Every Launchpad alternative, compared.
macOS 26 removed the app grid, and the shortlist you land on — Spotlight, Raycast, Alfred, Coco — is not four versions of the same thing. This page compares them on the question that sent you looking: which Launchpad alternative replaces the grid, and which only replaces the search box.
Why you are looking for a Launchpad alternative at all
Launchpad was never a feature anyone wrote about. It was a habit: pinch four fingers, a grid of every installed application slides over the desktop, click the icon you were after — the same icon, in the same place, every time. Thirteen years of that is closer to muscle memory than to a workflow. macOS 26 Tahoe removed it and put an alphabetical list inside Spotlight instead. The list is fine for opening an app whose name you can type. It is not a substitute for looking at everything and pointing, because position is what made that fast, and a list has no positions to remember.
That is why the search results for a Launchpad alternative are so mixed. Most of what you will be pointed at is a launcher — a text field that rewards you for naming things precisely. Spotlight, Raycast and Alfred are very good at that, and none of them draws a grid; they were never trying to. So half the shortlist answers a question you did not ask. Working out which half you are on takes a minute: think about how you opened your last five apps. If you typed the name each time, you already have your answer and it is free. If you went hunting for an icon, you want the grid — and the grid is the part almost nobody is rebuilding.
One thing is worth settling first, because it applies to every option equally. Tahoe deletes the database the old Launchpad layout lived in. No Launchpad alternative can import your pages and folders — not this one, not any of them — and anything advertising that it can is describing something else. Whatever you choose, you arrange it once from scratch.
Four things worth checking in a Launchpad alternative
Whether it draws a grid or a list
This is the whole fork in the road. A grid puts every app on screen at once, in positions you decided, so finding one is a glance rather than a query — and the app whose name you never remember is still findable. A list is alphabetical and one column: it wants a name you can type, or a lot of scrolling. Coco draws the grid: pages you arrange, folders you build, the rarely opened app still where you left it on page three. Spotlight, Raycast and Alfred give you a good list and no grid.
How you open it
A grid you have to reach the keyboard for is a grid you stop using. Coco has three ways in: a hotkey, a four- or five-finger trackpad pinch, and a hot corner. The pinch is marked experimental and only takes effect after your next login, because Coco has to take that gesture from macOS’s own app switcher first. The hot corner is steadier — Coco watches the pointer itself and waits a moment before firing, and it never goes through System Settings, where Tahoe removed the Launchpad entry.
What it matches when you type
Every option here filters as you type; they differ in what counts as a match. Coco’s grid runs the same index as its search panel, so pinyin, romaji, Korean chosung, initials and aliases you set yourself all hit: 微信 answers to wx, メモ to memo, 카카오톡 to ㅋㅋㅇ, and ad finds Activity Monitor. Spotlight handles some of that; Raycast and Alfred are built around English names. If your Applications folder is not entirely in English, that is the difference between filtering and scrolling.
What it costs, and on what terms
Spotlight is included with macOS. Raycast has a usable free tier, with Raycast Pro at $8 a month on top. Alfred is free to install, with a one-time Powerpack licence at around £34. Coco is $49 once for one Mac — $39 during the launch promotion — after seven days free that need no card and no account, with a 30-day refund. It needs Apple Silicon and macOS 14 or later. Rented against bought is a real difference over five years.
The Launchpad alternatives, side by side
Read the first five rows, then decide whether the rest of the table is relevant to you. Those rows are the only place these options genuinely diverge; below them are three mature launchers doing launcher things well, one of which is already on your Mac. If the grid rows do not matter to you, go look at Raycast properly — it is the better product for the keyboard-first case, and it costs nothing to start.
The row worth staring at is the last but one. No Launchpad alternative imports your old arrangement, because there is nothing left on disk to import. Every other row is a preference you can argue with; that one is a fact about macOS 26, and it is the same answer whichever option you pick.
| Coco | Spotlight | Raycast | Alfred | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full-screen app grid | ||||
| Pages you arrange yourself | ||||
| Folders made by dropping one icon on another | ||||
| Pinch to open | ||||
| Hot corner to open | ||||
| Type to filter | ||||
| Pinyin, romaji and chosung matching | Partial | |||
| Clipboard history | Powerpack | |||
| Third-party plugins | ||||
| Works with no network | Mostly | |||
| Imports your old Launchpad layout | ||||
| Price | $49 once | Included | Free or $8/mo | £34 once |
Trying them properly, in an afternoon
Spend a day with what you already have
Open the app list inside Spotlight and use it deliberately for a day. It costs nothing and settles the question — plenty of people find the list is fine and stop there. If you catch yourself scrolling past the app you wanted twice, you have your answer.
