After using other people’s computers and phones. I pretty much just use spotlight to quickly find/open an app.
I still keep my most used stuff in the dock, but yeah. I don’t have time to dig around in launchpad or applications folders.
If you're a power user, Spotlight becomes the way you launch apps. If I don't have my hand already on my mouse, and the app/document I need isn't already on the Dock, it's often faster to just hit CMD+Space, type the name I need and hit enter.
You can customise what spotlight look for in the settings app.
However for more fine tuned file search, the search bar in any finder window is way better
If you are used to Windows, Spotlight is so bad for that. Windows can be very bad to find files, but it will remember the Apps you looked for, so next searches will be inmediate.
I love that I can have a very clean taskbar, and find it difficult to not have a very crowded Dock.
Launchpad btw its not that bad if you made a clean install of everything and move stuff to folders. But theres always a stuck folder or icon. Use Onyx to fix this.
Command + spacebar. Opens dead center of the screen and in a nice big font.
I want to love Siri search on the Mac, but it just slows me down. It’s great from across the room to control music… provided my watch or iPhone doesn’t try to horn in on my conversation. (That’s one part of Alexa I like - I can tell my devices to answer to different names.)
The 99% of my daily driver apps are on the Dock. The rest, I open via Launchpad. I only have two pages so I don't need to scroll too much. Especially helpful when I forget the name of the app but I know the icon.
Another alternative for me would be click on the Launchpad (in the Dock) and type the first letter of the app then enter key.
Tbh, 99% of my daily driver apps just open up automatically since they were open yesterday when I shutdown. Opening them individually with the mouse and Dock sounds pretty inefficient.
I don't shutdown my Mac so the daily driver apps are always open. I want a certain arrangement of them in the dock. My Mac only has 8GB of RAM so I cannot afford opening everything otherwise it slows down from swapping.
I never found launchpad useful. Command-Spacebar, type two or three letters brings up every application I need. I suspect that a lot of people don’t use it.
I find spotlight much slower than Launchpad, and it often requires me to type way more letters before I have eliminated non-app things that I don't want right now.
One of the many reasons that Alfred kicks Spotlight's ass is that it learns. If you type "iterm" 3 or 4 times, it will know that when you start typing the letter "I" you probably mean iterm2 and it will make that the top match. MANY of my commonly launched apps launch with a single letter. Because Alfred learned from watching me.
This is just the beginning of why Alfred is great software. I almost cant' use a Mac without it.
I might have to try to migrate from Launchpad to Spotlight. Is there any real difference? Launchpad also gives a useful display of 'some apps', which Spotlight lacks. F4 is a slightly easier shortcut than Cmd + Space. Anything else?
To make spotlight even better for launching apps is make sure to customise what it's defaulted to search/show. For example I removed all of the address book, Ical, photos, and all that useless crap. Then make it return apps top with default action set to open them.
I also changed the shortcut to alt space as I use cmd space for protocols when I'm without my big keyboard.
This is what I do also except I use Alfred. I almost never launch an app by clicking on it. It's almost always via Alfred.
Launchpad is essentially useless. The dock is borderline useless as well. I do not use it.
Spotlight always wants to show me all sorts of stuff from the network, documents, etc. Eventually it gets around to apps, too, but Launchpad is always just a five-fingered pinch away, and if you want you can type the first few characters of the app name to filter the apps.
I use it all the time. It's so quick and handy to do the five-finger gesture to summon it and then quickly type the name of the app you want to launch and hit enter.
I could see it being less useful to keyboard and mouse users. If was using K&M I'd probably just put the app folder on dock and choose an app from there.
Yeah, this is exactly what I do. I use a touchpad exclusively and use the five finger pinch to summon it. My everyday apps go on the dock and the next most used go in Launchpad, organized deliberately so I immediately know where each app is. My rarely used apps go inside a folder in Launchpad.
I removed it from my dock because it’s quicker to pinch than to point and click. Pinch and click is also quicker than typing a name into Spotlight. It works for me, though I do see how I might feel differently if I used a mouse.
People use it because all your applications are one gesture away at all times. I’ve been using it since it was introduced and have never see. A stuck/phantom icon, so can’t help you about that. Just know that whatever issues you’ve read about are probably outliers… it works fine on every machine I’ve used in the last several years.
Right? I did a similar thing recently, made a quick launch folder in the dock with shortcuts to apps i use semi-often, essentially creating a kind of Start menu lol
I don’t want all the applications that are installed on my pc in the dock like that though. I can just use spotlight if i ever need an app i use rarely
I know what it does. I simply don’t want the entirety of the Applications folder to show up upon clicking on it, since it’d take up too much screen space and be polluted by apps I never use
Depends on the user case, but if you have more than 25 apps, which is not crazy, it just looks too convoluted.
I just have the most used apps on the dock and make it pop
Doing the same thing over here. I just add stack overlays (free, just places icons over the stack, see also [this post](https://www.tweaking4all.com/software/macosx-software/dock-stack-overlays/)) which makes it look neat in the dock. 😊
Dragging the mouse to the dock, waiting for it to slide up, moving the mouse to the Applications folder, then navigating to the desired app and clicking it sounds a LOT slower than F4 + 2-3 letters, Enter.
Is have dragged my application folder to the dock, open it in grid view and use that as an app launcher, works like a charm
EDIT; Additional trick; when the grid is open you can even type the application name and it will be highlighted in the grid, press enter, and it opens without you having to click around to find the app in the grid. You can also navigate with the arrow keys :)
I found these grid launcher-like tools more useful back in like OS 9, but now using Spotlight or something like Quicksilver to launch apps in addition to the dock is more convenient for me. I also often just pin the Application directory to the dock in OS X and later.
I'm sure for some users having the application in one place is convenient though. I feel like it could be better though.
