Appearance

Appearance controls how LaunchNext looks, moves, and feels in daily use.

Tune in this order

1. Set structure first: Icons per row, Rows per page, and Folder Layout
2. Set readability: Icon size, Label font size, and label weight
3. Set spacing: horizontal and vertical spacing
4. Set motion: animation duration and scroll sensitivity
5. Set finishing details: folder window size, indicator position, and mask style

Behavior toggles

• Classic Launchpad (Fullscreen)
• Show labels under icons
• Use localized app names
• Predict drop position
• Enable slide animation
• Follow-scroll paging
• Hide Dock
• Hide menu bar in fullscreen
• Remember last opened page
• Hover magnification
• Press feedback
• High-resolution folder previews
• Background mask

Notes:

• Predict drop position and Follow-scroll paging are disabled when the Core Animation renderer is active.
• Animation duration control is disabled if animations are off or if the Core Animation renderer is active.
• Hide menu bar in fullscreen is only available in fullscreen mode.
• When Hide menu bar in fullscreen is active, LaunchNext also hides the Dock because macOS requires the Dock to be hidden when the menu bar is hidden.

Background and theme

• Choose Background style: Blur or Liquid glass
• Enable Background mask and configure separate Light/Dark colors with opacity

Layout and readability controls

• Icon size
• Icons per row
• Rows per page
• Horizontal spacing
• Vertical spacing
• Label font size
• Icon label weight

Changing grid dimensions can reposition icons. This is expected.

Folder controls

Folder layout

Folder Layout controls how apps are displayed after opening a folder.

• Paged: folder contents use pages and a page indicator, matching the main Launchpad feel.
• Vertical Scroll: folder contents scroll vertically, and the folder title scrolls/fades with the content so large folders stay compact.

When the Core Animation renderer is active, folder grids also use Core Animation for smoother paging, scrolling, drag reorder, and drag-out behavior.

Folder window width/height

These controls are for compact mode. Classic fullscreen uses a fixed folder window shape.

Folder drop zone size

Smaller values reduce accidental folder creation while dragging icons.

Motion controls

• Slide animation duration
• Scrolling sensitivity
• Hover magnification scale (only when hover magnification is enabled)
• Press scale (only when press feedback is enabled)

Page indicator placement

Global controls:

• Page indicator spacing
• Page indicator top padding

Per-display mode:

• Enable Per-display indicator position
• Set different values for each connected display
• Re-apply defaults for the current display if needed

Practical preset suggestions

Dense laptop setup

• Higher icons-per-row
• Medium icon size
• Tighter spacing
• Paged folders for predictable keyboard and page navigation

Comfort desktop setup

• Medium icons-per-row
• Larger icon size
• More spacing
• Vertical Scroll folders if you keep many apps in the same folder