Install Coco and open the grid
Drag it to Applications and open it once so it can read what you have installed. Press the Launchpad hotkey and the grid comes up over whatever you were doing, already filled in. Nothing needs configuring first, and the trial starts because the app is running, not because you signed up for anything.
Set the way you open it
Settings → Launchpad. Pick four or five fingers for the pinch; it only lands after your next login, so if the first pinch does nothing, that is why. If you would rather not wait, choose a hot corner in the same pane: it works immediately, and Coco watches the pointer for it rather than relying on System Settings.
Arrange it once, then judge it in a week
Drag icons into the order you want, drop one onto another to make folders, push what you rarely open to the last page, and set the columns and icon size to taste. This is the only step that takes real time. Then leave it a week: the honest test is whether your hand reaches for it without being told to.
Questions people actually ask
- What is the best Launchpad alternative on macOS 26?
- It depends on which half of Launchpad you miss. If you mostly opened apps by typing their name, the app list inside Spotlight is already on your Mac and costs nothing — use it for a day before buying anything. If you want a keyboard-first launcher with an extension ecosystem, Raycast and Alfred are mature and better at it than anything new. If what you lost was the full-screen grid of icons in positions you chose, the search is narrower: Spotlight, Raycast and Alfred do not draw a grid, and Coco does. Coco is $49 once with a seven-day trial, so testing that costs a week rather than money.
- Is there a free Launchpad alternative?
- There are free options, but none of them is a grid. The app list inside Spotlight ships with macOS 26 and is the closest free thing to what was removed — alphabetical, one column, scrolled rather than laid out. Raycast’s free tier covers app launching, with Raycast Pro at $8 a month above it, and Alfred is free to install, with a Powerpack licence at around £34 for the extras. All three are text-first: they replace the typing half of Launchpad and none of the looking half. Coco is not free — $49 once for one Mac, $39 during the launch promotion, after seven days unlocked with no card, and a 30-day refund.
- Can any Launchpad alternative bring back my old folder layout?
- No, and it is worth being blunt about that. macOS 26 removes the database your Launchpad pages and folders lived in, so by the time you install anything there is nothing left on disk to read. An app claiming to restore your old arrangement is describing something it cannot do. Coco starts from your Applications folder and lets you arrange it once: drag icons into order, drop one onto another to build a folder, push the rest onto a later page. Take out the second-to-last app and the folder dissolves by itself rather than lingering with one thing in it. That layout is Coco’s own file, so a system update cannot clear it.
- Should I just use Raycast or Alfred instead?
- Quite possibly, and we would rather say so than sell you the wrong thing. Raycast has the deepest extension ecosystem, a free tier that covers most people, and Raycast Pro at $8 a month for the rest. Alfred has twenty years of workflows behind it and a one-time Powerpack licence at around £34. Both are keyboard-first: hotkey, type a name, return. If that is how you work, they are better at it than any grid will be. Neither draws an app grid, and neither is trying to — so if the thing you lost in Tahoe was the wall of icons, they will not hand it back at any tier.
- How do you open the grid once it is installed?
- Three ways, and you can use all three. A hotkey, which works from the moment you install and is what most people settle on. A four- or five-finger trackpad pinch, the original muscle memory — Coco has to take that gesture from macOS’s own app switcher to use it, so it is marked experimental and only takes effect after your next login. If the first pinch does nothing, that is why. Or a hot corner, chosen in Coco’s own settings rather than System Settings, where Tahoe no longer lists Launchpad at all. Coco watches the pointer directly and waits a short moment before opening, so a corner you brush past does not trigger it.
- What is Coco not good at?
- There is no window management and no native text expander; both are on the list and neither is pretended otherwise on this site. It is Apple Silicon only, macOS 14 and later, so an Intel Mac is out. It runs some Raycast extensions but not most — anything needing the network, OAuth, a menu-bar presence or native modules will not run, and Coco tells you which is which before you install. And it cannot recover your old Launchpad layout, though nothing can. If any of those is what you were shopping for, one of the other options on this page is the better answer today.