Here's how I set up my Pixel Launcher for maximum productivity

When I get a new phone, more often than not, I’ll jump right into installing my favorite third-party apps. So, when the Google Pixel 8 landed at my door, you best believe I wanted to shove a new launcher on it as soon as possible. But, as this year is about breaking habits, I challenged myself to use Pixel Launcher to build a distraction-free, highly productive home screen experience that’ll keep my digital wanderings to a minimum.

My core Pixel Launcher setup: Settings, toggles, and switches

First, let’s discuss my philosophy for this challenge and the tool. Pixel Launcher is restrictive by nature, which makes it the perfect platform for a productivity-first experiment. My setup utilizes the default settings and features provided by a handful of third-party apps and widgets. Don’t worry; I’ve also limited myself to just three screens.

After selecting a suitable wallpaper, I dove right into the Pixel Launcher’s settings menus and activated/deactivated the items and features I wanted and needed. There aren’t many knobs and toggles beneath Pixel Launcher’s surface, but here are the essential changes I make:

• Suggestions in all apps list: On. Suggestions are extremely useful for highlighting recently opened apps in the apps list. I keep this disabled on the home screen, though.
• Swipe right to access Google app: On. The Google feed replaces Google News’ standalone app for me. When I need to delve deeper into specific topics, I’ll use Perplexity or Google News.
• Web search preferences: Off. Web recommendations can be distracting. In any case, I prefer launching a manual web search from Firefox or Arc Search when required.
• Swipe up to start search: On. This immediately allows me to search for apps and other items using Pixel Search via the apps list.
• App grid: 5×5. This setting maximizes the size of the dock and apps list.
• Themed icons: On. I’ve developed a love/hate relationship with this feature, but I prefer the aesthetics of Google’s themed icons, especially as Pixel Launcher doesn’t support third-party packs.
• At a Glance: On. This is a pretty important part of my setup, and I’ll explain how in the next section.

I find this combination of yays and nays best for maximizing my Pixel Launcher setup, but this isn’t all I do.

Starting right at the top

I guess you could call me a crazy widget lady. I collect them like strays and provide them with comfortable nooks on my home screen. My obsession with widgets is especially prevalent when I use Nova Launcher or Kvaesitso as my main launchers. However, with Pixel Launcher, I wanted to (try to) keep things simple.

The At a Glance widget is perhaps the most important part of this setup. It’s a great reason to stick with Pixel Launcher, especially if you’re entrenched in the Google ecosystem. It occupies the top-most widget slot on the Pixel Launcher’s main screen, occasionally flipping through contextually relevant information. It’s supposed to make “glancing” at these details quick and easy. It’s great in theory, but At a Glance’s default state is far too basic to be useful, at least for me.

To address this shortcoming, I installed Smartspacer, a third-party At a Glance replacement that injects more functionality into the Google widget through “targets.” Smartspacer mimics the look and feel of the default widget but essentially allows access to even more information drawn from Google products and beyond. To get an idea of what’s possible, here are the targets I’ve activated:

• Lively Greeting: As its name suggests, this target flips through fun welcome messages throughout the day.
• Google Weather Forecast: This shows me a snapshot of the current and hourly weather for the next four hours.
• Calendar: Shows any calendar events happening in the next few hours from my main calendars.
• Music: Displays currently playing music details.
• Pixel Now Playing: Shows the current track recognized by Pixel Now Playing.
• Google Maps Traffic: Displays a small box of the traffic conditions in my locality.
• Google Finance: Shows tickers from my Finance watchlist.
• Battery info: This target activates when I plug in my Pixel and shows the current charge and time remaining until full.
• Digital Wellbeing: Displays how long I’ve spent on my phone and the three biggest app culprits. It’s a core part of managing my time spent on distracting apps.
• Yahoo! Sport: Displays the latest disappointing Man United result.

As Smartspacer acts as a stacked widget, not all these targets are displayed on my screen simultaneously. Instead, I can quickly flip through these items as desired, and because it mimics At a Glance’s simple UI, it doesn’t encourage me to move it around or change icons. It takes some time to ready and requires adb and Shizuku to activate after every reboot, but it’s largely a set-it-and-forget-it affair once it’s up and running.

Wait, so where are your widgets?

