App launcher (software)

An app launcher is a piece of software whose job is finding and starting other software. On desktop that means keyboard-driven launchers such as macOS Spotlight and its replacements, which open on a hotkey and search applications, files and commands, and increasingly run extensions, calculations and clipboard history. On Android it means a home screen replacement that controls the app grid, icons, gestures and widgets. On Linux it means the launcher built into or bolted onto a desktop environment.

This entry exists because “app launcher” and “app launch” are one letter apart and mean entirely different things. An app launcher is a category of product. An app launch is an event, the dated release of a product to the public.

The confusion is real enough to be measurable: “app launcher” runs roughly 4,400 searches a month in the United States, and the intent behind almost all of them is launcher software, not launching an app.

So this site never uses “app launcher” to describe what it does. It is a launch directory, and the phrase used everywhere is “app launch” or “launch your app”. Where launcher software is relevant, it belongs in a product listing under the Productivity category, which is where a keyboard-driven launcher like Raycast sits, rather than in a page title.