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Best and Safest Place to Download the App Private Zone on My Android Phone in 2022

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Launch your Android Feel

All-time Android launchers for your telephone 2022

Desire to upgrade your Android experience? Try upgrading your launcher.

Action Launcher and Smart Launcher Source: Ara Wagoner / Android Central

The way nosotros adapt, organize, and interact with our apps on Android is chosen the launcher. Launchers ordinarily consist of a series of home screens, where nosotros tin can suit app shortcuts and widgets while the rest of our apps sit in an app drawer. From the best Android phones to the virtually basic budget smartphone, every phone comes with a launcher. Some built-in launchers are great, simply when they drib the ball, there are endless 3rd-party launchers that not only pick it upward again simply knock it articulate out of the park. Everyone has their perfect launcher, but if you haven't found your favorite yet, then here are the best Android launchers that we at Android Central have used and loved for years.

The best launchers

  • All-time Overall Smart Launcher v
  • Resurging Legacy Nova Launcher
  • Swiss Army Launcher Activity Launcher
  • Best Productivity Microsoft Launcher
  • Quick and Simple Niagara Launcher

Best Overall: Smart Launcher v

NBA Finals themes on Smart Launcher Source: Ara Wagoner / Android Cardinal

Smart Launcher has been around for years and years, but it really kicked things upwardly a notch with Smart Launcher 5. The home screen features a grid-less widget placement system and modular page system, but the real star of the show here is even so the app drawer. Smart Launcher 5 automatically sorts your apps into several categories, and if you pay for Smart Launcher Pro, you can add your own custom categories and sort your various drawer tabs in a diverseness of ways, from well-nigh-used to install time to icon color.

From a responsive and comprehensive categorical app drawer to some of the most precise widget placement on Android to the most diverse icon options of whatsoever smartphone, Smart Launcher 5 has a lot to love. Its gestures are meridian-notch, too, especially the double-tap shortcuts for dock apps, which piece of work worlds improve than the swipe app shortcuts Nova and Action use.

Smart Launcher is too part of the holy trinity of quick domicile screen theming I've used for the terminal three years, and it'due south been used in our dead awesome Deadpool theme, NBA Finals themes, revamped MrMobile theme, and more. You can consequence combine it with Android 12'southward Textile Yous and Smart Launcher's Icon Pack Studio to build a home screen feel that will automatically mesh with any and every wallpaper y'all gear up on the telephone.

Pros:

  • Piece of cake setup with simplified layout
  • Tabbed app drawer is wonderful
  • Quickest launcher to theme
  • Best abode screen app gestures

Cons:

  • You can't place icons at the acme of the home screen
  • Premium system can be confusing

Best Overall

Smart Launcher 5

Smart Launcher 5

Simple setup and wonderful widget pages

With a smart, widely adaptable app drawer, insane icon options through Icon Pack Studio, and a drib-dead uncomplicated home screen, Smart Launcher 5 has won my heart and my home screen.

Resurging Legacy: Nova Launcher

Nova Launcher Lloyd Theme Source: Ara Wagoner / Android Primal

Nova Launcher has been a major player in the home screen market longer than most of us have fifty-fifty used Android. The reason for this continued authorisation is simple. Nova's mix of customization, convenience, and cunning is unparalleled. Nova lets your phone look more than Pixel-y than a Pixel and more TouchWiz-zy than a Galaxy and does it all with ease and grace. It besides lets you build a habitation screen that is unique, stable, and solid while existence as apparently or cute as yous'd like.

A wide feature set allows Nova to achieve all these wonderful themes and allow users build exactly the home screen they want, with small merely infinitely useful features like subgrid positioning and a robust fill-in arrangement. For users but getting used to third-political party launchers, the "import from other launchers" feature is the nearly consistent and reliable on Nova than just about every other launcher I've tried in previous years. If y'all desire to ease yourself from the bones launcher to a custom experience, Nova tin assist yous get comfortable with launcher layouts and themes.

The launcher also recently took Nova Launcher 7 to the stable channel where everyone could relish the overhaul to settings and launcher look that has been in beta for a year. Nova had been starting to feel a little bloated, but the Nova 7 update has refreshed things so information technology's easier for new users to jump in while still being as flexible as ever for those of united states who are ridiculously picky when information technology comes to theming our dwelling house screens.

Pros:

  • Easy to import previous launcher layout
  • Tons of customization options
  • Great back up and stability
  • Purchase Prime number once and you're ready for life

Cons:

  • All the options tin exist overwhelming
  • Theming tin take a while

Resurging Legacy

Nova Launcher

Nova Launcher

Adept ol' reliable launcher for the masses

Whether you want to build circuitous themes or you just desire a smartly laid out launcher with fantabulous gesture controls, Nova is for you and your style.

