Nova Launcher is a powerful, customizable, and versatile home screen replacement. Nova brings advanced features to enhance your home screens, but still remains a great, user-friendly choice for everyone. Whether you want to completely overhaul your home screens or are looking for a cleaner, faster home launcher, Nova is the answer.
• The Newest Features: Nova brings the latest Android launcher features to all other phones.
• Custom Icon Themes: Nova supports thousands of icon themes available in the Play Store.
• Night Mode and Dark Theme: Have night mode come on automatically at a specific time, or just leave it on for a dark theme.
• Customizable App Drawer: Vertical or horizontal scroll, page effects, and card or immersive options are just a few of the things you’ll find available for the app drawer.
• Subgrid Positioning: With the ability to snap icons and widgets in between grid cells, it’s easy to get a precise feel and layout with Nova in a way that’s impossible with most other launchers.
• Backup and Restore: Moving from phone to phone or trying new home screen setups is a snap thanks to Nova’s backup and restore feature. Backups can be stored locally or saved to the cloud for easy transfers.
• Speed: Nova is highly optimized, with smooth and snappy animations that will even older phones a fast and fluid feel.
Do more with Nova Launcher Prime
Unlock Nova Launcher’s full potential with Nova Launcher Prime:
• Gestures: Swipe, pinch, double tap, and more on the home screen to execute custom commands.
• App Drawer Groups: Create custom tabs or folders in the app drawer for an ultra-organized feel.
• Hide Apps: Remove apps from the app drawer without uninstalling them.
• Custom Icon Swipe Gestures: Assign swipe gestures to home screen icons or folders for custom actions.
• …and more. More scrolling effects, unread counts, and others.
This app uses the Device Administrator permission for optional screen off/lock functionality.
I’ve used this launcher for a long time, and yet I suppose eventually everything good has to come to an end. They removed the smooth scroll option from folders, and my home screen freezes occasionally now, forcing me to use the notification pulldown to access settings to force close Nova, as that’s the only way I get it to work again, save a restart. I’m giving 2 stars because I used to love this app. If they resolve both of these problems, I’ll change my rating. I’m not holding out hope.
This app is so good it’s the first one I’m leaving a review for unsolicited. I couldn’t believe how I was able to customize my phone this well. It has features from two other phones I liked that I could incorporate to my current phone. I was able to get rid of the feature where you swipe left for Google and allow me to swipe screens back to home screen. Awesome. Allows you to increase the amount of apps on screen also allows more room for widgets.
GREAT customization app, but fairly often the home screen gets very laggy and I have to restart the launcher to fix it…should NOT be happening on a phone with 12GB of RAM… and I’m still on android 11. 😑 Also, the app hasn’t been updated in over a year, which is not really acceptable for an app with this size following. Hopefully this doesn’t become abandonware…
I like it overall; however, there seems to be a tie between it and Google as to which is slowing down my phone. On a hunch I turned on Data Saver and disabled access to all except a small few apps needed for work. Unfortunately, yours is not allowed free reign. Before I turned on Data Saver I was having to reboot my phone almost every day, sometimes more than once. Peace has been restored.
The launcher is a 5 Star, 10/10 app. I love it, and would still be using it if I hadn’t upgraded to a Z Fold 4. Unfortunately the launcher isn’t optimized for that specific phone. It doesn’t support features like the dock or having a separate layout for the inner and outer displays. If they eventually add an update for those features I’d switch back to it in a heartbeat. So if you have the Z Flip or any other standard android phone/tablet, get this launcher, otherwise, wait for an update.
