Microsoft Launcher provides a new home screen experience that empowers you to be more productive on your Android device. Microsoft Launcher is highly customizable, allowing you to organize everything on your phone. Your personalized feed makes it easy to view your calendar, to do lists, and more. Sticky Notes on the go. When you set up Microsoft Launcher as your new home screen, you can either start fresh with your favorite apps or import your current home screen layout. Need to switch back to your previous home screen? You can do that, too!
This version of Microsoft Launcher has been rebuilt on a new codebase to make new features possible, including dark mode, personalized news, and numerous performance improvements (improved load time, less memory use, better battery performance, and fluent animation).
MICROSOFT LAUNCHER FEATURES
Customizable icons:
· Give your phone a consistent look and feel with custom icon packs and adaptive icons.
Beautiful wallpapers:
· Enjoy a fresh new image from Bing every day or choose your own photos.
Dark theme:
· Comfortably use your phone at night or in low light environments with Microsoft Launcher’s new dark theme. This feature is compatible with Android’s dark mode settings.
Backup and Restore:
· Easily move between your phones or try Home Screen setups through Microsoft Launcher’s Backup and Restore feature. Backups can be stored locally or saved to the cloud for easy transfers.
Gestures:
· Swipe, pinch, double tap, and more on the home screen to easily navigate on the Microsoft Launcher surface.
This app uses Accessibility Service Permission for optional gesture of screen lock and recent apps view.
Improved performance:
· Microsoft Launcher now loads faster, uses less memory, is more battery efficient, and offers fluent animations.
TERM OF USE
By installing this app, you agree to the Terms of Use (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=246338) and Privacy Policy (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=248686).
Downloading Microsoft Launcher gives the option to replace the default launcher or to toggle between device launchers. Microsoft Launcher does not replicate the user’s PC home screen on the Android phone. Users must still purchase and/or download any new apps from Google Play. Requires Android 7.0+.
The launcher is very good, my favorite and one I’ve used. The only problem is the notifications. Whenever I clear my notifications in the menu by pulling the screen down. It makes the red dots on apps disappear. I only have a problem with this because sometimes it glitches and I don’t get every notification. So I end up replying late or seeing something late because of the notifications. I also saw someone else comment the same thing. I might switch launchers soon, if the problem isnt resolved
I thought this was a good Launcher, but it has issues with the functionality that it has when you want to go to settings the page loads slowly and the system times out. Then you have to reload the Launcher, and this is very tiresome for me ,having to do this 3 to 4 different times. It just seems to not want to go there in the first place. The system is slower in reaction timing. Wish it would work better on my Android phone.
I’ve been using the launcher for about a year without any issues, but a recent update broke something. You no longer get notification dots on app icons. I’ve checked everything but it just doesn’t work. In particular, I liked getting the dots on the Microsoft Outlook app. I switched to another launcher and the dots work as expected. Too bad because the MS launcher was an overall decent app.
This launcher works very well. It’s easy to customize the Home Screen and App Screens with personal pictures. The color, layout, and size of individual App Icons and Widgets are customizable independently of the Home Screen/App Drawer size and layout. In my experience, Microsoft makes plenty of great apps, and this one seems to be a great app. I’m still getting accustomed to using this launcher, so I will come back and add any pertinent info IF my opinion of this App changes.
I had to reset once and lost all my settings. It should also allow for speakers to be activated when away from your ear like in windows phone. It should have more ways to pin content and group apps with a larger icon. Over all a great launcher. Keep up the good work.
It’s a great launcher and all but I would surely recommend to let us use third-party news feeds like Google News or other ones, and some of my apps are stored in an SD card in my phone and after a restart it takes time for them to load back in but the Microsoft launcher does not remember where they were so they just disappear from the home screen, and the icons are very small in landscape that’s really about all the problems I have with it.