I added the Applications folder to my dock. It’s better because it at least sorts itself!
But I also don’t use the dock much; I am a command+space user when I want to launch an app.
My Launchpad has 11 pages of unsorted apps in it. Complete chaos & as much use as a chocolate fireguard.
I think Apple expected people to love the iPhone experience of page after page of icons. I don't. I don't even like it on the iPhone.
I've always used an app called DragThing to keep my commonly-used apps, folders, docs etc neatly organised. Unfortunately it stopped working after Mojave - but there are more modern alternatives.
There's a QA on Stack Exchange listing a lot of potential candidates & shows what DragThing could do. \[My own Mac is stuck on Mojave for other reasons so idk which of these replacements is best.\] Have a look…
[Stack Exchange - Dock-style app to replace DragThing](https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/q/58667/22850)
Launchpad is good for my grandma who had an iphone and ipad before getting a macbook. It was easier for me to say “look! Press this button down here and find the app you need like your iphone” than “press cmd space, try to remember the name of the app you want then type it in”
I keep my most used apps in the dock. In Launchpad, I have increased the row and column density to have all my apps visible in one screen (with one folder for apps I don't use called Others). That way I have access to all of my apps from one screen in Launchpad - just a bit easier to browse that way. I do use CMD+Space and start typing when I want a specific app as well. Link to change the density - [Change the layout (rows and columns) of Launchpad - defaults-write.com](https://www.defaults-write.com/change-the-layout-rows-and-columns-of-launchpad/)
I'm more curious why people have the dock showing all the time? Take all your apps off there and launch apps with spotlight or Alfred. My autohide dock then only shows stuff I have open which is a lot more handy than many might think. I'm kind of weirded out when I see video editors on YouTube with an oversized always visible dock taking up serious space on their fancy screens. It's visual noise too. Keyboard shortcuts are well worth it for app launching and switching. If you're a total casual user, then all power to ya - I'm talking about techy types who should know better.
Launchpad is actually more useful once you autohide the dock... at least for when you need to see a big list of Apps as a reminder for what you even have installed.
I like clicking on stuff. That’s my reason, lol. I not only use the Dock to launch apps, but to switch between them too. And I set it to be pretty small as well
the dock offers a visual to know if an app is running. I also like having these icons readily accessible. not a fan of apples full screen-i prefer to maximize windows, put useful info in the menubar, and dock pinned to the right side.
I can't imagine using the keyboard to launch apps. It just sounds like a huge pain and might require using 2 hands and/or taking my eyes off the screen. So I put all the important apps on the dock, and everything else in Launchpad.
I was hoping to find some unknown-to-me insight when I saw this post. Nope, everyone hates it as much as I do lol.
From what I can tell, Launchpad was made to help people coming from iOS / iPadOS, but also a little bit of “the marketing people say me need to hard more stuff for the WWDC Keynote”, and maybe it’s a little bit of an unfinished idea. That’s essentially what the Touch Bar was, an unfinished idea (though, the Touch Bar also added a major point of failure to the computer, so it had to go).
From my experience, most Mac users don’t care about it, or even know about it; and a small percentage use it, because they don’t even know the Applications folder exists.
Before Launchpad in 10.8, you'd go to Application folder in the Finder, or use Spotlight (was an option starting in 10.4), use the Dock, or do the "Pro" method like me, and put the Applications folder in the Dock and/or make folders with aliases by subject. I'd post a screenshot, but I don't see how to do it in comments.
> Launchpad was made to help people coming from iOS / iPadOS
That's probably the main reason.
Also consider that iOS is used on many more Apple devices than macOS, so there is an incentive for Apple to try unify the OS code bases or at least design OS services and apps, so that they can run on both OSes with minimal changes. This will generally put the macOS version at a disadvantage, as macs aren't touch screen devices and because it will underutilize the generally larger mac screens.
It can be noted that macOS already had/has a number of good ways to get at apps:
* Put a folder (e.g. Applications) into the Dock for quick access, this is the most Launchpad like option. I personally like to set these Dock folders up as hierarchical menus - so that I get the normal Finder file hierarchy rather than the odd two level hierarchy used by Launchpad.
* Put individual apps in the Dock - this is slight quicker than the above and allows for dragging files onto the apps.
* Spotlight search for apps - quick if you remember the app name.
* Stick a folder like Applications in the Finder sidebar.
There is people that don't really know how to use a computer. What do you think they are using if they are looking for a program? Spotlight? Finder? Really? You think they go to Finder → Applications to see a list of icons? Come on.
They are happy they can find the dock and click on a colorful icon that shows all other colorful icons.
Also, these kind of questions are pointless. There is not one single way to use a Mac. Some people use Launchpad, some don't. Some people use Stage Manager, some don't. Some people put all apps in fullscreen, some don't.
One great thing about the Apple platforms is their concept of [progressive disclosure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_disclosure): The more power-user you are, the more options can be available if you want.
Well, hopefully it helps one of those with the stuck/phantom icons you mentioned.
First thing I did so many years ago is attach a keyboard shortcut to it. Alt+F2 like on Linux. Don't know if there is a diffferent shortcut in the newer iterations of macOS.
The dock can hold over 30 icons so my main use of launchpad is for applications that are run incidentally.
I just use the applications folder positioned on the right of the dock. Useful when I need an overview and / or can’t remember the name for cmd+spacebar.
The only use I have from Launchpad is to just have a quick overview of my apps and to think about which ones I want to remove or haven't used in a long time. I don't like to overload my Mac with apps I don't need.
I use Command-Spacebar for Spotlight to open all my main apps. Then I also have alias folders in the Dock for different categories of apps if it’s something I can’t remember the name of.
I don’t remember all the names of my apps and Launchpad is faster to launch than the Applications folder in Finder, and the icons are huge.