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Swiss Regular army Launcher: Action Launcher

MrMobile theme on Action Launcher Source: Ara Wagoner / Android Central

The watchword of both Activeness Launcher and its users is quick — Quicktheme, Quickdrawer, Quickpage, Quickbar. To ensure it can be the quickest and best launcher for users who desire to set everything up just so, Activity Launcher has taken information technology upon itself to be ane of the most customizable launchers on the market place.

From its robust gesture controls to its ubiquitous Covers and Shutters to hide folders and widgets under app icons, Action Launcher makes information technology like shooting fish in a barrel to go the domicile screen you want. If Quicktheme'south color palette misses the marker, y'all tin can now ready Fabric palette colors or custom hex code colors to get a more than cohesive look! This was a long-awaited characteristic and information technology makes Action Launcher much more useful to alive wallpaper users and themers.

Action Launcher is also quick to back up features from the newest versions of Android, or as much as tin be replicated on a 3rd-party launcher. Activity Launcher'due south developer Chris Lacy is devoted, dedicated, and is quick to jump in on Android problems that impact tertiary-party launchers — and even iOS features, calculation widget stacks from iOS 15. While the actual theme-building power here isn't quite as adaptable as Nova Launcher, it'south a launcher that works incredibly, well, quick about getting yous prepare and on your way.

Pros:

  • Customize almost everything
  • Groovy gesture options
  • Robust support

Cons:

  • Not quite as flexible as Nova Launcher
  • Premium/Plus organisation can go confusing

Swiss Army Launcher

Action Launcher

Action Launcher

Quick's the word and sharp'southward the gesture

Whether you want a launcher that's the tiptop of productivity or the height of sophistication, Action Launcher and its many quick features can aid you realize your dream setup.

Best Productivity: Microsoft Launcher

Microsoft Launcher's Feed Source: Ara Wagoner / Android Central

Y'all'd think that if Microsoft was going to bring a launcher to Android, it'd lucifer Windows ten or maybe the erstwhile Windows Phone look — and you'd be incorrect. Not just is Microsoft Launcher a completely Android-native experience, just information technology's a top-quality, always-updating launcher. It's i of few outside Nova Launcher to offer edge-to-edge widgets and subgrid positioning.

Microsoft Launcher'due south experience centers effectually a clean home screen and a smart folio to the left fed by your Microsoft account, your daily phone utilize, and any Android widgets you wish to add. Even if you're not immersed in the Microsoft ecosystem, having a scrolling folio of widgets beats having to space them out over 3-4 pages. While this launcher's settings are somewhat clunky, it has all the launcher options yous'd desire and then some.

While Microsoft Launcher is definitely not as simplistic as Smart Launcher 5 or Niagara Launcher, it is withal a adequately lightweight launcher that's well-worth considering, especially if you take any sort of reliance on Microsoft's ecosystem for work, school, or personal use. And while the Microsoft Launcher is designed for the Microsoft Surface Duo ii, not the Z Fold series, it is all the same another adept option of foldable telephone owners.

Pros:

  • Scrolling widget page
  • Good enterprise integration
  • Very active dev team

Cons:

  • Settings demand refinement
  • Two-level dock is weird

All-time Productivity

Microsoft Launcher

Microsoft Launcher

Integration and adaptability for the way you work

You lot can customize virtually aspects of this quite adaptable launcher, merely information technology's also remarkably easy to have the launcher go out of your way and let you lot piece of work.

Quick and Uncomplicated: Niagara Launcher

Niagara Launcher Mrmobile Theme Source: Ara Wagoner / Android Cardinal

Niagara is nevertheless a shiny new-ish launcher that has only been around for a couple years — yes, that makes information technology new by launcher standards — only it'southward already got quite the following for existence a lightning-fast launcher that'south slap-up for depression-retentivity devices. Information technology'due south also ridiculously uncomplicated to build themes around since information technology only has one layout. Yous can stick one or more widgets at the height, you have a Quicklist of your favorite apps, and the rest of your apps are a simple slide along the A-Z alphabet on the right (or left) side of the screen.

The feature fix hither has been steadily growing over the concluding year, and Niagara really hit its footstep around the summer of 2021 when the Milky way Z Fold 3 arrived and brought foldables mainstream. Niagara Launcher was very quick to arrange its minimal launcher into a big-screen-friendly launcher and in fact if yous're looking for an all-business launcher for your Fold iii, Niagara has both one-cavalcade and two-column setups you tin can use to get to your next app and get back to work lickety-split.