I use widgets on Pixel Launcher, but fewer than I usually would. The only widget on my home screen is the built-in multi-city clock. As I’m in South Africa and the Android Authority team is dotted around the globe, it’s important to know if my colleagues are available to swap ideas. I could manually add or subtract hours from my time on the fly, but it’s much quicker to spy New York or New Delhi’s time with a glance.

The calendar screen

To find my other widgets, I scroll to the second screen — my calendar screen. Here, I house my two Business Calendar 2 widgets. The first is a breakdown of my current day in agenda format. It lets me quickly visualize any events on my radar today. More importantly, Business Calendar 2 also offers Google Tasks integration, so I can easily add tasks to the calendar from any other device.

I house a more extensive eight-week calendar below this widget, offering a broader snapshot of my events and items. My partner and I are planning many road trips this year, and this wider view of our weeks ahead is incredibly important for marking free weekends. Business Calendar 2 also displays items from my work and family calendars.

The weather data screen

Scroll to the third launcher page to find my detailed weather data screen. I initially had a Google News widget here, but as mentioned, I’ve embraced the built-in Google feed to reduce visual clutter and spatial waste.

As much as I wanted to use Pixel Weather’s widget here to retain some aesthetic congruence, it just wasn’t useful. As Smartspacer already offers a multi-hour weather readout, I needed something that spanned multiple days. This is why I opted for my old friend Meteogram. I’ve detailed my love for this app in a separate piece, but in short, Meteogram allows me to view a vining web of weather data that, despite its appearance, is surprisingly simple to read.

I’ve used two Meteogram widgets stacked on top of one another. The first offers me detailed information about the next four days, and the second extends this data a week further. I know that forecasts are far less accurate after 48 hours, but I enjoy gaining a heads-up insight into what to expect. Again, this allows me to plan my days well in advance.

Reject individual app icons, embrace Pixel Search

As you might’ve noticed from the feature image, I barely have any app icons on my home screen. There are two reasons for this. The first is Pixel Launcher’s lack of third-party icon support. Google’s themed icons feature lacks support for some apps, too. Secondly, I’ve realized that icons are incredibly distracting. App list-heavy launchers incentivize me to tap on these apps even if I don’t necessarily need to.

Instead, the only app icons I display on the launcher can be found in the dock. This important design feature allows me to access my most-used apps quickly from any screen. At the time of this writing, these apps include WhatsApp, Gmail, Spotify, Firefox, and Perplexity. This is the only facet on my home screen I review regularly, swapping these in and out as my usage habits demand.

You may also notice that I avoid using folders, too. As I’ve discovered while using Nova, icon folders are just plain inefficient. They force me to remember which icons I’ve placed in which group. Paired with Google’s themed icon inconsistencies, these folders look particularly scrappy.

For apps that aren’t part of my home screen, I use Pixel Search. Yes, Google forces me to use that darn permanent search bar, but for good reason. It’s massively powerful, allowing me to skirt around the Pixel 8 quickly and purposefully. I can search for specific apps, settings, and issue searches within apps themselves. In reality, it’s not as deep-diving as Nova’s Sesame Search, but (importantly!) it keeps me from wandering off into other avenues of my phone.

In short, Pixel Launcher has taught me to embrace Pixel Search, minimize app icons on my home screen, and completely cut out folders. All this has made my post-unlock actions more deliberate.

Is Pixel Launcher the best launcher for Pixels?

If I wasn’t arbitrarily challenging myself, would I stick with this Pixel Launcher setup? That’s debatable. Despite the incessant itch to tinker, I’ve enjoyed working within the confines of Pixel Launcher. Yes, its shortcomings are notable, especially if you’ve used the likes of Nova Launcher for years. But I think there’s a positive in there.

Thanks to this rigidity, I’ve spent far less time visually scanning my app lists for apps, digging in folders, setting custom icons, resizing and moving widgets around, and fooling around with wallpapers. The trinity of the 5×5 app grid, Pixel Search, and At a Glance offer just enough utility and flexibility to maximize my productivity. I can’t deny that Pixel Launcher performs beautifully on its home turf. Animations are fluid, Google products are seamlessly integrated, and gestures work so well compared to my experience with third-party launchers.

I’m unsure if my relationship with Pixel Launcher will survive, but I’m now happy with my distraction-free setup.

Now it’s your turn. I’m interested in your Pixel Launcher setup. Do you skew your build towards productivity, aesthetics, or something else? Do you prefer Google’s baked-in launcher or a third-party option for your Pixel phone? The comments are open.