An excellent Launcher that isn’t too bloated with a crazy amount of “bells & whistles” and no ads. Integrates nicely with other MS apps and environment. Give it a try. I did and this is now what I use. Only one thing: I wish I could remove the “Search Bar” as I never use them or like them taking up precious real estate. LG V20, V30, V40.
Reinstalled the program. Only way to update it. Has screen saver flaws with manufactures screen savers. Detecting them. But other then that it closes back doors where android leaves them open. Still has bugs to work out. I don’t see my lock screen downloads. Have to use system settings to change. MS is making it into a confusing program to operate. 6-1-22
My phone crashed. I inadvertently restored it to the standard launcher. That’s when I realized how Great Microsoft Launcher really is. I instantly missed all of the Personalizations I had setup like groups, icon shapes, sizes, colors, pages, navigation, etc. Once you try it, you can’t go back!
Loved the launcher on my other phones, however the Galaxy z fold 3 is riddled with issues. When phone is in tablet mode the feed page doesn’t load. The most irritating issue is when you close the phone from tablet mode the front screen app folders are way out of scale. I really hope they look at improving the app for foldable phones cause it’s the best launcher out there as far as I’m concerned.
There was a patch at the end of May that fixed widgets not updating and some graphical issues. A few weeks later, they released a bug fix and unfortunately, the widgets no longer update again. My music app widget (Samsung music and Spotify both) shows the last song that was playing when I opened the app. It can play for 20 hours and will still show only that first song. Even if the music is stopped, it will show the pause icon. Please fix widgets again or undo what went into the June patch
Really like having access to Google News. Microsoft’s works better on a laptop than a phone. Some apps don’t recognize the microsoft launcher. Had trouble when I changed phones and tried to use a few apps I had on the previous phone. Disappointed with the lack of creative and personalization features. Like organizing the apps and having colors for the envelopes.
Lags a lot. MS has known about this issue for many years and has been remiss to do anything about it. The launcher ruins the otherwise fluid animations and movement between apps that you get when using stock Android. Whenever I swipe up to go home or swipe and hold to see open apps, the launcher lags and sometimes glitches. This is more evident when swiping up to go home on one of the home screens (left or right of the main home screen). It gets caught up and thinks I want to see all open apps.
****** I cannot provide screenshots as this is work profile device****. 06/30: Still not fixed, issue persistent after two updates!! But you can add outlook calendar widget and it blanks out. While the same widget is fine in Samsung UI. In Microsoft launcher, I see this issue, the widget is present, but it’s blank. Recent update has broken calendar widget for work profile. One or the other thing keeps breaking when updates come. Utterly distasteful, forced to use this because of company policy!
I like the optimisation features of the launcher, but the one annoying thing is that the badges or even notification dots are not working with Outlook on my new android phone. This worked fine on my previous android phone. This is really something I need working, I have spent hours uninstalling re installing, clear cache and changing notification settings, the dot works (No numbers) with the pre installed launcher so now at a loss.
Great launcher, but too buggy. I love the tile layout, weather/time tile layout, and daily backgrounds. However sometimes it gets stuck and is not be able to lauch certain apps and I have to lock/unlock to fix. And bing search is not as good. Final straw was the weather app stopped working (doesn’t know where I am and won’t let me set location). So I’m back to the default pixel launcher which isn’t as nice but works better.
Don’t really have any opinion about Microsoft branded launcher( 50M downloads ). Microsoft intended to do more than just launching the apps & providing app drawer. It asked for at least 7 permissions. Google of course didn’t grant anything ( seems typical with other launchers too ). Only thing that is bothersome, if not the launcher itself, perhaps Bing or Start etc, one of the Microsoft branded app is changing the wallpapers. Used to own like 5 PCs any given time, but now it’s all Smartphones.
Works, but leaves out even the most basic customization on my Surface Duo 2. Beautiful innovation on the hardware side, but a second-rate knockoff of the iOS interface for software. Defeats the entire reason I use Android. Few examples of missing functionality from nearly every other launcher: How do I remove the Glance screen from home? How do I automatically sort the apps alphabetically in folders? How do I hide apps from the app tray? How can I put folders into the app tray?
