2.0.0

2.0.0

New UI update

Redesigned the entire settings interface. It now looks more organised and modern. The buttons and icons are familiar, but fully optimised for corner radius and shadows.

General Tab

The 'General' Tab now looks like MacOS's native Settings, it simply looks better and all the functions remain.

About Tab

The 'About' tab now includes a lightweight hero image containing LaunchNext's name and version. The new information card now shows operating system, processor and display information, so opening an issue with a screenshot of the About page would help me to understand your hardware better and fix the issue more easily.

Update Tab

The Update tab has also been redesigned to look more modern. The release notes section is more detailed to help you read it more easily.

Less RAM Usage And Better Performance

• On-Demand Icon Loading (Next Engine)

Previously, all icons were loaded into memory at once during scanning/restoration.

Now, icons are loaded only when actually displayed, caching only a small portion currently in use with controlled cache size. It automatically reclaims memory during system shortages.

Result: Memory usage no longer scales linearly with app count, significantly reducing startup and page-turning peaks,More stable long-term memory usage with fewer stutters.

• Folder Preview Caching (CPU Load Reduction)

Previously, each drag-and-refresh redrew 3×3 preview tiles, causing high CPU fluctuations. Now previews cache based on content changes and reuse unchanged tiles.

Result: Smoother folder opening/rearranging with reduced CPU spikes.

New Backup And Better Import Function

New Backup

• The backup area has been upgraded from a placeholder to full management: select backup directory, create backups, display backup history (time/size).
• The history list supports one-click import/delete, and also supports multi-select delete with confirmation prompt.
• Backup content includes layout data + preference settings (written together during export).

Better Import

• The import popup now supports selecting import content:

  • Layout & data (layout and data)
  • Preference settings groups: General / Appearance / App Sources / Hidden Apps / Titles

• You can import only preference settings, or only layout, or both at the same time.

Better External Hardrive Support

Managing external hard drives is now more streamlined.

In “App Sources,” you can expand a specific external drive path to view all apps on that disk. You can then remove residual items from the layout on a per-app basis, without needing to delete the entire path or perform a full rescan. After unplugging an external drive, cleanup is more intuitive and hassle-free.

Fixed Folder Icon Drag issue

• Fixed an issue where dragging items within folders caused positional errors, such as dragging from the bottom being treated as dragging from the top.

• Dragging coordinates are now more accurate after scrolling, resulting in more stable drag-and-drop sorting.

Fully Removed AI Overlay Function

Originally, I wanted to create an AI Overlay inside LaunchNext as an optional function, similar to SKY which was acquired by OpenAI, but after had a chance to experiencing the Doubao AI phone, I feel that this logic of Function calling + VLM + RAG + Context-Window is still too primitive, the interaction is also very primitive, and it's not suitable to implement in LaunchNext. The Doubao phone's background operations and various system-level permission functions are actually very well perfected in terms of experience, and after checking the internal on-device models and engineering via ADB, they are very solid. The current iPhone looks a bit like a product from the previous era. If we can use the current large enough RAM and chip processing power to make most key functions on-device and create a separate ROM for it, that should be quite interesting.

Also working on a simple open-source browser extension called TranslateNext. Almost finished, but not sure when it will be released.

This update involves significant changes. Please remember to back up your data.

Full Changelog: 1.1.3...2.0.0

1.1.3

• Fixed crash when dragging icons out of folders. #162

• Added Folder Drop Zone Size to control folder creation or icon placement. #161

• Binds new settings to top padding of page indicator; uses adjustable scale for drag hit area.

• Updated terminal update prompt (added transparent button description)

• Added pt-BR language support #146

• Optimized Japanese translations: #154

• Optimized Korean translations: #170

• Optimized Italian translation: #152

What's Changed

• Added Italian translation in Localization.swift by @Dino0005 in #152
• Update French translation by @Guilouz in #156
• Refine Korean localization strings by @likegravity in #170

New Contributors

• @Dino0005 made their first contribution in #152

Full Changelog: 1.1.2...1.1.3

1.1.2

What's New in 1.1.2

• Silent launch: LaunchNext can now start quietly at login with no splash screen or pop-up window, providing a seamless startup experience without interrupting your workflow.

• Drag-and-drop polish: Experience smoother cross-page icon moves, improved folder drop behavior, and significantly reduced jitter during heavy drag operations for a more fluid user experience.

• Icon rendering upgrade: Native icons now fully respect system dark mode settings, preserve alpha transparency for better visual quality, and automatically scale for Retina displays out-of-the-box.

• Custom sources: External volumes are now monitored automatically—when you remove a custom source from settings, all apps from that source are automatically and cleanly removed from the launcher as well, keeping your launcher synchronized with your source configuration.

• Lock Layout Mode: When this mode is enabled, scrolling through pages and dragging to navigate will not accidentally move or rearrange icons, preventing unwanted layout changes and keeping your organization intact.

Thank you! Please tell me if there are any issues.