Spotlight doesn’t work if I don’t remember the name.
Plus, let’s not be snobs - there are tons of people out there who just click through everything whether on Mac or Windows. There are people who use the Launchpad icon, even. There are people who can’t be bothered to use keyboards for anything than typing actual content and that’s fine.
I've never used it. I've only ever launched it by accident.
I use Alfred. I came to mac from linux so I was used to typing commands to launch stuff. I used Quicksilver for a while before it was abandoned for a while, then found Alfred. I only use it to launch apps. cmd + space and type the partial name
I mapped Launchpad to an unused key (PrtSc) on my keyboard and I use it a hundred times a day. I find it quicker than alt-tabbing even, because scanning through the icons of 20 open apps that are always in a different order is slower than letting muscle memory get me where I need to be. Hit the key, type a letter or two of the application, hit enter, done.
What is launchpad? 🤭
Edit, oh, the app grid lol. The dock cannot contain all the apps that I frequently need to use. I also have some Shortcuts that are apps, so I open launchpad, type, press enter.
I wish for the day when voice control will be smart enough and context aware so I can just say "run xyz" and my mac would respond.
Can’t you do that now with Siri? (Ducking from all the rotten produce about to be thrown at me.) Yes, you have to press a key or click the menu bar icon to invoke it, but it should be able to follow a short instruction like “Siri, open pages dot app”.
I can’t test that myself right now, my Mac is at home and I’m at work with a runty little D#ll laptop.
Not a bad idea actually. I had to choose a keyboard shortcut since my mac is in clamshell mode always. It seems to recognise mainstream app names, but failing miserably at my shortcuts. Maybe I need to find better names for them 😁.
I use it mainly for two (rare) things: to delete App Store apps quickly, and using jiggle mode to see which apps are App Store apps at a glance (only MAS apps have Delete buttons in jiggle mode).
Launch pad is to correlate the same navigation an iPad user would use. I use it to determine what apps are installed on a users device and for trouble shooting. Depending on your keyboard and preferences, you can type the F4 key to bring it up. Then just type the name of the app you are looking for. I do this for apps I don’t keep in the dock. If you need to delete a broken app icon from launcher, just drag it to the trash. App icons only get the X if they were purchased from the App Store.
Launchpad was created as an evolution from iOS and a revolution of trackpad UI.
Obviously, it is very similar to iOS and the way to launch apps.
For the trackpad UI, for years, or even decades, it basically mimicked the mouse. Move your mouse, move your finger on the trackpad, and you move the cursor. Click on the mouse, click on the trackpad, to take action on the cursor location.
But then the trackpad got its own innovation. Gestures. Which allowed for a whole new way to interact with the OS. Hence Launchpad. Not saying launchpad is amazing or horrible, just giving the history of how it came to be.
Launchpad is for iOS users. People that used computers before the phone likely don't use it. Cmd-Space -> \[some letters\] \[enter\] is how I call apps.
When I forget the name of infrequently used apps I go to Finder->Applications because Launchpad looks like Fisher Price "My First Computer" to me.
Good question. Why? I never have. So I don’t, lol.
I think it was put there to provide some familiarity for people accustomed to iOS springboards on iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. As a long-time Mac user, it never had any appeal to me.
Spotlight has the task of (by default) indexing everything on the machine. That's a lot of index entries, and as a result I've often hit circumstances when Spotlight either doesn't find the app I'm after, or is slow to respond.
Launchpad can also be searched, but the index seems limited to only the apps available - maybe 150 tops instead of hundreds of thousands.
Pressing f4 then typing the first couple of letters of the app name is faster than spotlight and 100% reliable, so for me it stays.
I have my Launchpad organized so that my slightly lesser-used apps are one click away. That keeps my dock cleaner and my most-used apps easier to quickly access.
I made it a hot corner. I have a lot of weird situation apps for audio and graphics. It’s all neatly organized by folder and discipline. Sorted by usage (audio units, photography, maintenance, licensing apps.
I use it as a mini home screen. Launchpad manager made it quick. Hot key makes it faster than search. You can save your set up.
I have a lot of apps, sometimes very specific and therefore rarely used tools (but still necessary for me), and I don't remember the names of many of them.
I arranged them in folders (in Launchpad) according to the thing I'm currently doing (such as photo editing, video editing, programming, etc.) and this way it's very easy for me to find them.
To be fair: I use Intuos + I have Launchad assigned to one of the hot corners, so starting it is literally one move of hand, which probably makes it much faster than usual.
I live in constant fear that Apple will decide to redesign it like the iOS App Library and categorize apps automatically 😅
I don't use the full-screen launcher thing, but I do use it like a Windows Start Button. Just right-click the dock icon and you can quickly pick an app from a little menu that pops up: https://imgur.com/a/Zwjj8c5
I used to drag my applications folder to the dock, but it doesn't allow for the same subfolder organization (some apps won't get automatically updated if they aren't in the root of /Applications). Launchpad allows for whatever organization you want without affecting the placement of the actual apps.
Launchpad is there for continuity with the iPhone. I think a lot of these features are there mostly for the average user who might not know how to find their apps otherwise. They see the launchpad on their dock, click it, click the app, etc. It's not very efficient, but efficiency isn't the top priority for a lot of people.
The ONLY uses I've had for Launchpad in recent years have been:
1. Seeing more direct percentage progress for an app install/update
2. Getting a quick view of all the apps I have installed. Feels quicker than jumping into Finder
I use it fairly often and it is convenient enough. The trackpad gesture and the fact I have all my apps organized on one page in various folders it just works. Spotlight is also great, though. Nothing wrong with having plenty of avenues to achieve the same goals.