If you don’t really know what you’re doing it can be confusing and very very technical there’s a lot going on in this launcher has taken me this long to just look at all the settings and stuff. The features are great and I’m going to keep the launcher but it’s a lot too. If I could add anything, it would be, adding a little more to the tutorial. Maybe some kind of, if a person doesn’t understand or needs some help with set up or any other advanced feature, there would be a button for it. gj devs
So far this app is sufficient. I would LOVE to have more options for the glance/news screens. I would prefer placing certain widgets next to one another… arrangement options need to be more like basic UI icon/widget. For news it would be nice to be able to choose interests through a much more detailed list or we give keywords to watch for. If I think of anything else I’ll update this.
I have really enjoyed this app for several years. Sadly it is now unusable. Certain key features have been breaking for a number of months now. The worst has been the breaking app switcher which makes Android all but unusable until the phone is rebooted. After switching back to the Pixel launcher, the problem is gone. I’d be willing to try this again if it is ever fixed and Microsoft can commit to better support.
It’s good, but there are some graphical hiccups that aren’t getting attention. When you try to swipe across screens too quickly, for example, you get a weird glitching and then it returns to the previous screen. You have to swipe, wait, swipe again to change screens. Basic stuff that shouldn’t be present in a production stable release.
Some decent options, but some do not function in a way that makes them useful. For example, the To-Do card does not allow you to sort task by due date. The most recent tasks added are shown on top, hiding existing tasks that may be due soon. The point of the Glance should be to show you urgent items. The Samsung UI, which I used to dislike, is actually much better these days in terms of functionality (I just got an S22 Ultra). MS Launcher is losing its appeal for me.
It’s a VERY GOOD launcher. But it has few problems. First of all widget stops working after a few hours or so. Like if I use a TO DO list widget in my home tab after a while my list gets disappeared. I can’t add any more items in the list. I have to remove the widget and add it again to fix it. Well I need to have a little widget which can sit around my home tab casually not the one you guys have in the launcher. I tried Microsoft Taksa and Google To Do list. Both has the problem.
The entire setup on my phone is very aesthetically pleasing and finding anything I might need through the app comes naturally. When I’m looking for one of my apps I find myself going right to where it’s stored almost subconsciously. The entire setup was arranged very well. I dont see myself using any other launchers ever again
For the last couple of weeks, when you try to open a folder you’ve created on any of your windows, pressing the icon for the app you want to open doesn’t do anything. It just hangs and sometimes freezes your phone while “Microsoft launcher is failing to respond” eventually pops up!
This is a very good launcher. I am however giving it 4-stars instead of 5 because I only got it for one reason and while it does the job WELL it is not perfect. I got it so I could have more icons across and down. Unfortunately it shrinks the size of the icons every time you add a vertical row, no matter how big you tell the icons to be, and there is always too much space between. So this launcher is GOOD as many can’t get anywhere near that, but it’s not perfect for what I needed it to do.
Much more intuitive and feels familiar. Better than anything that Google offers but, I still miss the windows 10 style on my windows phone with those gestures and live tiles. Also to note I miss the 7 day boxes that expand on calendar apps on windows phone. They expand similar to the live tile folders the launcher is missing here. Both much more useful. The unlock screen also with launcher makes the numbers so tiny to enter.
I actually really enjoy this app; however, there doesn’t seem to be a way to create folders whenever you swipe upwards to see “all apps”. I don’t like this and because of this, and this alone, I have to uninstall Microsoft Launcher and revert back to the default Samsung UI.
I am not really one for all the technology and customization of phones or any electronic, but I have just recently been getting more into it since switching to the Microsoft launcher. I’m really enjoying the new look and feel and how fast the browser and search bar is. I’m hoping to see some font options sometime in the future! I’m really enjoying the icon changer apps as well!
