2mo ago

Minimal launcher with backup & restore capability?

I've been using Before Launcher and requested the feature a few years back. They said they wanted to support it eventually.

I've tried a handful of alternatives and they all seem to lack this capability.

19 comments

mLauncher has this feature. It is a fork of Olauncher, available on F-Droid and Google Play (and directly via GitHub). I have used it myself previously, it's stable and customisable.
- Ding ding ding I think this is the answer
  Edit: It looks like this is functionally a paid app. You have to pay to get more icons on your home screen, which is pretty ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind paying for apps. But it's not worth $75 in my opinion
  
  I’ve been using mlauncher forever and never even knew there were IAPs. One of the things I like about it is I don’t even know it’s there. I have no icons. Just a blank home screen. It’s beautiful.
  
  It looks like this is functionally a paid app.
  Where are you seeing in-app purchases? I can't find this anywhere in the app, and it's not mentioned on F-Droid either (normally there is a disclaimer if there are non-free features).
  You have to pay to get more icons on your home screen, which is pretty ridiculous.
  I can't find this anywhere in the settings. Every single toggle can be turned on and the number of home apps can be increased from 5 up to 30. Are you sure that you're looking at the right app?
I just saw that there’s a newish fork of OLauncher called CCLauncher. I’m going to be testing it out for sure.
CCLauncher on F-Droid
Do you mean the ability to backup and restore your launcher config? If so, it doesn't get more minimal and awesome than T-UI
You'll want the F-Droid version as it is the most complete. It hasn't seen an update in ages, but it really doesn't need one. It's also all open-source, so you could always download the code from GitHub and do whatever you want to it
- Heh, a little too minimalist for me! But thanks for sharing
Lawnchair may be what you're after. It's open source and I find it very lightweight. Based off the pixel launcher.
long press on home, select home settings, select burger dots top right, backup and restore are in there. Took me a while to find.
https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair
- Yes, I used to use it! Good launcher, but not minimalist as outlined in a different comment
What are some of the ones you've tried and how do you define minimal?
I use action launcher but I guess that does quite a few things... I haven't changed my setup or layout in about 7 or 8 years!
- Tried these ones: Olauncher, Oasis, minimalist phone, Indistract, Minimalist Launcher, Productivity Launcher
  I think it's a relatively defined launcher category at this point. Typically they're monochrome and text-based. Often have features to limit notifications and track phone usage
  
  Lynx?
KISS

19 comments