If y'all simply desire to discover your apps quickly and go on with your solar day, Niagara Launcher is a pretty nifty answer. It reminds me a flake of the onetime Z Launcher from several years ago, if you lot remember Nokia'southward experimental launcher, but I think this one is going to be around for a good while.

Pros:

  • Ridiculously fast
  • Quick setup
  • Drop-expressionless like shooting fish in a barrel interface
  • Works well on foldables

Cons:

  • Very limited layout options
  • Gestures can overlap at times

Quick and Simple

Niagara Launcher Logo

Niagara Launcher

Ane layout, 1 super-fast app drawer.

While you lot may not exist able to spread out all your apps and widgets on five different screens, this vertically scrolling launcher is lightning quick and works well on phones that more bloated launchers start to lag on.

Bottom line

My start launcher love was Nova, simply Smart Launcher five won over my centre in 2018 and I haven't establish anything else that works quite likewise for my theme-loving setup. The categorical app drawer is ameliorate than one big A-Z sort in one case y'all have your categories set the way yous want them, and the double-tap app shortcuts don't interfere with gesture navigation or swiping betwixt the app drawer and abode screen screens the way they do on Nova, Action, and just about every other launcher in existence.

If you lot desire a launcher that'southward more than similar the launcher that came with your phone, Nova Launcher is the best bet because it imports from other launchers more consistently than whatever other launcher I've tried, allowing you to start with the setup y'all already had so ease yourself into more advanced features similar shortcut gestures and customizing the wait of your folders, icons, and search bars. Nova Launcher is what Nicholas Sutrich uses on all of his phones, including on his Galaxy Z Fold 3, because yous merely can't beat Nova'south flexibility.

Whichever of these launchers yous opt for, the beauty of testing a launcher is that these all have a gratis tier that allows you to become a really good feel for the launcher and how information technology performs before y'all unlock extra features with Pro upgrades. If you accept a launcher you absolutely adore, you should absolutely buy the pro primal or contribute to the developers then that they can proceed updating that launcher and continue it alive. Developers need to consume, too!

What happened to my gesture navigation?

This is non the launcher's fault. It'due south Google's.

If you're on an Android x phone that isn't on the latest patches, using anything other than the default, manufacturer launcher on your phone volition forcefulness y'all from the new Android 10 gesture nav back to ugly old iii-button nav. This was an issue at Android 10'south initial launch, one that made third-political party launchers endure for Google's incompetence.

This issue has since been fixed for many phones, first Pixels and then OnePlus phones and finally Samsung phones that accept the One UI two.5 and One UI three.0 updates. If you lot can't utilize gesture nav with your new launcher, contact your manufacturer and inquire what the holdup with the update is.

And in one case once more, shame on Google for e'er assuasive a major release of Android to ship similar this! SHAME!

What missed the cutting

Evie Launcher Source: Ara Wagoner / Android Central

There are hundreds and hundreds of launchers out there, and while in that location are plenty of expert ones, they can't all make the cut. Here are the launchers that couldn't make the cut:

  • Lawnchair was an honorable mention on this listing for two years, but the launcher stalled out for a yr and now they're working on Lawnchair 12, but it's still in a beta that's being run through a Telegram channel. When they go a version on Google Play that isn't from 2019, then we can revisit them, but nosotros can't recommend it to new users or anyone looking for a simple, stable feel.
  • Evie Launcher was still a calorie-free, easy launcher, just information technology's not in agile evolution anymore, which means that when bugs arise, there'due south no one to fix them. If you were/are using Evie, endeavor either Smart Launcher five, Niagara Launcher, or Pear Launcher if you're on a phone with express RAM.
  • Hyperion Launcher keeps making progress, and it's actually pretty good these days. Information technology's still non every bit stable as Action Launcher or Nova, though, and it's got a more than disruptive UI that will dissuade new users. If you're afterwards a hyper-customizable launcher, Hyperion is for you.
  • BlackBerry Launcher hasn't seen whatsoever updates in a year and is just as well expensive to recommend to anyone that isn't already an active BlackBerry Hub subscriber. If you lot're a business user, Microsoft Launcher is likely a improve fit, and Microsoft Launcher'due south free.

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Ara Wagoner

Ara Wagoner

Ara Wagoner is a Writer at Android Central. She themes phones and pokes YouTube Music with a stick. When she's non writing well-nigh cases, Chromebooks, or customization, she'southward wandering around Walt Disney World. If yous run into her without headphones, RUN. You can follow her on Twitter at @arawagco.

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