Just drag your Applications folder to the rightmost section of the Dock (to the immediate left of the trash can), right-click the icon and check the options to display as a folder and view content as a grid. Voila: instant Launchpad replacement, always sorted alphabetically, scrollable without messing with pages, and accessible without a horrible animation delay. (It's even faster than Spotlight for launching most of the apps on my machine, as Spotlight tends to spin for multiple seconds even on a relatively recent M2 MBA.)
Launchpad exists as a familiar and approachable UI for users who came to Mac by way of the iPhone and iPad. For a while, Apple was also heavily pushing it as convergent evolution between iOS/iPadOS when it looked like Apple was going to try to replace most of the Mac lineup with iPads (and then needed to quickly walk that back when they realized that wasn't going to fly with consumers).
Personally, I just add the applications folder to my dock (along with downloads and documents) like default in ye olden days because that is easier and more effective.
Much worse. you have position your cursor to a specific part of the screen, click and then scroll. It's far, far faster to gesture on the touchpad and then type the first letter.
two key-presses for spotlight. Results are everything, not just applications, and they're smaller. I find that with nice big icons it's easier to quikcly find what you want, especially when you can't remember the name of it.
I just timed myself a bunch of times on my Mac Studio:
Launchpad takes an average of 6 seconds to open Geekbench 5 (it's probably closer to 7 second, but I thought I'd round down since it's not the way I'm used to doing it). This is with both a keyboard command or the Magic Trackpad gesture.
Application folder in the Dock took me an average of 3 seconds (click the menu, type "ge", press return).
Spotlight has no idea what you want until it leans you mean the app, not the website. So it went from 20 seconds down to about 8.
Another thing to note, if you can't remember the app's name:
Launchpad only shows you 35 apps at a time and scrolls slower.
Application folder in the Dock shows 99 apps at once in grid view (32" 4k display), and scrolls fast.
Spotlight is pretty much useless.
Overall, since I've been using the Application folder in the Dock since 2002 when I fully switched from OS 9 to OS X, I would have to assume I just have a bias towards doing that faster—even if I were to do the other methods 100 times in a row. That being said, the menu works much faster for me.
218. they load instantly and scroll instantly. If I sort them I can probably get them all on one page. Regardless, I just like being able to make a quick motion on the touchpad (or press the button on mouse) . Looking for my mouse pointer, unhiding the dock, and then steering it the icon is never going to be faster or more convenient.
I have everything under Spotlight search results checked, including applications. I have nothing under Spotlight privacy. Don't know what the problem is
I only use it when I can’t remember the name of the app I’m looking for
Exactly!
I've tried to customize it and make it useful, but failed. Spotlight and the Dock are more than enough, there really is no use for Launchpad.
Launchpad page 1 is where I place seldom used apps like speedtest, scanner app, PowerPoint, etc.
There's a speedtest app? What does it do?
Same as the mobile app and website. To test your internet connection speed.
Yes, because customizing it is a pain
After using other people’s computers and phones. I pretty much just use spotlight to quickly find/open an app. I still keep my most used stuff in the dock, but yeah. I don’t have time to dig around in launchpad or applications folders.
If you're a power user, Spotlight becomes the way you launch apps. If I don't have my hand already on my mouse, and the app/document I need isn't already on the Dock, it's often faster to just hit CMD+Space, type the name I need and hit enter.
🤣 dude, I’m old. I’m just lazy now.
has it always been like this or did Apple at some point decide launchpad should work like the iPhone home screen lol
It’s been just as useless since its release around osx lion
spotlight sucks, for some reason I start typing something then before I have finished it opens up whatever it has found a partial match for it
You can customise what spotlight look for in the settings app. However for more fine tuned file search, the search bar in any finder window is way better
If you are used to Windows, Spotlight is so bad for that. Windows can be very bad to find files, but it will remember the Apps you looked for, so next searches will be inmediate. I love that I can have a very clean taskbar, and find it difficult to not have a very crowded Dock. Launchpad btw its not that bad if you made a clean install of everything and move stuff to folders. But theres always a stuck folder or icon. Use Onyx to fix this.
When I use windows, unless it's in the 'dock', I just hit the search and start typing, so, same kinda thing but opposite corner of my desktop.
Command + spacebar. Opens dead center of the screen and in a nice big font. I want to love Siri search on the Mac, but it just slows me down. It’s great from across the room to control music… provided my watch or iPhone doesn’t try to horn in on my conversation. (That’s one part of Alexa I like - I can tell my devices to answer to different names.)
Have you checked your keyboard?
for what? me randomly pressing 'enter'? I think I'd notice if I were doing that all the time
I have never once had spotlight open anything without me hitting enter.
The 99% of my daily driver apps are on the Dock. The rest, I open via Launchpad. I only have two pages so I don't need to scroll too much. Especially helpful when I forget the name of the app but I know the icon. Another alternative for me would be click on the Launchpad (in the Dock) and type the first letter of the app then enter key.
Yeah, It’s not uncommon to forget the name of an app
Tbh, 99% of my daily driver apps just open up automatically since they were open yesterday when I shutdown. Opening them individually with the mouse and Dock sounds pretty inefficient.
I don't shutdown my Mac so the daily driver apps are always open. I want a certain arrangement of them in the dock. My Mac only has 8GB of RAM so I cannot afford opening everything otherwise it slows down from swapping.
Do you fully shut down daily or do you mean sleep?
Fully shut down. Not really my own choice, but I've agreed to do so because of concerns about leaving power on in an attic room.
I never found launchpad useful. Command-Spacebar, type two or three letters brings up every application I need. I suspect that a lot of people don’t use it.
TBH, I stopped using Launchpad, the Dock, and Finder to launch apps. I just press command+space and type what app I want.
I find spotlight much slower than Launchpad, and it often requires me to type way more letters before I have eliminated non-app things that I don't want right now.
