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Nova Launcher could soon add a proactive AI assistant that sucks up all your data
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2026
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there have been enough reasons to ditch nova in the past years, in case someone is still using it
I was still using it because I was too lazy to migrate things over to another.
And then I saw this post, so I guess it was time. Only took half an hour to figure out how to get Lawnchair doing basically what I wanted it to.
Octopi Launcher is damn near a replacement. Learn nothing new, muscle memory for swiping up or down on dock icons to open other apps.
Those were my requirements and it nails it.
Wow! This one wasn't on my radar. I had been using Action Launcher as it seemed to be the only other one that could do the swipe folders, but it seems to have been abandoned. I'll give this a go.
Lawnchair is darn close, and FOSS. Recommending another closed source option usually leads down the same road.
How can you tell whether or not something is FOSS in Google Play?
Unfortunately not easily. Most mention it in descriptions or have links to GitHub/etc. For me, I used to search FDroid to check but I'm pretty selective about the apps I use. Now I do most things through Obtainium, but as a Graphene user I'm certainly not the norm.
I couldn't find Lawnchair in F-Droid.
Sigh.. Lawnchair is the absolute worst of the worst for install/discovery. Because it got taken over by another developer, it's been all "beta" releases on GitHub forever, even though a truckload of people daily drive it.
https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/releases
I've been daily driving it for a while and really want it to be better. Its hard to complain since it's FOSS, but one of my most used features from the old Lawnchair 2 version (tabs in the app drawer) hasn't been implemented in the new version since development was effectively reset/restarted.
Maybe it's time to move on and check out Octopi...
OK, so I don't recommend this often, but there is a FOSS option closer to Nova than Lawnchair. It's called Neo Launcher: https://github.com/neoapplications/neo-launcher
It may be worth a shot, I ran the release on GitHub for about a year. I stopped because the devs are doing this brainrot thing of putting releases as beta in their Discord, so the release file on GitHub is old. I hate that practice so much that I stopped recommending it, even though it's a slightly better launcher with more options IMO.
I appreciate the recommendation, however, I can't support any dev who uses Discord for releases/support. I'm doing what I can to move friends and family once a viable alternative is available. I know a bunch were being recommended a couple of weeks ago, but I need 80%+ feature parity and simple a install and use flow before most will consider it.
Yup, totally get it, it's why I don't use it. I have Lawnchair's GitHub URL added into Obtainium, so it's as simple as Play Store for updates.
Its a shame its not FOSS. Just checked it for trackers, and according to this site, there are none.
https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.otp.octopilauncher/latest/
Never heard of it but this thing looks fully featured and very polished. I'm surprised I haven't heard of it before since I've gone looking for decent launchers!
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.otp.octopilauncher
Switched to Octopi as well and had to configure it a little to get it setup but now I almost forget that I even switched
That was why I settled on Octopi
The one feature I use most of all on Nova is swipe down on the screen to search. I has that all the time and would be tough to give up. I also really like the ability to swipe up on a folder and have it launch the first app in the folder.
I'll give Octopi a try on an older phone and hopefully it has some of these same features.
Octopi two finger swipe from above is search apps.
In settings you can enable swipe to open a folder, tap to launch one app from it.
I'm trying out Octopi right now, seems nice so far. But, is there any way to make folders open the first app with a tap, and open the folder by swiping? That's how I used Nova for years and years, very hard to break away from that
It has it. It's in launcher settings "swipe up/down on folders to open them"
Thank you! Not sure how I missed that toggle, I guess my brain expected it to be somewhere in a sub-menu.
Just curious, would you then view the folder with a swipe down?
Not seeing a way to change folder tap but you could pbly request that. It's a single developer and I've been very happy to support them to get away from Nova. I've been using Octopi since last year and it's been great!
You can set up individual apps with swipe up and swipe down as well though, so if there's a main app in your folder you could break it out and at least get 2 other apps to open via swipes. Not the same I know.
I like for it to open folders with a swipe and open the first app of the folder with a tap. I have figured out how to do this in Octopi now thanks to the other reply! Although it becomes slightly an issue with how folders in the dock behave slightly differently than folders on the home pages. But I think it's close enough to be a workable replacement for Nova finally!
Whahahaha motherfucker you just made my day!
lawnchair is what I swapped to a few years back. I do want to warn.. be careful updating it. Always make a backup of lawnchair prior to allowing it to update because ive had it fail to update twice now and have had to restore the backup on the new version.
Yeah I switched to lawn chair a few months ago because I kept seeing these stories about Nova's parent company. I like it just fine—i haven't had the issues you have (thankfully)—but there are a few features I miss from nova. Oh well, I'd rather have the peace of mind than the minor feature.
Yeah the only words they needed in the headline were "Nova Launcher sucks"
Sadly my custom home screen depends on features I haven't found in any other launcher, so right now I just have internet disabled for it with trackercontrol :/
What features out of curiosity? I haven't used Nova since like Android 7
Largely stuff like widget and home screen padding, ability to place widgets on top of one another, set a custom widget for the search bar in the dock and place widgets in the dock
Some parts look kinda jank cause I haven't really worked on it since I replaced my phone so I never finished adjusting stuff to the different size screen, but this is my home screen right now. I just use a lot of features to make my jank ass setup work, so its hard to switch. Custom fonts would be so nice if I ever did make the leap though
Well shit, that's me.
Or it just keeps breaking and not reading my files.
Oh I am confusing this for Nova Video player.
Damn I was excited to switch to this Lawnchair everyone is so indifferent about.