I didn’t think I’d ever leave stock Android. But one week with this launcher, and now stock feels bland and restrictive. Here’s why switching was the best decision I’ve made for my phone.
1
Automatic App Sorting
Makes Finding Apps Easy
Most Android skins allow you to sort apps in the app drawer by alphabetical order, install time, or usage frequency. Certain UIs, such as One UI 7, even let you arrange apps in a custom order.
I was content with these options until I experienced automatic app sorting with Smart Launcher. This is the default sorting option in the launcher, and it automatically categorizes apps in the app drawer into predefined sections, such as Communication, Entertainment, Games, and Utilities, so you don’t need to navigate through the scattered icons to find the app you want to use.
While automatic app sorting manages to identify categories for apps correctly, there can be exceptions. For example, it puts the Fitbit app into the Utilities section. In such situations, you can create a new category and move relevant apps to it.
2
A Fluid Grid System
Helps Keep UI Elements Aligned
I’m not a fan of how most Android skins handle UI spacing, especially on the home screen and the app drawer. My biggest pet peeve is unexpected blank spaces on the screen, which is most apparent in the padding between widgets and app icons on the home screen.
I’ve experienced many instances of this, particularly when I’m using One UI and OxygenOS. For example, adding the TickTick app widget between the At a Glance and Google Search widgets in One UI 7 leaves the top and bottom padding mismatched, which is quite an eyesore. Similarly, an update for OxygenOS 15 reduced side padding for app icons in the app drawer.
Smart Launcher helps me fix such annoyances, thanks to its fluid grid system. As the name implies, this system doesn’t stick to a rigid block-based grid like the OEM skins.
Instead, it lets me choose a custom grid configuration, wherein I can configure the number of rows and columns based on my screen size to make the most of the space on my home screen. I can also adjust the padding between app icons to ensure icons fit perfectly on the home screen.
Similarly, the fluid grid system also allows fine-tuning the placement of widgets on the home screen. This helps ensure all my widgets have balanced padding and don’t look out of place. It even lets me fine-tune the size and corner radius of the widgets to achieve a balanced and uniform look.
3
Adaptive Theme
Enables a Cohesive Experience
Keeping UI elements aligned is just one of the many ways Smart Launcher helps you achieve a pleasant visual appearance on your device. Another thing it does to ensure a cohesive experience is to use an adaptive theme, which adjusts the launcher’s color scheme to match the current wallpaper.
The way the adaptive theme works is that as soon as you apply a wallpaper, Smart Launcher analyzes it and extracts all the dominant colors in it. It then applies these colors to various launcher UI elements, such as the app drawer background, folders, text, accent color, and surfaces (the area that holds category labels).
While the launcher does manage to create pleasant color themes for the UI elements, you can fine-tune its selection or override it by manually selecting your preferred colors.
Besides, Smart Launcher also offers Frosted Glass and Opaque Glass themes. These are two translucent themes that give you a modern, blur-based, glass-like effect on your phone, where the wallpaper is blurred but still softly visible through the UI elements—similar to iOS 26’s Liquid Glass look.
4
Better App Icons
Offer a Uniform Look
Alongside an adaptive theme, Smart Launcher also offers a better selection of app icons. This ensures the icons in the app drawer and on the home screen look uniform throughout.
Smart Launcher does this in a few ways. First, it uses adaptive icons, ensuring all app icons are the same shape and size. You can choose from various shapes based on your preference.
Then, there’s support for third-party icon packs. As such, you can download your favorite icon pack app from the Play Store and find a matching icon pack for your wallpaper or create a custom one.
Lastly, the launcher also lets you modify icons individually. This is most useful when you don’t like Smart Launcher’s choice of an app icon.
5
Icon Groups
Simplify One-Handed Operation
I’m a big phone person, and although I have decent-sized hands, performing many actions on my phone one-handed still requires a lot of finger gymnastics. Accessing apps on the home screen is one of them.
Smart Launcher offers an excellent solution to this problem called icon groups. An icon group is essentially a responsive and dynamic widget that holds app icons in different layouts, such as flower, grid, honeycomb, and arch.