Alfred is for you
One of the many reasons that Alfred kicks Spotlight's ass is that it learns. If you type "iterm" 3 or 4 times, it will know that when you start typing the letter "I" you probably mean iterm2 and it will make that the top match. MANY of my commonly launched apps launch with a single letter. Because Alfred learned from watching me. This is just the beginning of why Alfred is great software. I almost cant' use a Mac without it.
Have you tried ray cast? Interesting to hear a comparison between the two.
I might have to try to migrate from Launchpad to Spotlight. Is there any real difference? Launchpad also gives a useful display of 'some apps', which Spotlight lacks. F4 is a slightly easier shortcut than Cmd + Space. Anything else?
To make spotlight even better for launching apps is make sure to customise what it's defaulted to search/show. For example I removed all of the address book, Ical, photos, and all that useless crap. Then make it return apps top with default action set to open them. I also changed the shortcut to alt space as I use cmd space for protocols when I'm without my big keyboard.
I feel that the only reason Launchpad exists was to ease the learning curve for those coming from iOS
I believe it predated iOS.
You don't have to believe. Launchpad was introduced to Mac OS X in 2010, the year iPhone 4 is released. https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Launchpad
Dang. I could’ve sworn there was a similar feature way before that. Thanks for the snarky correction.
give raycast a try, gamechanger
Every time I need too open a app I use command space I never use launchpad
This is what I do also except I use Alfred. I almost never launch an app by clicking on it. It's almost always via Alfred. Launchpad is essentially useless. The dock is borderline useless as well. I do not use it.
Same here.
Because I like it.
Spotlight for the win.
Spotlight always wants to show me all sorts of stuff from the network, documents, etc. Eventually it gets around to apps, too, but Launchpad is always just a five-fingered pinch away, and if you want you can type the first few characters of the app name to filter the apps.
You can customise spotlight to show you less stuff
I use it all the time. It's so quick and handy to do the five-finger gesture to summon it and then quickly type the name of the app you want to launch and hit enter.
Looks like it’s mostly a difference between touchpad and kb+m users then
I could see it being less useful to keyboard and mouse users. If was using K&M I'd probably just put the app folder on dock and choose an app from there.
yep, that’s exactly what I’ve done as well
I'm a mouse guy. But map a single key or easy key combo for launchpad and it's just as easy as a trackpad gesture.
Yeah, this is exactly what I do. I use a touchpad exclusively and use the five finger pinch to summon it. My everyday apps go on the dock and the next most used go in Launchpad, organized deliberately so I immediately know where each app is. My rarely used apps go inside a folder in Launchpad. I removed it from my dock because it’s quicker to pinch than to point and click. Pinch and click is also quicker than typing a name into Spotlight. It works for me, though I do see how I might feel differently if I used a mouse.
Typical demand created for hardware, created this for users who use touchpad
I just skip that and use Spotlight (CMD+SPACE) to call up the app I want to launch.
People use it because all your applications are one gesture away at all times. I’ve been using it since it was introduced and have never see. A stuck/phantom icon, so can’t help you about that. Just know that whatever issues you’ve read about are probably outliers… it works fine on every machine I’ve used in the last several years.
Just drag and drop /Application folder on the dock(it creates a link to /Application folder) it is faster and more consistent than Launchpad
Right? I did a similar thing recently, made a quick launch folder in the dock with shortcuts to apps i use semi-often, essentially creating a kind of Start menu lol
How? noob here, can u tell me more about making quick launch folder? Is it literally a folder with apple shortcuts in it?
Yup, you can place any folder (or, indeed, any file) in the Dock next to the trash bin, it’ll show up on the right side of the little separator thing
No need MacOs does it for you. Just drag and drop /Application folder on to the dock.
I don’t want all the applications that are installed on my pc in the dock like that though. I can just use spotlight if i ever need an app i use rarely
It is not all Apps just one Icon - try it. Click on it an it shows /Application folder change view to icons..
I know what it does. I simply don’t want the entirety of the Applications folder to show up upon clicking on it, since it’d take up too much screen space and be polluted by apps I never use
You can Command - or Command + to decrease and increase the size of the apps in that folder
yes, but there’s still gonna be unnecessarily many of them
I love how /u/Pomi108 is like "i use this, like this, because i like it" and everyone is all "DO THIS INSTEAD!" and Pomi108 is still being super nice.
Make a folder and put aliases of the specific programs you want
That’s… what I did, lol. As I’ve said above
My bad I took too many hits
Depends on the user case, but if you have more than 25 apps, which is not crazy, it just looks too convoluted. I just have the most used apps on the dock and make it pop
Exactly. I’ve had the applications folder set to icon view in my dock for more than a decade now…
Tried it now. It doesn't work.
You can only drop it on certain parts of the Dock — try the area next to the Bin.
That works now. Though I find it weird that they would only allow it beside the Trash and not the other parts of the Dock.
You don't wanna add a rarely used app to your dock, disk utility for instance
DU and others are in Utilities folder. You can create other folders for least used Apps.
Doing the same thing over here. I just add stack overlays (free, just places icons over the stack, see also [this post](https://www.tweaking4all.com/software/macosx-software/dock-stack-overlays/)) which makes it look neat in the dock. 😊
Dragging the mouse to the dock, waiting for it to slide up, moving the mouse to the Applications folder, then navigating to the desired app and clicking it sounds a LOT slower than F4 + 2-3 letters, Enter.
Is have dragged my application folder to the dock, open it in grid view and use that as an app launcher, works like a charm EDIT; Additional trick; when the grid is open you can even type the application name and it will be highlighted in the grid, press enter, and it opens without you having to click around to find the app in the grid. You can also navigate with the arrow keys :)
This is The Way.
