Launchpad is gone, and your folders went with it
updated · by Anton Shakirov
macOS 26 removed Launchpad and put an Apps screen in its place — same corner of the Dock, and it does open every app you have. the two fastest ways in are ⌘Space then ⌘1, and a pinch of your thumb and three fingers on the trackpad. what none of them carry over is the arrangement: the folders you made and the order you put things in are not there, and there is no setting that brings them back. here is what you actually have now.
the fastest ways to open apps now that Launchpad is gone
the Apps screen is not a window of its own but a mode inside Spotlight, which is why it answers to the Spotlight keyboard. the Dock icon is optional.
⌘space, then ⌘1
- press ⌘Space to open Spotlight.
- keep ⌘ held and press 1. Spotlight switches to Applications and shows the grid.
- type a few letters to narrow it, or use the arrow keys and press return.
the other numbers switch the same window to files (⌘2), actions (⌘3) and the clipboard (⌘4). one window, four hats.
Apple documents the shortcut in the macOS user guide: view and open apps on Mac
the fourth of those modes replaced something people used to install an app for: find something you copied earlier
pinch with thumb and three fingers
the gesture that used to summon Launchpad still fires. it opens the Apps screen instead, and it is the one route needing neither keyboard nor Dock. Apple rewrote its wording here and left the hand unchanged: four points of contact, not three, thumb and three fingers drawn together.
the gesture, in Apple's current wording: use Multi-Touch gestures on Mac
give the apps screen a shortcut of its own
there is a dedicated hotkey for it, shipped switched off with no key assigned, which is why almost nobody knows it exists. System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Spotlight, tick «Show Apps», click the field, press what you want. ⇧⌘Space is free on a stock system.
and the ordinary route still works: ⌘Space, three letters, return. for an app you can name, nothing beats it and nothing ever did — Launchpad was always the slower option there.
what Launchpad had that macOS 26 does not
- folders. Launchpad let you group apps and name the group; the Apps screen sorts everything into categories of its own and takes no instruction.
- your order. the arrangement built over years — the four things you open daily, top-left — is not carried across.
- the point of a grid, arguably. scrolling two hundred apps to find one is slower than typing its name; a grid earns its place only while it is short.
the Dock and the menu bar were reworked in the same release, and it caught out more than launchers: what macOS 26 changed for menu bar apps
why Apple removed Launchpad
Apple has not said, so anyone telling you the reason is guessing out loud. what is observable is that Spotlight was rebuilt in the same release and swallowed the job: app browsing became one of its four modes, and a separate full-screen app for it stopped having a place. Launchpad.app is not in /System/Applications at all — it did not move, it went.
can you make folders in the apps view
no. no menu item, no right-click, no hidden preference. the categories are computed from what each app declares about itself and are not editable. this is the single thing the forum threads are actually about, and the answer has not changed since release.
nor can the old arrangement be recovered from disk, which people reasonably assume it can. Launchpad kept its layout in a database under ~/Library/Application Support/Dock/; that folder now holds a desktop-picture file and nothing else, and the Dock's preferences carry not one springboard key — the keys that stored pages, folder names and icon positions are gone. nothing is waiting to be pointed at, because the system has nowhere left to put it.
the same answer, argued at length on Apple's developer forums: Tahoe Launchpad
the free way to get folders back without Launchpad
this is the workaround the Apple forums keep arriving at, and it goes first because it costs nothing and returns the missing piece: named folders, in an order you chose, one click from the Dock.
- make a folder anywhere — home is fine — and inside it one subfolder per group: work, media, whatever your groups actually are.
- open Applications and ⌥⌘-drag each app into the subfolder where it belongs: that makes an alias and leaves the app where it was.
- drag the outer folder onto the right-hand end of the Dock, past the divider.
- control-click it: «View content as» → Grid, «Display as» → Folder, «Sort by» → Name.
- click it — a grid of your groups pops up, and clicking a group drills into its apps.
the aliases behave like the apps — Finder even keeps the .app on the name, so the grid reads the way Launchpad did, and deleting one does nothing to the program.
so: if ⌘Space is enough, stop here. if what you miss is the arrangement, build the alias folder: twenty minutes, free. the simple case ends where the arrangement has to change: every app you install and every group you rethink is another trip to Finder.