It’s good. Swipe to your left for the news feed. Reminds me of Google Now launcher before they removed it from the store. As soon as I installed the app, it already knew who I was since I linked my phone to windows prior. Lightweight, fast, great customization, and most importantly it’s Microsoft. Running on OnePlus7T at 60hz. No lag at all. I wonder how much better it would be at 90hz!
I had a windows phone a few years back, absolutely loved the UI. never was a big fan of Google or Android, but I absolutely hate iOS, so here I am with an android. This Launcher is the single best thing that has happened to my phone, which is objectively a nice phone already. I’ve never had a problem with it until recently, it crashed twice in two days. Back end updates gone wrong maybe? Or OS updates gone wrong? Who knows. Setup is a breeze when I’ve had to reset it, though. Edit: stable again!
Does not work well with my Z Fold 3. I’ve been working toward integrating more Microsoft products in my day to day since I use it a lot at work, but the launcher doesn’t work well. No dual layout options, the display does not switch correctly between the folded and unfolded screens. Icons change sizes and app names are cut off in the folder. If I open the news feed it only half displays a gray screen overlay then freezes. Bing daily wallpaper never changes. Very disappointed.
This app is trash. It’s hard to navigate, and the layout is very unintuitive. When it asked me what my favorite apps are, I thought that it would put those apps in one spot and then organize my apps according to some logic that would be relatively intuitive. However, I don’t see any rhyme or reason I to how things are organized or why. To add insult to this, I can’t delete this app from my phone’s sett and had to go to the plays store o uninstall. Sounds like malware to me.
UPDATE: Had to drop 2 stars because it no longer uses or shows my Outlook calendar and events. Google calendar only now. Like their SMS Organizer app only backing up to Google, it seems MS is dropping their own products. Original: MS Launcher is the sole reason I continue to stay with Android. I love that it syncs with my laptop and I can get my notes, ToDo, Office files, the works in a fast and easy to use glance. App organization is great as well.
I’m using this launcher on a Surface Duo 2. Frequently I tap an icon on one page and it opens an app on the same spot on a different page. I reported this issue several months ago. At least three updates later and it is still not fixed. Two updates ago, it introduced a bug where there is no longer a badge count for outlook, and it doesn’t use the Outlook notification sounds. The Outlook Team said it was a launcher issue. This problem is also not fixed. The rating is for NOT fixing reported bugs.
Greeat ap. The only useful launcher on Surface Duo. And that’s sad, as it misses lots and lots of features… – number of columns and rows, as there is a lot of free storage to be used, – hiding unneeded apps, or at least apps that do not need the shortcut to be used like icon packs, – icon packs!!! – hiding dock, – gestures like pinch to zoom and others. That’s all I see now, but I just started using it, so it’s just the beginning.
It’s an awesome launcher, but it’ll be great if it does a better job searching through contacts, if I don’t type a contact the exact way their name is saved e.g I write the last name before the first name, the launcher can’t find the contact. Also, the launcher should predict text better so if I type an app or contact name slightly incorrectly, it shows the apps and contacts close to what I typed. Update: The search has become worse. Doesn’t list apps sometimes when I type their names.
Easy to use, easy to figure out without guides or tutorial, just use it until you know it. Thanks for this app. It was great design! Edit: There’s a bug where when changing wallpaper (Your photos) the scroll effects is ON but when I swipe the screen it doesn’t work the way it use to be but when I change to bing wallpapers it somehow work but sometimes it’s fixed in place whenever I swipe to right and left same goes to my (your photos) wallpapers
This is a great launcher, everything is made easy. I’ve had a beautiful experience with it. My only problems with the app started just recently, after the last few updates. The lock screen wallpaper keeps shifting to the right. It used to happen only when I enable scroll effect, but now it just happens either way. Also, the text in the time widget has gotten a little larger for the box since the last update. I can’t see the rest of the time, unless I enlarge the box. I really hope you fix these.