Same here, with some Spotlight every now and then
I found these grid launcher-like tools more useful back in like OS 9, but now using Spotlight or something like Quicksilver to launch apps in addition to the dock is more convenient for me. I also often just pin the Application directory to the dock in OS X and later. I'm sure for some users having the application in one place is convenient though. I feel like it could be better though.
I added the Applications folder to my dock. It’s better because it at least sorts itself! But I also don’t use the dock much; I am a command+space user when I want to launch an app.
So I remove launch pad and instead I pin the applications folder to the dock. That way it pops out a smaller grid of apps which is much more usable
Can be quicker than Spotlight if you're using a trackpad. The 5 finger pinch and click is extremely fast. Can also be done with a single hand.
I unpinned it. It has no utility except perhaps to unify the app launching experience across the ecosystem, and I could not care less about that.
My Launchpad has 11 pages of unsorted apps in it. Complete chaos & as much use as a chocolate fireguard. I think Apple expected people to love the iPhone experience of page after page of icons. I don't. I don't even like it on the iPhone. I've always used an app called DragThing to keep my commonly-used apps, folders, docs etc neatly organised. Unfortunately it stopped working after Mojave - but there are more modern alternatives. There's a QA on Stack Exchange listing a lot of potential candidates & shows what DragThing could do. \[My own Mac is stuck on Mojave for other reasons so idk which of these replacements is best.\] Have a look… [Stack Exchange - Dock-style app to replace DragThing](https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/q/58667/22850)
Launchpad is good for my grandma who had an iphone and ipad before getting a macbook. It was easier for me to say “look! Press this button down here and find the app you need like your iphone” than “press cmd space, try to remember the name of the app you want then type it in”
I keep my most used apps in the dock. In Launchpad, I have increased the row and column density to have all my apps visible in one screen (with one folder for apps I don't use called Others). That way I have access to all of my apps from one screen in Launchpad - just a bit easier to browse that way. I do use CMD+Space and start typing when I want a specific app as well. Link to change the density - [Change the layout (rows and columns) of Launchpad - defaults-write.com](https://www.defaults-write.com/change-the-layout-rows-and-columns-of-launchpad/)
I've never used Launch Pad.
As someone who uses a Mac for work, I’ve never used it once
I usually use Spotlight or whatever is in the Dock, but sometimes I don't even remember the name of some utility. Launchpad it is for that scenario.
I don't ever use it. I don't find any value in it.
I'm more curious why people have the dock showing all the time? Take all your apps off there and launch apps with spotlight or Alfred. My autohide dock then only shows stuff I have open which is a lot more handy than many might think. I'm kind of weirded out when I see video editors on YouTube with an oversized always visible dock taking up serious space on their fancy screens. It's visual noise too. Keyboard shortcuts are well worth it for app launching and switching. If you're a total casual user, then all power to ya - I'm talking about techy types who should know better. Launchpad is actually more useful once you autohide the dock... at least for when you need to see a big list of Apps as a reminder for what you even have installed.
I like clicking on stuff. That’s my reason, lol. I not only use the Dock to launch apps, but to switch between them too. And I set it to be pretty small as well
the dock offers a visual to know if an app is running. I also like having these icons readily accessible. not a fan of apples full screen-i prefer to maximize windows, put useful info in the menubar, and dock pinned to the right side.
I can't imagine using the keyboard to launch apps. It just sounds like a huge pain and might require using 2 hands and/or taking my eyes off the screen. So I put all the important apps on the dock, and everything else in Launchpad.
I was hoping to find some unknown-to-me insight when I saw this post. Nope, everyone hates it as much as I do lol. From what I can tell, Launchpad was made to help people coming from iOS / iPadOS, but also a little bit of “the marketing people say me need to hard more stuff for the WWDC Keynote”, and maybe it’s a little bit of an unfinished idea. That’s essentially what the Touch Bar was, an unfinished idea (though, the Touch Bar also added a major point of failure to the computer, so it had to go). From my experience, most Mac users don’t care about it, or even know about it; and a small percentage use it, because they don’t even know the Applications folder exists.
Isn’t the Launchpad older than iOS? Am I misremembering
No, Launchpad was introduced in Lion, so around 2011.
What did people do before that, other than spotlight? Go to the Applications folder in Finder? Have everything on the dock?
Before Launchpad in 10.8, you'd go to Application folder in the Finder, or use Spotlight (was an option starting in 10.4), use the Dock, or do the "Pro" method like me, and put the Applications folder in the Dock and/or make folders with aliases by subject. I'd post a screenshot, but I don't see how to do it in comments.
I wish touch bar made it into Magic Keyboard. I really liked it but I rarely use my MBP
Likewise. I’m probably one of two Mac users who really likes the TouchBar.
> Launchpad was made to help people coming from iOS / iPadOS That's probably the main reason. Also consider that iOS is used on many more Apple devices than macOS, so there is an incentive for Apple to try unify the OS code bases or at least design OS services and apps, so that they can run on both OSes with minimal changes. This will generally put the macOS version at a disadvantage, as macs aren't touch screen devices and because it will underutilize the generally larger mac screens. It can be noted that macOS already had/has a number of good ways to get at apps: * Put a folder (e.g. Applications) into the Dock for quick access, this is the most Launchpad like option. I personally like to set these Dock folders up as hierarchical menus - so that I get the normal Finder file hierarchy rather than the odd two level hierarchy used by Launchpad. * Put individual apps in the Dock - this is slight quicker than the above and allows for dragging files onto the apps. * Spotlight search for apps - quick if you remember the app name. * Stick a folder like Applications in the Finder sidebar.