Been using this launcher for 3 or 4 years now, love the freedom it gives me. Now that I have a new fold phone (ZFold4) though, it would really be better if it had better support for foldables. At its current build, there still is no way to change the open-inside layout independently from the closed-outside layout. Personally its tolerable, but it means that both screens mirror the same layout, and when you switch between the two screens, the launcher simply stretches the aspect ratio to fit. :/
I’ve downloaded other launchers in the past and this beats them hands down. Free and amazing!! I’ve been using this on my galaxy s9 for at least 2 years now with no memorable issues or ads, and I love the customization; for example, I can change the color/size/look of my search bar and change the color/look of my scroll bar AND the background color/transparency of my app drawer background! I also love the animations for home screens; I have my main screen in the middle with 1 to each side 🙂
Highly recommended! Overall, Nova has been refined to near perfection over the years. It’s fast, stable, and well thought out making it’s extensive feature set easy to use. The one and only thing that I feel should be improved is the way you select what apps will appear in the app drawer folders/groups.
Phenomenal program. Allows me to fine tune my phone in ways no other launcher can approach. Free version is great, the prime version is outstanding. Customer support is unrivaled- seriously. I’ve received answers within minutes. Their backup is absolutely reliable. Have used it twice on transfer of phones. Phones used on: Note 10, Pixel 6, Pixel 7 Pro.
Nova has always been the go to launcher for features/performance. Get dev support as well. Plenty of Icon packs on the play store you can download that are all compatible. Sesame is another great plugin available for Nova as well. Of course as the case with anything in life nothing is perfect. Still experience occasional lag here and there as well as (For my Device) 1 actual crash. Force stopped, Re-Luanched haven’t encountered another crash to date. In Conclusion WORTH IT (PRIME IS WORTH IT)
Please consider updating the application to accommodate the foldable technologies. ❤️ [ Long Time User : Foldable Integration Bad ] Love nova; supported the paid prime version when it came out. Used the launcher on every device since then & its still one of the best options for most devices. I recently bought into the foldable series (ZFold4) & have had a less than pleasant experience operating the launcher. Slow, bugged, missing features, and not allow dual screen integration.
The new update, version 7, is not great. Going from 5 stars down to 3. Seems to be more battery drain now. In the dock, the 3d platform is impossible, now just a flat stripe (and no, being able to round its corners isn’t enough). In folders, there is a different visual problem with the 3d platform being too far down. I could go on, but what’s the point? Version 7 is something of a mess. I rolled the *. apk back to version 6.2.19, where I plan to stay until this mess gets cleaned up.
The update has me really confused. A lot of my settings didn’t transfer, and the options to change them back seem absent. The biggest example would be scroll speed, which affects everything. It was set at the maximum speed, but now it’s excruciatingly slow, and the sub-menu that describes changing it back has the function missing. So, it seems, there is no way to undo the damage at this point. Not super happy :/
This used to be the best launcher anywhere and I’ve tried most of them. But version 7 is a bust. Along with the issues others have had, the removal of support for Tesla Unread was an unforced error. Sure, it isn’t available in the store anymore but there are still lots of places to get it. And it works so much better than the new built-in feature that I went back to version 6 just for that option. I will never update from version 6 until version 7 is fixed.
This app is so great. It allows much more customization. It also allowed me to get rid of that icky search bar that’s default on my Pixel 2 phone. This app has it all: app & folder shapes/colors, the ability to change the size of the home screen grid, and more. It also allows the use of custom icon packs. All of this allows me to enter what I call “full aesthetic mode”. It’s simply amazing.
The “upgrade” to 7 is a complete disaster. Fewer options for customization and performance that’s just horrendous. How do you have a bad frame rate on a LAUNCHER?? The worst part is that there are no new features or options to even balance the ones that were removed. I downgraded to 6 even though I now have to redo all my settings, and will stay there.
This was hands down the best launcher on the market, and I recommended it to everyone, and I’ve used the pro version for years. Version 7 seems to have removed in ver half of the customization features that made it excellent. Even with the pro version, most of the granular tweaks that made this great are just gone. Extremely disappointing update. Hopefully the developers fix this so it can get back to the 5-Star software it used to be.
