How do I restore the old Launchpad in macOS Tahoe

m010726 wrote:

Nobody ever forced us to use Launchpad, but taking it away after making it a central piece of organizing one's desktop is incredibly jarring to the GUI experience for those of us who actually used it effectively.

Nobody is forcing you to try to justify it’s legitimacy to a bunch of people who couldn’t care less and have no way to bring it back to you.

Conversely, I don't understand why we are being forced to use spotlight,

Once again, nobody is forcing you to use Spotlight. You can open apps any of the normal ways of doing so which have existed for at least 25 years. I think the Applications folder may go all the way back to 1984, but I’m old and forget those details.

I can't understand how apple fails to grasp this basic difference in cognitive functions and conflate their purpose with a single inadequate tool.

I can’t grasp why you think we would know why Apple does anything.

Well, macOS Tahoe is the worst update.

1. It eats up my system RAM like crazy... No applications are open, the System is at idle, and out of 36GB, 20GB is being used, like not a single application, even nothing in the background, and it’s been almost a month since I updated my computer
2. And removing the launchpad was the biggest downgrade Apple had done. Like the new apps thing, I can't even sort my apps; Apple algorithms are sorting them. Even I can't resize it, and it doesn’t even remember the last size that I set.
3. Now the animations sometimes lag a lot. Even the landscape wallpapers they lag.
4. The overall system runs hot.

Just for reference, I am using a Macbook Pro with 36GB RAM (M3 Pro with 14-core CPU). Lastly, a question: can someone help me out? Is there a way I can downgrade back from Tahoe just like we can do on the Intel MacBook Pro 16 2019?

[Edited by Moderator]

Exactly—100% agree. I’d add that if they want to remove the Launchpad, fine, but at least let us organize the categories ourselves. How are people who need to use many dozens of apps everyday supposed to work?

I am very disappointed by this "enhancement".

I have 99 apps on my MacBook, and I had categorised them nicely into the pages in the Launcher (iPhone has pages and one can group the apps there).

I have multiple apps for editing videos, photos, record and arrange music, etc. Can't remember all their names by heart.

Guess I'll be going back to Windows soon...

I predict they bring it back. Don’t listen to the people here. They don’t care, only because they obviously didn’t use it. Replacing it didn’t make logical sense—in any way. Apple will figure it out.

I completely agree with your point of view. There are some applications that are not frequently used but still need to be accessed occasionally. I can definitely put them in a separate folder. And I don't need to remember their names. As long as I find this folder of seldom-used applications, I can recall what they are for.

They've gone completely mad. I use lots of apps and often can't remember all their names. I had organised them all by workflow, but now it takes me ages to find them.

I want to decide how to organise them into groups, not Apple, who don't even know how I work. It's totally absurd.

DisonL wrote:

I completely agree with your point of view. There are some applications that are not frequently used but still need to be accessed occasionally. I can definitely put them in a separate folder. And I don't need to remember their names. As long as I find this folder of seldom-used applications, I can recall what they are for.

What's stopping you from doing that? You can do it in the Applications folder. Or, you can create a folder and put aliases in it of whatever apps you want and add that to Dock.

medialp wrote:

I want to decide how to organise them into groups, not Apple, who don't even know how I work. It's totally absurd.

So go ahead and put your applications in whatever subfolders you want in the Applications folder (put aliases in a folder). Nothing is stopping you.

muis - i had Launchpad in the left bottom-corner with MissionControl, one of the last inventions of the late Steve Jobs. (Isn't is amazing..?)

And it was a single mouse- or trackpad sweep, for my 5 most needed apps that were a bit lost in the Dock. Calculator, Home and a test-app, on all my machines ( its a Hard way to get all them Docks look the same, without Terminal)

[Edited by Moderator]

Interesting what things people ascribe to Steve Jobs, or not.

The iPhone was introduced in 2007, and Launchpad was introduced on the Mac in OS X Lion, in 2011, when Steve Jobs was already terminally ill. Mission Control was also introduced in 2011, but was a natural evolution of Exposé, which had been introduced in 2003. I very much doubt that Steve Jobs had much to do with it, and it certainly was not "invented" by him. Apple has a huge team, and while Steve in his day had the final word on what went forward or not, it is oversimplistic to say he "invented" either of the two.

Me toooooooooo.

As a Chinese user, I don't even know the English names of most Chinese apps I use. Spotlight just doesn't work well with Chinese - searching for apps in Chinese is a real pain.

Here's the problem: I can't search in English because I don't know the app names, and Chinese search doesn't work properly either. Even when it does work, it's way too complicated. I only use about ten apps regularly, all neatly organized in my LaunchPad where I can find them by sight and muscle memory.

The new macOS is making things difficult for me. I'm not a fast typist, and having to constantly switch between Chinese and English for command-line style operations is exhausting. I really wish Apple would bring back the proper LaunchPad.

I’ve been using Macs since 1995, and honestly, I regret updating to macOS Tahoe. All those tips like “drag the Applications folder to the Dock,” “learn Spotlight,” or “install some third-party app” Complete nonsense! Ever since the early OS X days, updates actually made things better in ways that were easy to understand and navigate.

Removing Launchpad is a HUGE mistake. Seriously, couldn’t they at least have left an option in Settings, like “light theme or dark theme”? This update has completely destroyed the organization on my MacBook. I can’t believe Apple did this.

That will be helpful for some, but the beauty of launchpad for those who knew, was assigning it to a hot corner.

Then your most frequently used apps were available with a quick mouse swipe. All in the same place every time. No hunting. No typing. It was brilliant.

Now, if Apple would allow apps to be assigned to a hot corner, an App like launcher would probably work just fine. But they don’t.

Again: The issue is that Apple replaced launchpad, which was very useful. With a useless app searching feature. A weak, dumbed-down version of spotlight. A feature we already had.

I’ll bet heavy spotlight users won’t even use it.

baneyw wrote:

That will be helpful for some, but the beauty of launchpad for those who knew, was assigning it to a hot corner.

Then your most frequently used apps were available with a quick mouse swipe. All in the same place every time. No hunting. No typing. It was brilliant.

Everyone has their preferences. I never used Launchpad. My most frequently used apps are in the Dock. I suspect that moving the pointer down to the desired app and clicking it is quicker than moving the pointer to a corner then back to the app in Launchpad and clicking it. YMMV.

The Apps app itself can be assigned to a hot corner.