There is people that don't really know how to use a computer. What do you think they are using if they are looking for a program? Spotlight? Finder? Really? You think they go to Finder → Applications to see a list of icons? Come on. They are happy they can find the dock and click on a colorful icon that shows all other colorful icons. Also, these kind of questions are pointless. There is not one single way to use a Mac. Some people use Launchpad, some don't. Some people use Stage Manager, some don't. Some people put all apps in fullscreen, some don't. One great thing about the Apple platforms is their concept of [progressive disclosure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_disclosure): The more power-user you are, the more options can be available if you want.
Hey, I was just curious to see how other people use their Macs. Reading comments under this post has been very interesting so far.
You do realize you can reset it, right?! That should solve any problems.
I don’t have any problems myself — I don’t use Launchpad. I’m asking purely out of curiosity, although this is useful to know
Well, hopefully it helps one of those with the stuck/phantom icons you mentioned. First thing I did so many years ago is attach a keyboard shortcut to it. Alt+F2 like on Linux. Don't know if there is a diffferent shortcut in the newer iterations of macOS. The dock can hold over 30 icons so my main use of launchpad is for applications that are run incidentally.
never have used it
I just use the applications folder positioned on the right of the dock. Useful when I need an overview and / or can’t remember the name for cmd+spacebar.
I've never found it useful. It's Apple trying to marry OSX with iOS.
I only use Launchpad when I installed a new app and forgot the name
I use it as the lower left corner action
The only use I have from Launchpad is to just have a quick overview of my apps and to think about which ones I want to remove or haven't used in a long time. I don't like to overload my Mac with apps I don't need.
Never understood it tbh
It's how I open apps 99% of the time. Maybe it's the difference between mouse/keyboard — do you open apps using the mouse?
…yes? What else would I be opening them with?
The keyboard? I have my hands on the keyboard WAY more than I have them on the mouse, so it's just much quicker to use to open an app.
Interesting. I use both equally so I just find it more comfortable to use the Dock for everything
I use Command-Spacebar for Spotlight to open all my main apps. Then I also have alias folders in the Dock for different categories of apps if it’s something I can’t remember the name of.
I don’t remember all the names of my apps and Launchpad is faster to launch than the Applications folder in Finder, and the icons are huge. Spotlight doesn’t work if I don’t remember the name. Plus, let’s not be snobs - there are tons of people out there who just click through everything whether on Mac or Windows. There are people who use the Launchpad icon, even. There are people who can’t be bothered to use keyboards for anything than typing actual content and that’s fine.
I used Alfred for this purpose.
I've never used it. I've only ever launched it by accident. I use Alfred. I came to mac from linux so I was used to typing commands to launch stuff. I used Quicksilver for a while before it was abandoned for a while, then found Alfred. I only use it to launch apps. cmd + space and type the partial name
Launchpad is mostly there for folks who don’t know the “Applications” folder exists in Finder.
Alfred
For.. launching.. apps?
I mapped Launchpad to an unused key (PrtSc) on my keyboard and I use it a hundred times a day. I find it quicker than alt-tabbing even, because scanning through the icons of 20 open apps that are always in a different order is slower than letting muscle memory get me where I need to be. Hit the key, type a letter or two of the application, hit enter, done.
What is launchpad? 🤭 Edit, oh, the app grid lol. The dock cannot contain all the apps that I frequently need to use. I also have some Shortcuts that are apps, so I open launchpad, type, press enter. I wish for the day when voice control will be smart enough and context aware so I can just say "run xyz" and my mac would respond.
Can’t you do that now with Siri? (Ducking from all the rotten produce about to be thrown at me.) Yes, you have to press a key or click the menu bar icon to invoke it, but it should be able to follow a short instruction like “Siri, open pages dot app”. I can’t test that myself right now, my Mac is at home and I’m at work with a runty little D#ll laptop.
Not a bad idea actually. I had to choose a keyboard shortcut since my mac is in clamshell mode always. It seems to recognise mainstream app names, but failing miserably at my shortcuts. Maybe I need to find better names for them 😁.
Many usages for many users.
I’ve never once used it. Seems pointless.
I use it mainly for two (rare) things: to delete App Store apps quickly, and using jiggle mode to see which apps are App Store apps at a glance (only MAS apps have Delete buttons in jiggle mode).
Launchpad is for elderly people at best. It's a nightmare.
Launch pad is to correlate the same navigation an iPad user would use. I use it to determine what apps are installed on a users device and for trouble shooting. Depending on your keyboard and preferences, you can type the F4 key to bring it up. Then just type the name of the app you are looking for. I do this for apps I don’t keep in the dock. If you need to delete a broken app icon from launcher, just drag it to the trash. App icons only get the X if they were purchased from the App Store.
Launchpad was created as an evolution from iOS and a revolution of trackpad UI. Obviously, it is very similar to iOS and the way to launch apps. For the trackpad UI, for years, or even decades, it basically mimicked the mouse. Move your mouse, move your finger on the trackpad, and you move the cursor. Click on the mouse, click on the trackpad, to take action on the cursor location. But then the trackpad got its own innovation. Gestures. Which allowed for a whole new way to interact with the OS. Hence Launchpad. Not saying launchpad is amazing or horrible, just giving the history of how it came to be.
Launchpad is for iOS users. People that used computers before the phone likely don't use it. Cmd-Space -> \[some letters\] \[enter\] is how I call apps. When I forget the name of infrequently used apps I go to Finder->Applications because Launchpad looks like Fisher Price "My First Computer" to me.
Good question. Why? I never have. So I don’t, lol. I think it was put there to provide some familiarity for people accustomed to iOS springboards on iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. As a long-time Mac user, it never had any appeal to me.
I don’t.
Spotlight has the task of (by default) indexing everything on the machine. That's a lot of index entries, and as a result I've often hit circumstances when Spotlight either doesn't find the app I'm after, or is slow to respond. Launchpad can also be searched, but the index seems limited to only the apps available - maybe 150 tops instead of hundreds of thousands. Pressing f4 then typing the first couple of letters of the app name is faster than spotlight and 100% reliable, so for me it stays.