It’s a good app for what it is, it’ll emulate a stock Android experience on Samsung devices. However, I had some in app problems while using nova launcher for the past few months. Instagram would often crash while I was using it or it wouldn’t playback videos when they were loaded up in my feed, it’s also play audio while the app was frozen. I also had an issue with Spotify where I would skip songs in my feed and the songs would continue to play, but the album covers wouldn’t correspond with the song playing so you’d never know what song it was. Aside from those minor glitches, it’s a stock Android experience for free that’s quick and snappy. You can’t really complain.
I know you guys were trying to do good and it looks good. However it crashes both of my new phone, Galaxy A71 and my tablet. It causes lagging on everything. It is very resource intensive. Not only that, anytime you close out a screen from something else it pops up this other screen it has all the apps and everything and I don’t really like that either. I wish you would revert it back to the old software because it worked so damn well and I loved it so damn much. And yes I’ve uninstalled and rei
I’ve been using this launcher for years on a few different phones. No problems, always talking it up and raving about how you can customize everything. However Android 10 update happened a month or so ago on my Pixel 3 and now the darn launcher crashes every day, sometimes more than once. I won’t even be using it at times and it will have lost all my settings. Also, even with a simple restart it would lose my settings. Not sure what’s going on here, but it needs fixed. I had to uninstall.
Overall i do like this launcher. It seems stable for the last month, it has nice features and it’s not super expensive (I bought the pro version). One of my favorite features so far is the ability to have widgets overlap. One of my biggest gripes is that resizing icons barely works: I have to change the size in Androids settings for it to work even remotely as one would expect.
I’ve been using Nova for a few years. It’s always one of the first apps I install. It gives you a HUGE variety of tweaks to choose from so you can really customize how your phone operates, and it presents these options in a simple way that even someone who is not tech savvy could easily navigate and change. You can tweak almost any behavior that has to do with the home screen, app drawer, notification panel, dock, icons, gestures… and it isn’t heavy on your processor. One of my favorite apps.
Excellent, but the gesture navigation setting turns off on some reboots and most updates. I have to keep an app drawer opening icon just so I can change the settings back. It’s a small issue, but takes a lot of effort to work around, and it’s an issue with one of the most basic jobs of an app launcher. I’ll be going back to my stock launcher for a while. I’m extremely fed up with this.
It has worked great over the past 6 months, no glitches or issues. My old homescreen is still saved so if I ever wanted to go back to it, I still have it. The settings can be adjusted easily and are not hard to navigate. The editing process is quick, there isn’t many clicks required to change the icons. EDIT: I cannot seem to find the photo widget that used to be there. It was there until recently and now it’s disappeared. I use an android s20.
I’ve used this launcher for a long time. I’ve used others, and I always go back to it. I guess one change that would be cool is positioning icons in immersive folders. Mid or low position would be good, instead of default high, at the top of the screen. Re-ordering folders in app drawer would be nice too. But otherwise, nice experience. It’s as clean or busy as you want it to be
I keep going back to this Launcher again and again. Better than any of the others out there. The Settings is easy to use and understand. Everything looks and runs so smoothly. SUPER customizable, even in the free version. Icon shapes, colors, swiping effects, grid layout is easy, flexible, anything can be placed anywhere. Infinite scrolling. I can go on and on about how amazing this Launcher is. Apparently it’s been around for awhile, I’ve just discovered it in 2021. THE BEST. 5+ Stars! 🙏❤️
Used this for years to make my Moto and Samsung phone look like I want it. Now unusable. Wasted a day trying to figure out the issue, and find an alternative. Found an old list of bugs for Nova 7 on Reddit, which helped me find words to describe the issue. Please fix the issue with the dock not scrolling in landscape mode. Also, the new position of the dock so far from the navigation buttons is taking up too much space on my home screen. Thanks for the good times, but I may have to move on.
Excellently customizable launcher. I have been able to get my phone working just the way I want it. Better than the Touch Wiz launcher by far. So many options. Especially, like the customizable gestures snd I really like being able to back up my layout and settings. Only issue I have run into so far is that it says it is not responding more often than Touch Wiz. I just click wait and it works fine, but still a small annoyance.