I use the honeycomb and arch layouts to place frequently-used apps on the home screen as they can pack icons more densely than the traditional square grid. Additionally, their arrangement brings app icons in easy thumb reach, making it easier for me to access them when using the phone one-handed.
Besides, the icon groups feature has one more use case. Since Smart Launcher doesn’t have a traditional dock, you can create an icon group with your required apps and place it at the bottom of the page.
6
Gestures
Speed Up Device Control
Alongside making app icons on the home screen more accessible, Smart Launcher also employs gestures to improve device control. It supports multiple gestures, such as double-tap, swipe left, swipe right, swipe up, and swipe down, to which you can assign the actions you perform frequently.
For example, I’ve set up the double-tap gesture to turn off the screen on my phone. This way, I don’t have to reach for the power button to lock the screen. Similarly, I’ve set up the swipe-down gesture to show notification panel.
Other useful options include accessing the notification panel, bringing up the recent apps, and enabling grayscale mode (to reduce eye strain at night). You can also set up gestures to launch your favorite apps or open apps in a specific menu. For instance, you can launch the Perplexity AI app in voice mode directly from the home screen.
Similar to gestures, Smart Launcher also has hotkeys. These work with button-based navigation, wherein you assign actions to double-tap or long-press gestures on the home or back keys, respectively.
7
Smart Search
Makes Finding and Getting Work Done a Lot Easier
A quick search feature is a staple on many third-party launchers. It’s available on Smart Launcher, too, but what it enables you to do is many notches above others.
Aside from helping you quickly find and open apps, Smart Search also assists you with a bunch of other actions. These include everything from trivial operations, such as looking up contacts, finding files in your local storage, and checking your calendar events, to advanced actions like converting units or currencies, finding apps on the Play Store, or looking up things on the web.
In addition, Smart Launcher also integrates shortcuts for various apps into the Smart Search. This lets you quickly access specific app functions directly from the search.
My favorite implementation of this is the integration of Gmail. I have multiple accounts linked to my Gmail app. Thanks to this feature, I can quickly jump into the inbox for any of my accounts directly. I also like the Scan and Upload shortcuts for Google Drive and the Password Generator shortcut for Bitwarden that the Smart Search offers.
8
“Your Feed” Page
A Personalized Content Feed on the Home Screen
The Your Feed page is one of the main reasons that has me hooked to the Smart Launcher on my phones. It’s a fully customizable page—accessible with a right swipe on the home screen—that brings your personal feed from news and informational websites to the home screen.
I’ve turned my Your Feed page into a personalized RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed of all the different websites I follow. That way, I don’t have to go into my RSS app every time I want to check the latest updates from those sources. The best part? It’s not algorithm-driven, so you only see content from sources you’ve added.
Smart Launcher offers multiple ways of setting up the Your Feed page. You can follow sources individually, add their RSS feed, or import an OPML file (the easiest of all). Once curated, you can customize certain aspects of the feed, such as appearance, layout, and refresh time, as required.
9
Ample Customization Options
Unlock Deep Personalization
Beyond the personalizations discussed so far, Smart Launcher gives you several other options to customize your phone. For instance, the launcher has built-in integration with popular high-res wallpaper sources like Backdrops and Walli, so you don’t need to visit them separately to find new wallpapers.
Another useful feature is the page manager. With it, you can easily choose the order you want your home screen pages to appear, add new pages, and remove existing ones.
Smart Launcher also gives you the ability to set custom colors for app icons. That way, you can make the icons pop up with the ambient theme that the launcher applies. Similarly, you can also change fonts for apps, folder names, and widgets. I also like that you can force all widgets to use a specific font to maintain visual consistency.
Finally, there’s the ability to back up your configurations and restore them. This saves you the hassle of setting up everything again when you switch to phones. As someone who swaps the SIM card between phones very often, this is a lifesaver for me.
Smart Launcher is among the best third-party Android launchers I’ve used in recent years. It’s lightweight, fast, and highly configurable. Not to mention, it packs a host of features, including the ability to hide apps and independent layouts for phones with multiple screens.
You can unlock more features like 3D perspective wallpapers, smart widgets, and daily backup by upgrading to Smart Launcher Pro with either a one-time fee or a recurring monthly or yearly subscription.