What's Changed

• Update French translation by @Guilouz in #132
• feat(i18n): update Czech translations by @JiriSko in #135

Full Changelog: 1.1.1...1.1.2

1.1.1

Dear valued LaunchNext user,

This is LaunchNext version 1.1.1. It's more stable, with many bugs fixed. It also has new features.
LaunchNext's goal is to build the best open-source launchpad for macOS 26. It should be better than 99.99% of closed-source and paid launchpads. 😂🎉

Bug Fixes

• Fixed app names showing incorrectly - Safari no longer shows as "浏览器" on English systems, VS Code shows full name instead of just "Code", "Microsoft Word" become "Word". (I need more feedback here. Please let me know if this work. Many Thanks to @wurui1994 's idea, #23 and @liyuhaolol #89)
• Fixed icons disappearing during drag - Icons being moved no longer vanish until you release the mouse
• Performance optmiazation
• Reduced backdrop opacity for better visibility
• Updated system requirement to macOS 26.0 to avoid unwanted issues from MacOS 15

New Features

• Hide Dock option - System Dock can now auto-hide when Launchpad is open

Due to my academic pressure, the update frequency for LaunchNext will be slightly reduced.

Thank you for your support!🫡

What's Changed

• Update French translation by @Guilouz in #120
• Update French translation by @Guilouz in #121

Full Changelog: 1.1.0...1.1.1

1.1.0

What's Changed

• Update French translation by @Guilouz in #113
• feat(i18n): add Czech localization by @JiriSko in #109

New Contributors

• @JiriSko made their first contribution in #109

Full Changelog: 1.0.9...1.1.0

The README now supports Italian and Czech.

The software now supports Italian and Czech.

This release serves to test whether the automatic update program implemented in version 1.0.9 functions properly.

Thank you for your support. More optimizations and updates are underway. Welcome to open a PR!

1.0.9

What's Changed

• feat: Add F4 hotkey and fix window focus issue by @derkan in #103

New Contributors

• @derkan made their first contribution in #103

Full Changelog: 1.0.8...1.0.9

feat: replace Python updater with Swift CLI

• bundle the prebuilt universal SwiftUpdater binary and sign it at build time
• update Settings → Updates to launch the Swift CLI with existing arguments
• add SwiftUpdater subtree with documentation for rebuilding https://github.com/RoversX/Swift_Updater

1.0.8

What's Changed

• Update French translation by @Guilouz in #94

Full Changelog: 1.0.7...1.0.8

What's new?

Supports automatic updates and uses a Python script to ensure low storage usage. 50 KB. :)

I tried a few different options for auto-update:

1. Rust + Ratatui Updater: a reliable TUI updater with a good-looking interface, but it would be around 7 MB, which some people might think is too big.

2. SwiftUI: not visually appealing and increases the complexity of the main program; an extra updater is needed.

3. Python script: It's not that attractive, but it gets the job done and is only 50 KB. (use curses as TUI)

i18n support	updater view

1.0.7

Full Changelog: 1.0.6...1.0.7

What’s New

• Added a Sound panel with macOS system chimes for opening/closing Launchpad and moving focus
• Voice Over option that speaks the highlighted app or folder. (Accessibility)
• Game Controller navigation is now supported.
• The old Accessibility tab has been removed to streamline settings.

All new features start disabled by default, so existing workflows and performance remain unchanged until you turn them on.

Thank you!

1.0.6

What's Changed

• Update French translation by @Guilouz in #81
• Improve templates for Bug Report and Feature Request by @Guilouz in #85

Full Changelog: 1.0.5...1.0.6

• A new "Show quick refresh button" switch has been added to Settings; when enabled, a circular refresh button will appear to the right of the homepage search box. Clicking it will trigger the refresh process directly, and the quick access can be hidden at any time.

• Adjusted the automatic alignment logic: When new apps are detected, they will be prioritized to fill the empty slots on the last page. Expanding or creating new pages will only occur when the last page is full, avoiding disrupting the existing layout.

• Cleaned up redundant text in the Appearance panel to keep the interface simple.

• Removed a dividing line from the Launchpad (Note: This may affect your current layout; please modify it to adapt).

1.0.5

What's Changed

• Update French Translation by @Guilouz in #61
• Add templates for Bug Report and Feature Request by @Guilouz in #72
• Fix directory path in README instructions by @likegravity in #76
• advanced Korean translation by @likegravity in #77

New Contributors

• @likegravity made their first contribution in #76

Full Changelog: 1.0.4...1.0.5

• Icon labels now respect a user-selectable weight. There’s a dropdown under Settings → Appearance; AppStore persists the choice and LaunchpadItemButton/LaunchpadView/FolderView render with it. #57

• The glass overlay is guarded with #available(macOS 26), falling back to ultraThinMaterial on older systems. This lets the project build with the lower 15.0 deployment target (not yet tested on macOS 15). #25

• Added placeholder Localizable.strings for en/zh-Hans/ja/ko/fr/es/de/ru/hi/vi and registered them in the Xcode project so Spotlight/Dock show localized names without duplicate-build errors.(sadly, Safari problem still exist) #74

If we need “launch at login but stay hidden,” spin up a tiny helper app with no UI, register it as the login item, and have it launch the main app with a custom argument. The main app checks for that flag and simply skips showWindow() until the user asks for it. (I personally don't like this, feels like figma update agent.... creative cloud agent....) but if we need this, i can try.