Been using this for years. Love the ability in version 7 to use the old style icons which can have their own shape with a transparent background. SO much easier to quickly find what I’m looking for. However I’m disappointed that the dock background styles are less flexible now. I used to use the style that looked like a rhombus, with a 3D appearance. Now that’s impossible.
This review is to express my disappointment with the update. Everything is super animated now. I don’t like it when things are super animated, it makes me motion sick, but having no animation makes things seem to pop in from nowhere. I like minimal animations and had everything set the way I wanted it. Some things I can turn back, but not all (no option to change opening a folder.) I can disable all animation but that looks bad. I paid for nova and used it for years… Time for new app?
I’ve been using Nova for years because I love customizability and it just works! I was disappointed when I first switched to Android 10 because gestures didn’t seem to be supported, and they’re still not. That said, you can enable them in the menu and they will work just fine until you reboot your phone, at which point you just need to re-enable them. Keep it up Nova!
Great app and would definitely recommend but I have one minor annoyance. I am using an s20 ultra, with gesture controls and when I swipe up to the home screen from any app, there is a slight hiccup. When I get to the home screen, it shows the apps then the home screen clears and appears to refresh before letting me do anything. This entire process takes a fraction of a second but watching it each time kills the smooth and fluid feeling of the rest of the launcher. Would record if it would fix it
Highly customizable launcher app. Very intuitive with lots of great features. I love all of the options this app has to offer, and I have been using it for years. However, the app hasn’t been updated in 3 months. It doesn’t play nicely with Android Q and is pretty buggy. Doesn’t accommodate new gesture controls.
Bought the pro version. Overall the look’s very clean and such, but the usability isn’t there. I like keeping all my apps in drawers in an app page so i can easily sort through and find the apps I’m looking for. Nova does have app drawers, but, without the option to change the location from the top of the screen, it’s just unusable when i struggle to reach it. It also limits the amount of tabs you can see at the same time and you have to swipe through every category. Just use Smart Launcher Pro.
Samsung Touchwiz on my Note 4 was all of a sudden causing latency, freezes, random reboots, black screens and on and on. I just installed Nova and, at least so far, it all appears to have been resolved!! Only time will tell whether all these issues have really been fixed, but my initial reaction is that I think this application is the remedy… Thanks!!!
Simply fantastic! I can’t say enough, I’ve used this launcher for years and I’ve never had a problem with it. Every theme or icon pack over used with it works perfectly. The settings in the free version are perfect for the average user, you won’t run into a pay wall just because you want to change the color of a scroll bar. that said if you’re a power user that wants total control the price for the full version is well worth it.
I loved this launcher for its customization, and used it through multiple devices over the years, but Nova 7 took a handful of that away. Settings for the search bar and the dock have been removed, and I can no longer customize them to the same degree. There are off putting visual tangents all around my home screen now. I will update my review if these issues are addressed, otherwise, maybe it’s time for a new launcher.
Nearly endless customization, great UI, I love it. I couldn’t ask for anything better. Thank you! It has so many options for free and with no ads. I’ve been using this app for a long time and plan on purchasing premium soon, not just for the extra functionality, but to support the dev/devs. Would recommend to all those who want a good, cheap, customizable app launcher.
After so many years of use, this latest update just looks horrendous. I’ll have another dig through the settings before I give up, but there are just such a huge number of unwanted changes to the way everything looks, feels, and works, that I seriously doubt I can fix it. It seems like every day we lose one more reason to stick with Android in general, and get a little closer to giving in and giving Apple a test drive. Especially with some of the features they’ve been adding.
My favorite launcher, hands down. However, I will say to anyone who’s going for a minimalist theme, if you want your apps in the app drawer to have no text and not be separated by letter categories, press and hold the app and select the “edit” pencil icon in the popup box and rename it “-” without the quotation marks (so just – ). If you use a space, then they’ll reset when your phone restarts.