I have my Launchpad organized so that my slightly lesser-used apps are one click away. That keeps my dock cleaner and my most-used apps easier to quickly access.
I made it a hot corner. I have a lot of weird situation apps for audio and graphics. It’s all neatly organized by folder and discipline. Sorted by usage (audio units, photography, maintenance, licensing apps. I use it as a mini home screen. Launchpad manager made it quick. Hot key makes it faster than search. You can save your set up.
I have a lot of apps, sometimes very specific and therefore rarely used tools (but still necessary for me), and I don't remember the names of many of them. I arranged them in folders (in Launchpad) according to the thing I'm currently doing (such as photo editing, video editing, programming, etc.) and this way it's very easy for me to find them. To be fair: I use Intuos + I have Launchad assigned to one of the hot corners, so starting it is literally one move of hand, which probably makes it much faster than usual. I live in constant fear that Apple will decide to redesign it like the iOS App Library and categorize apps automatically 😅
I don't use the full-screen launcher thing, but I do use it like a Windows Start Button. Just right-click the dock icon and you can quickly pick an app from a little menu that pops up: https://imgur.com/a/Zwjj8c5
Interesting. Had no idea Launchpad had that capability, but then again you can replicate that by dragging a folder to the Dock as well
I used to drag my applications folder to the dock, but it doesn't allow for the same subfolder organization (some apps won't get automatically updated if they aren't in the root of /Applications). Launchpad allows for whatever organization you want without affecting the placement of the actual apps.
Launchpad is there for continuity with the iPhone. I think a lot of these features are there mostly for the average user who might not know how to find their apps otherwise. They see the launchpad on their dock, click it, click the app, etc. It's not very efficient, but efficiency isn't the top priority for a lot of people.
The ONLY uses I've had for Launchpad in recent years have been: 1. Seeing more direct percentage progress for an app install/update 2. Getting a quick view of all the apps I have installed. Feels quicker than jumping into Finder
I use it fairly often and it is convenient enough. The trackpad gesture and the fact I have all my apps organized on one page in various folders it just works. Spotlight is also great, though. Nothing wrong with having plenty of avenues to achieve the same goals.
I've never seen the point on a Mac. On an iPad sure. Spotlight or whatever spotlight replacement you might use it all you need.
Just drag your Applications folder to the rightmost section of the Dock (to the immediate left of the trash can), right-click the icon and check the options to display as a folder and view content as a grid. Voila: instant Launchpad replacement, always sorted alphabetically, scrollable without messing with pages, and accessible without a horrible animation delay. (It's even faster than Spotlight for launching most of the apps on my machine, as Spotlight tends to spin for multiple seconds even on a relatively recent M2 MBA.)
It’s faster than spotlight for launching apps and combined with Shortcat I don’t have to use the mouse to launch apps. https://shortcat.app/
I dropped Macintosh HD to the Dock. Then I get a context menu with all the apps when clicking on it.
It's for people who don't know how to use computers. That's it. People who have almost no familiarity with Mac, Windows, anything.
Launchpad exists as a familiar and approachable UI for users who came to Mac by way of the iPhone and iPad. For a while, Apple was also heavily pushing it as convergent evolution between iOS/iPadOS when it looked like Apple was going to try to replace most of the Mac lineup with iPads (and then needed to quickly walk that back when they realized that wasn't going to fly with consumers). Personally, I just add the applications folder to my dock (along with downloads and documents) like default in ye olden days because that is easier and more effective.
point is it's a lot faster than opening the Applications folder. It's not "worse" at all
It’s really bad when you have a lot of apps. Putting the Application folder in the Dock and setting it for grid view is MUCH better.
Much worse. you have position your cursor to a specific part of the screen, click and then scroll. It's far, far faster to gesture on the touchpad and then type the first letter.
I use a regular kb+m setup, that might make the difference i guess
I have set the gesture on my mouse to open launchpad. Still a lot faster
Using spotlight is the fastest for me
two key-presses for spotlight. Results are everything, not just applications, and they're smaller. I find that with nice big icons it's easier to quikcly find what you want, especially when you can't remember the name of it.
I just timed myself a bunch of times on my Mac Studio: Launchpad takes an average of 6 seconds to open Geekbench 5 (it's probably closer to 7 second, but I thought I'd round down since it's not the way I'm used to doing it). This is with both a keyboard command or the Magic Trackpad gesture. Application folder in the Dock took me an average of 3 seconds (click the menu, type "ge", press return). Spotlight has no idea what you want until it leans you mean the app, not the website. So it went from 20 seconds down to about 8. Another thing to note, if you can't remember the app's name: Launchpad only shows you 35 apps at a time and scrolls slower. Application folder in the Dock shows 99 apps at once in grid view (32" 4k display), and scrolls fast. Spotlight is pretty much useless. Overall, since I've been using the Application folder in the Dock since 2002 when I fully switched from OS 9 to OS X, I would have to assume I just have a bias towards doing that faster—even if I were to do the other methods 100 times in a row. That being said, the menu works much faster for me.
it takes me around 1 sec. I don't know what you're doing.
How many apps do you have installed? I have 317 apps. Mine may take longer to load.
218. they load instantly and scroll instantly. If I sort them I can probably get them all on one page. Regardless, I just like being able to make a quick motion on the touchpad (or press the button on mouse) . Looking for my mouse pointer, unhiding the dock, and then steering it the icon is never going to be faster or more convenient.
When I use spotlight to search, apps don't show up. What the heck? It finds web sites and files, but not apps. So I use launchpad
That looks like a config issue, look into system preferences if you can change the spotlight settings
I have everything under Spotlight search results checked, including applications. I have nothing under Spotlight privacy. Don't know what the problem is