Minimalist launcher for focus | Before Launcher
✶Open your phone 40% less.✶
✶Reduce distractions with our notification filter. 80% of all notifications don’t warrant interruption.✶
✶Focus on what matters.✶
Before Launcher can help you live in real life, by making your phone minimal & decluttered. This light minimalist launcher provides many useful features including:
Minimal homescreen
Focus on your eight most important apps.
Fast access to everything else
Quickly access all your apps in a scrollable, sortable & searchable list, with your most recent apps bubbled to the top.
Hide your less important notifications
Our filtered notification drawer is unique. Less important notifications don't flash, vibrate, make noise or appear on your lock screen. But, you still receive them and they are accessible with an easy swipe.
Notified but not distracted
Focus on what is essential. Your important notifications work normally, so you don’t miss anything.
Truly private
We are not in the business of capturing or selling your data. We don't track any personally identifiable data -- we even allow you to turn off our anonymous analytics.
Save your battery
Use our true black background to significantly preserve your battery (if your phone has an AMOLED screen).
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.
Easy set up
Our guided process helps you get Before Launcher set up in no time.
We respect your privacy. We don't track personally identifiable data and allow for several ways to make your experience even more private.
Our product is aligned with the books Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, and How to Break Up with Your Phone by Catherine Price. Tristan Harris and the Center for Humane Technology also provided inspiration.
NOTE: We are not done developing features for this app! We are planning on delivering icon pack support, the ability to customize backgrounds, folders, hiding apps, changing the homescreen font size & its number of apps, widget support and a bunch of other things as well. Email us if you have any requests at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you.
Join our Beta Test Team! https://groups.google.com/d/forum/before-launcher-beta-testers
More Info:
- Visit www.beforelabs.com for more information
- Email [email protected]
- Let us know what you think on Twitter or Instagram @beforelabs
Category : Personalization
Reviews (28)
This is the home screen I've been looking for. Simple, clean, but still customizable. One of the few minimalist home screens to let your use icons (and even make them black and white if desired) and wallpapers. Folders are a nice efficiency touch, if you buy the paid version, which I prefer to ads and data harvesting. They just implemented time and date widgets for the home screen as well. 5/5, if you're looking for a simple home screen app that gives you some personal touches this is for you.
I really enjoy using this launcher. It does what it offers: removing clutter & distractions. I had an issue recently: one of my apps disappeared from the Apps page. I could solve it by clean cache & force stop. Edit: They added a button to refresh it easily. Also I didn't encounter the problem since a while. ⭐
I've had it for a few days now and so far it has been absolutely fantastic. I love the customizability of it and all the options offered. It's simple and helps me put my phone down more while keeping my app list nice and clean. The only changes I'd like is being able to schedule notification filtering, and less importantly, widget options. Edit Edit: It has everything I asked for. I was just too blind to see it. Plus the widgets are now in alpha. Go download this launcher.
Been using it for quite a while and I really love it. Only thing is that now for some reason the icons in my notifications wont update, as in I see the profile pic of only one of my contacts on whatsapp regardless of who sends me a message, as if it standards that picture as an icon for the app's notifications, and it happens for all notifications. Only thing that refreshed them was re-installing, but the same problem happened with new icons.
This app does exactly what it says on the tin, and does it quite elegantly and beautifully to boot. I really like it. However, it's developed an issue recently where app updates create duplicate records, which cannot be removed using the "repair" option. Once an app has a duplicate, it cannot be launched from the main home screen, regardless of which of the two icons is listed on the home screen. The only solution I have found is to reinstall Before, which requires me to redo all my settings.
I love this launcher. I've been using it for several years It has completely changed my relationship with my phone. I get so fewer notifications throughout the day, and they're never more than a swipe away. This launcher is very stable and I've rarely noticed any bugs. The home screen customization options are just right. The home screen also becomes real conversation piece when your phone is lying down on the table! My only feature request would be custom typefaces. Download this launcher!
I've switched from Apple specifically for the customization and have had this launcher for a year now. I love how it encourages me to browse more mindfully!! Love the notification bar and the simple yet customizable design. This could be Google's fault but sometimes the whole screen kinda freezes while I'm in Driving Mode, which is annoying.