MacMost walks the same route, along with the rest of the launching options: how to launch apps now that Launchpad is gone
how hop opens your apps without Launchpad
hop does not restore Launchpad, and anything claiming to is rebuilding it from scratch. its apps module gives you a grid in the menu bar panel holding the programs you keep at hand — press + and pick them, or drag them in from Finder — and the arrangement is the part it keeps.
what the module does beyond this page: app launcher
| what you are doing | the free route | with hop |
|---|---|---|
| opening an app you can name | ⌘Space, three letters, return | not needed — use Spotlight, it is faster |
| reaching four apps you open all day | an alias folder in the Dock, built by hand | press + four times; they sit where you put them |
| putting one icon next to another | drag inside Finder and hope the sort agrees | drag it — a yellow line shows which two it lands between |
| a different set for a different kind of day | a second alias folder, a second Dock tile | a second grid with its own name, or one per space |
| after installing something new | back to Applications for another alias | drag it onto the grid |
the row width is yours — three to nine icons across, eight by default — and the names under the icons switch off if you know your apps by sight.
the trade is explicit: this is not everything you have installed, and it is not meant to be. for the app you open once a quarter, Spotlight is still the right answer and always was.
when this is the wrong problem to solve
- you are looking for one app you cannot find. search Applications — it may have lived in a Launchpad folder and is simply not where your hand expects it, rather than gone.
- the app really is missing after the upgrade. check Applications in Finder rather than the Apps screen; one that failed the upgrade needs reinstalling, and no launcher will conjure it.
- you have two hundred apps and cannot find anything. that is not a launcher problem; most of them were installed and never opened, and removing them fixes it permanently.
and if the copy that vanished came from the App Store, the one on the developer's site is not always the same build: App Store version versus the one from the site
how to remove the apps icon from the Dock
it is an ordinary Dock tile, so it goes the way any of them does: control-click, then Options → Remove from Dock. the Apps screen itself stays. ⌘Space then ⌘1 still opens it, and so does the pinch. the freed space is where the alias folder above goes.
an app that refuses to move to the Trash is a different problem with a different fix: delete an app that will not delete
the apps you have not opened in two years, and what they left on your disk: uninstall an app with its leftovers
frequently asked questions
- can i bring Launchpad back in macOS 26?
- not the original — it was removed, and the layout database it kept went with it. what you have is Apple's Apps screen, which shows everything and takes no arrangement, and a folder of aliases in the Dock, which takes yours.
- what is the keyboard shortcut for the apps screen?
- ⌘Space, then ⌘1 while ⌘ is still held. there is also a «Show Apps» entry under System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → Spotlight, shipped switched off with no key assigned — you pick one yourself.
- does the three-finger pinch still work in macOS 26?
- yes, and it opens the Apps screen. Apple describes it as pinching your thumb and three fingers together — the same hand as before. the gesture was remapped, not removed.
- where did my Launchpad folders go?
- they were Launchpad's own arrangement, so they went with it. the folder that stored them now holds a desktop-picture file and nothing else, and the Dock preferences no longer carry the keys that described pages and groups.
- can you create folders in the apps view?
- no. the categories are worked out from what each app declares about itself and cannot be edited, renamed or added to. for groups you name yourself, use a folder of aliases in the Dock, set to view its content as a grid.
- how do i sort apps manually in macOS 26?
- not in the Apps screen — it offers no manual order at all. a Dock stack sorts by name, kind or date, and renaming aliases makes them land where you want. an order you drag by hand needs something outside the system.
- what replaced Launchpad?
- an Apps screen on the same Dock icon — a mode of Spotlight rather than an app of its own: a grid of everything installed, a search field and category tabs. it opens apps well and arranges nothing.
- does hop show all my installed apps?
- no, only the ones you put in it — that is the design. a grid is useful while it is short; the full list is what Spotlight and the Applications folder are for.
the tool behind this
app launcherthe apps you open all day, one click away.done with apps
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about the author
Anton Shakirovmakes hop
makes hop and every page on this site. eighteen tools under a single menu bar icon, MIT licensed and open source. reads and answers issues and email himself.