got a new phone with lawnchair and I couldn’t figure out how to do it the other day. I know it used to be a part of Android. I don’t know if it’s part of the OS, the launcher, or Google just decided to remove the feature.
I’m not sure if this is even launcher dependant thing? I’m on pixel 9 pro, using lawnchair myself.
In your open app-selector, you should have drop-down to start split screen mode.
spoiler
God bless. I didn’t even see the drop down. My old Samsung and LG didn’t do it that way. And of course searching on the internet for the solution yielded jack because everyone has enshitittfied their search engines. Thank you kind stranger.
And yet another piece of software I have to abandon because of this dioshit cult behaviour.
Thanks guys. You really just went ahead and put your dick in it.
Lawnchair runs fine on GrapheneOS.
And on pretty much every other android too.
Yeah it’s time. Nova was great but now it’s fully enshitified. I went with Niagara. There’s a short learning period, less than a week for me to feel comfortable, but I love it. Very simple and clean.
Same, it’s great
ew… it is my favourite launcher but I disabled updates once it got acquired 😭
Does anyone know of a launcher with similar customisability? All the active launchers I found focus on minimalism and no or monochrome icons, while Nova lets me arrange my colourful icons in whatever way I want, reskin them, etc 😐
Edit: Lawnchair’s Nova backup import feature in their newest beta release pushed me to try it out, let’s see 👀
Edit 2: ok it seems to only have lost my home-pinned website bookmarks, so this could be a workable solution 😊
I’d recommend Niagara Launcher but I think they also got acquired feelsbadman. We’re going to be forced into Linix Phones at this rate.
Lawnchair worked out pretty well for me, might be worth a try for you too? I just had to ignore that their promotional screenshots are all boring monochrome, turns out the launcher itself doesn’t force any colours :)
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Lawnchair for graphene
Kvaesitso is really nice as well
+1 for lawn chair
Excellent. Lawnchair it is then.
I don’t hate Lawnchair. I just hate Nova making the switch necessary.
Niagara is good as well.
Also spyware.
Thanks!
How so?
Requires network connection and is closed source.
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Well yeah that’s the only way but then you lose the meteorology API which is a shame.
It sucks because Niagara is easily my favourite launcher, but I can’t afford to have a proprietary app with insane privileges across my device.
It’s likely the only reason for the privilege is to collect coords to send to the weather API. At least it’s optional, and there are alternative ways to see weather reports, just not on the home screen.
I tried accessing Google Photos via my phone to handle a couple of things I had active on that account from before. Little fuck refused to let me open the app unless it had unconditional access to all my media.
It didn’t need to request the coordinates, it should allow me to just pick a city in the world from a list and give me the local weather based on that.
It is a design choice to force you to always stay connected and, in my opinion, is very shady. It’s okay if you wish you assume innocence here, I personally cannot.
Yeah nah that makes sense. I’ve got a weather integration in Home Assistant and chose to add relatively accurate coordinates for the API calls. That at least was entirely under my control, whereas their implementation was “use it this way or not at all”, demanding location access or no weather.
Sauce?
It’s not FOSS though I think? Free and paid tier. Website doesn’t say much about privacy etc. I actually have Lawnchair running silently and almost configured to mirror my Nova home screen but there doesn’t seem to be folders in the app drawer which is a pain, unless I have totally missed it.
Edit: Indeed, I totally missed it, in the settings. FFS.
Well it’s a good thing those two URIs can be easily blocked. Besides you can get the app from their Github page (sadly no F-droid repo as closed-source), and pay for Pro (if wanted) via Stripe instead of Google Play. I also had issues migrating Niagara off of Google once I’d connected the two, but an email correspondence with the lead dev Max Rumpf got the issue pleasantly and quickly resolved.
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whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy I hate corporations so much WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
anyways here’s my new homescreen
I still need to make groups and change images…
Omg omg kityyyyy
So basically any advantage over the native launcher is void?
What does any of this do? What problem or need is it addressing? I’m honestly so confused by 99% of technology these days, it seems to be nothing more than an electronic pacifier for an entire generation of ADHD addicts.
By adding launchers you can customize the Android “desktop” way more in depth and it enables you to add for example custom app icons
I don’t think that’s the point. The point is the AI features being added for no reason
