LaunchBack 1.0.2 Beta

Fixed swipe transitions overlapping/gapping mid-page-flip
Each page reserved its own left/right margin to get that centered "framed" look, but mid-swipe — with two pages partially on screen at once — both pages' margins landed in the middle of the screen simultaneously, leaving a big blank gap between the outgoing and incoming icons. The margin is now applied to the scrollable area as a whole instead of to each page individually, so pages slide directly flush against each other with no gap.

Faster, more consistent page-change animation
Swiping with a mouse or tapping a page dot now uses a quick, explicit animation instead of SwiftUI's default (looser, ~0.55s) spring, so it matches the snappier feel of trackpad swiping and classic Launchpad's own page flip.

Background now matches your actual wallpaper
Previously the background used a system blur material that could wash out colors compared to your real desktop picture. It now reads and blurs your actual wallpaper image directly for an exact color match. For macOS's newer animated/procedural wallpapers (which have no image file to read), it falls back to a live screen snapshot of just the desktop layer — this requires one-time Screen Recording permission (you'll be prompted; approve it and relaunch once).

Dock now hides while the grid is open
Matches classic Launchpad's behavior instead of leaving the Dock visible underneath.

Centering fix
Fixed a regression from the swipe-gap fix where the grid could render flush to one side instead of centered.

LaunchBack 1.0.2

Increased icon sizes
Fix left and right spaces
Remove full width icon in launching LauncBack

LaunchBack 1.0.1

Fixed the bugs of not showing all apps, and minor code updates

LaunchBack

Restores the classic full-screen Launchpad grid that macOS Tahoe replaced with a search-only "Apps" view — as a small standalone app, not a system patch.

Features

• Full-screen paginated grid — the classic Launchpad layout, 7 columns per page, icons sized to fill their cell
• Live search — type to filter apps by name, just like the original
• Global hotkey — ⌥⌘Space toggles the overlay from anywhere (easily rebindable)
• Swipe or drag between pages — trackpad two-finger swipe and mouse click-drag both work
• Smooth open/close animation — fade + subtle zoom, not a hard cut
• Escape to go back — clears search first, then dismisses on a second press; click anywhere outside an icon also dismisses
• Toggle-friendly — re-launching the app (double-click, Dock, open) toggles the existing instance instead of doing nothing or requiring a quit first

Requirements

• macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later — built and tested through macOS Tahoe
• Universal binary — native on both Apple Silicon and Intel

Installation

1. Download LaunchBack.dmg below
2. Drag LaunchBack.app into /Applications
3. First launch: right-click → Open (this build is ad-hoc signed, not notarized, so Gatekeeper will otherwise warn — this is a one-time step)

Known limitations

• Not notarized — see step 3 above. Notarization requires a paid Apple Developer account and may come in a future release.
• First launch after copying to a new Mac can take several seconds while Gatekeeper verifies the signature; subsequent launches are instant.