Before Launcher | Go Minimal

⎋ Before Labs

In-app purchases

About this app

⚡️Stay focused using the minimal launcher with style and functionality.
✶Open your phone 40% less.✶
✶Reduce distractions with our notification filter. 80% of all notifications don’t warrant interruption.✶
✶Focus on what matters.✶

❌ Zero ads, never a subscription
✶No ads, EVER✶
✶No subscriptions, EVER✶
✶Lifetime purchase for ALL of your devices✶

Before Launcher gets your time back, by giving your phone a minimal look. This minimalist launcher provides many useful features including:

Minimal homescreen
Quick launch of your most important apps. It’s configurable, too!

Customize the look, make your own clean style
Choose from our large list of photo, gradient and solid themes or create your own.

Fast access to your favorites and everything else
Fast access to all your apps in a scrollable, sortable & searchable list.

Favorite, folder and hide your apps
Group apps into folders. Pin apps to the top of your apps list. Hide unwanted and distracting bloatware (available in pro version)

Hide less important notifications
Our filtered notification drawer is unique. Less important notifications don't interrupt you with vibrations or noise. They won't clutter up your notification bar. But you still receive them and they are accessible with a quick swipe.

Notified but not distracted
Focus on what is essential. Important notifications still notify you, so you don’t miss anything.

Built to be private
We are not in the business of capturing or selling your data. We don't track any data that identifies you. We even allow you to turn off our anonymous analytics.

No required permissions = more privacy/security
Many other launchers want 10 or more device permissions. (the notification filter asks for one access but you can turn it off that feature).

Take control of your phone
Before Launcher sorts apps by their size, their installed date and the last time you used them. Uninstall the ones that take up too much space, or you never use.

Style your app icons
Add our own styles and also add 3rd party icon packs

Easy set up
Our guided process helps you get Before Launcher set up in no time.

Selected as one of Fast Company's best new apps of the year in 2019.

The minimalism movement inspired our work! This includes books like Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Price and Indistractable by Nir Ayal. (2) Products like the Lightphone.

The Before Launcher app, with your consent, uses Android's Accessibility Service API to enable the double-tap gesture to quickly turn off your device’s screen. Your use of this feature is optional. The accessibility service in Before Launcher is disabled by default. Your consent is required to allow the accessibility service to be used by the Before Launcher and when consent is granted it is only used for the double-tap feature. You can revoke your consent at any time. The feature and the service do not collect or share any data.

NOTE: We would love to hear from you. Our roadmap includes future support for gestures, custom fonts, and more.

Ratings and reviews

ETA (04/12/24): Your last update did something to the notification sounds. I can no longer hear notification sounds even though my headset is in. I like being able to hear notification sounds even though my headset is attached. Please fix. So far, so good. I wanted to wait a bit before I left a review for this app. So far I love the minimalist UI. It's easy to set up and easy to customize.

This launcher works great, but there are some peculiar touch/gesture zones that are either too sensitive or too unresponsive. To dismiss items in the filtered notification screen, I have to swipe several times before it registers the action. The app list could be changed to actually scroll by the app names instead of by each and every app; the current design doesn't make sense in terms of utility.

I've used this app for a couple of years now in lieu of buying a minimalist phone and have enjoyed it a lot. The one minor complaint I have is that I wish there was a function to reorder apps within the folders more efficiently. Whenever I've encountered a glitch over the years, I come here to the reviews to see if someone complained about it already and every time that has happened, the creators have already responded with the solution to fix it. This is a great app.

What's new

🚀 7.4.0
🙀 Hide the app list!!
⭐️ Open search results from keyboard
🦾 Close folders using back-press or gesture
🐞 Bug fixes and performance improvements