Lost Launchpad in macOS 26? Here’s how to get it back

Like I said, it’s not a perfect replacement, but take some time setting up folders and tweaking settings and I think you’ll find it works well. And you can’t complain about the price.

A few other alternatives

Now, there are some other alternatives to consider. Apple has added a new Apps button to the dock, which opens Spotlight to the Apps section. This is an alphabetical list of your apps, either from your Mac or your iPhone, that you can scroll or search to browse. You can hide iPhone apps if you want; Simply click on the three dots in the upper right corner and this option will appear. This works well enough, although the lack of folders and missing full screen option are the main reasons you might not want it.

Another option is to drag the Applications folder from the Finder to the bottom section of the dock. Click on this folder and you can scroll through all your applications. You can also organize apps into physical folders using Finder if you want to organize them. It’s a bit of a workaround, but it’s worth a try if you’d rather not install any third-party software.

Speaking of third-party software: LaunchNext It is another popular alternative to Launchpad, which can especially import your folders and settings from Launchpad. The problem is that you can’t use it without dealing with macOS security settings, which is something I generally don’t recommend doing. I also found LaunchNext a touch on the slow side. However, it’s worth considering if you’re a power user, as it’s more customizable than Launchie.

There are also some alternatives that bring back the actual Launchpad from older versions of macOS, but they require a lot of hacking and tend to break macOS updates — I couldn’t find a single alternative that worked at the time I was writing this. Even if that changes, it’s best to use one of the above methods, as it will be more consistent.

It’s understandable if you’re not happy about Apple removing a feature you liked, but at least there are alternatives. Try a few. One of them is bound to work for you.