I love this launcher so much. So nice to have a simple list on my front screen rather than the multicoloured icon eyesore. This launcher works perfectly, I've not had a single problem with it. Love the option to filter app notifications on to another screen, very relaxing to check when I want to rather than being bombarded with notifications all day. Thank you!
Great launcher. Minimal and practical. I appreciate that it can sort the apps according to frequency of usage. In that way I can see which apps I use the most and to consider deleting the ones I don't use. I would appreciate if the developer makes it possible to swipe down from the middle of the screen to access Notifications. Thanks!
Pretty neat app. I wish for one thing.. on the one plus double clicking the screen turns off the phone. If this option or a button on the default home screen to turn off the phone would be nice to have. Thanks for the hard work!
It's great overall. I have noticed my custom notification sounds for each app no longer work though, so that's a bummer. I used to have unique tones for messages in different apps.
been using for one day and love it, thinking of definitely getting the pro version, even though there's plenty functionality in the free one! definitely would be cool to have font choices for more personalization, but other than that it feels great :)
Really like the way this helps me use my phone. Small change I would like is to be able to remove pinned and front page apps from the a-z list as you can with apps in folders so that everything only appears once.
I've been a long time alternative launcher user, and this one has been one of my most favorite in the past few years. It's a great minimalist launcher that serves it's purpose and works great. Highly recommend this to anyone looking to try something new. My one and only complaint is the number of apps you can add to the main screen should be increased
Good launcher, one feature request that would make me switch permanently. Ability to align apps list to the top and put a note below the list on the homescreen. I am forgetful and need a reminder sometimes for things, it helps when it's on the screen I'll see the most.
Great app... Decluttered my brain. Wanted this type of app to help me reduce digital dependency. Hope there is a feature wherein I can have different home screen based on my current activity.... Different for gym, travel, work, leisure etc.
There's a bunch of "minimalist launchers" (I think Distractionless Launcher started the trend), I've tried many since the start, and whilst all of them do have their issues, I end back up on Before Launcher inevitably. I'll update to 5-star once some additions / road map goals are made. I feel this app is the most customisable, and the extra unique features like the notification filter are very good. That said, I'd like to see more optinal settings for enthusiasts... 499/500 chars remaining? AH
This is a must have app for me to stay focused and waste less time on my phone. I had an issue and reached out to the developer and they were super responsive!
I've used it across multiple phones now but it seems as of late recently used apps disappear in the search area, meaning there's never more than 3 or 4 apps. Miss the old persistence
Love It There is a little annoyance: After I clear the Memory and go back to the screen there is always a splashscreen (even after setting the launcher on the battery saver whitelist) - would nice if I/We could disable the splashscreen. love this Launcher, gonna buy the Full version soon~
I didn't even know I needed the notification filtering, but I did. This is so nice. It really makes my phone feel like it belongs to me again. Screw all the apps that think my attention is free - this launcher reminded me that there was a time before the world was clamoring for eyeballs.
Great discovery..just what I needed. Excellent app and developer who responds quickly to questions. Using this on a phone we use mainly in our car so we don't have to fumble around trying to look for apps.
Incredible app, like notification filters; that I can choose from my wallpapers; make folders; only thing I would like is double tap to sleep all else works great for me...
By far my favourite Android launcher. And I used dozens. But I can't find it on the phone I'm transferring to (Xiaomi MI Mix). I bought Pro and want to use it, so it's especially annoying
Great home screen. gets rid of all the clutter. lots of customization within its sensible boundaries.
Hi, love the app, quick bug report: uninstalling apps with device admin permissions fails silently. When I retried the uninstall from system settings, it showed me an extra screen to confirm uninstall because of the device admin permission on the app, and then the uninstall completed successfully.
It's good, but when I create a new wallpaper from scratch to upload an image from my phone storage, the preview shows them as blurry. It's really difficult to get it right. I instead just change the wallpaper through gallery and then I'm just stick with default white text with no way to get around that. Other than that being my main issue and why I rate 3 stars; I've been using this launcher for several months and hasn't given me any other issues. I absolutely love it.
This is the best UX I've ever experienced in ten years of Android usage. Plus the battery savings on OLED displays and the focus it provides makes for an efficient and professional launcher. Consider going premium for 2.49€ guys! My only suggestion would be to add a shortcut to dial calls. But if you have an AI button you can repurpose to dial quicker, that's something you can consider.