My historical past with Home windows launchers will not be one thing I am happy with. I’ve cycled via Listary, which I as soon as thought of the right free Home windows search app for the way seamlessly it built-in with File Explorer. From there, I moved to Fluent Search as a result of it proved that you could search your PC immediately throughout energetic purposes and browser tabs alike. I even changed the Home windows Begin menu with Movement Launcher for some time, having fun with its open-source, keyboard-driven method to system instructions and net searches. I even spent a brief, barely complicated stretch utilizing a clipboard supervisor I one way or the other satisfied myself was a launcher.
Each impressed me for some time, then slowly pale into the background. They’d keep put in, not as a result of I used to be utilizing them, however as a result of eradicating them felt like admitting defeat. In the meantime, I might go proper again to clicking via the Begin menu like nothing ever occurred.
Sooner or later, I figured I’d as effectively strive yet one more. That is how I landed on Wox. It is a free, open-source launcher that has been round because the early days of Home windows’ productiveness scene. Launched again in 2013, it just lately received a full rebuild with a recent v2 launch, which is what pulled me on this time round.
OS
Home windows, macOS, Linux
Value mannequin
Free
Wox Launcher is a quick, cross‑platform app launcher that allows you to search and open applications, information, and net content material immediately, with highly effective plugin help and easy, minimal UI customization.
Kind two letters, discover every little thing
Wox launches apps, bookmarks, and your excuses for not making an attempt it sooner
Wox lives in your system tray, out of sight till you want it. When you faucet Alt + Area, or no matter shortcut you resolve to set, it wakes up like the Undertaker, and a clear, floating search bar glides into the middle of your display. To shut the bar with out doing something, Escape dismisses it and returns focus to no matter you had been doing.
Out of the field, it is already helpful. When you begin typing the identify of an app, outcomes present up nearly instantly, due to fuzzy matching. You do not even have to get the spelling proper; for instance, you possibly can sort one thing like “vsc” and VS Code will present up earlier than you end the thought. You do not have to navigate folder hierarchies or scroll via alphabetical grids. You sort a fraction, and also you’re there. As soon as a result’s highlighted, urgent Alt + J opens the Actions panel: a small overlay that provides context-sensitive choices like Open, Open Containing Folder, Copy Path, and Pin in present question.
Associated
These obscure keyboard shortcuts make navigating Home windows absurdly quick
Ditch the mouse and let your fingers do the heavy lifting.
What impressed me wasn’t simply how effectively it finds apps, however what else it surfaces. I typed “makeu” on a whim, and it pulled up MakeUseOf straight from my bookmarks, full with a URL preview. Wox indexes your browser bookmarks mechanically, so your most-visited websites are accessible in the identical approach as your apps. I hadn’t set something up — it simply labored, so long as the Browser Bookmarks plugin was enabled. I am going to get into plugins in a bit.
When you right-click the Wox icon and open Settings, there’s fairly a bit you possibly can tweak. The Common tab enables you to change the hotkey if Alt + Area conflicts with one other key mixture. There’s additionally a Launch Mode dropdown that controls how the bar behaves while you reopen it. When you desire, set it to “Proceed Final Question” to recollect what you had been looking for, which is useful in the event you’re bouncing between outcomes. Or you possibly can go together with a recent begin every time. You’ll be able to even resolve what the bar exhibits earlier than you sort something, both a clean web page or an inventory of your most just lately used objects.
Then there’s the Theme tab, which is the place Wox picks up a little bit of character. You’ll be able to swap between built-in themes or browse extra on-line with out leaving the app. Fonts, bar dimension, colours, and extra are all adjustable, however it by no means appears overdone.
A couple of characters stand between you and every little thing you want
The set off key phrase system is the entire character of this app
One factor you will discover fairly shortly is that almost all of Wox’s built-in options are tied to set off key phrases. They’re simply quick prefixes you sort earlier than your search to inform it what you are making an attempt to do. It would sound a bit fussy, however actually, it clicks quick. Give it a day or two, and your fingers will keep in mind.
For instance, in the event you sort “g” adopted by an area and your question, you would be looking out the net straight from the bar. When you hit enter, it can open in your default browser, and you will not have to fumble round with a brand new tab first. In the identical vein, in the event you sort “>” earlier than a command, Wox treats it like a shell instruction. This can be a nice approach to run fast PowerShell or CMD instructions with out opening a terminal window. So, a command like “> ipconfig” would pull up your community data with out you ever having to open a terminal window.
For fast math, you do not even want a set off. Simply sort the expression — say, 1440 * 52 — and the reply exhibits up inline. It additionally handles unit conversions equally utilizing the conv prefix set off, which is a pleasant contact.
The one I hold coming again to, although, is the clipboard historical past. When you sort “cb” and hit house, you will get a scrollable listing of every little thing you have copied just lately. It really works very like the native Home windows 11 clipboard historical past, however feels quicker since you by no means must take your palms off the house row. Choose an merchandise, and it pastes on no matter spot you are on. In case your day entails bouncing between bits of textual content, hyperlinks, or code snippets, this alone makes it price utilizing Wox. It is clean sufficient that I ended up uninstalling the separate clipboard supervisor I might been utilizing for years.
A plugin retailer filled with stuff you’d like
The catalog runs deep
After you have lived with the fundamentals for a day or two, you need to look into Wox’s built-in Plugin Retailer. The interface, accessible straight from Settings -> Plugins -> Retailer Plugins,is notably calm. By calm, I imply there are not any banner advertisements, “Featured” upsells, or darkish patterns making an attempt to get you to put in issues you don’t want. You scroll, learn an outline, and click on Set up; the plugin turns into out there instantly with no need to make use of terminal instructions like wpm set up.
Past what comes bundled, the Plugin Retailer provides instruments like a DeepL Translator for fast textual content translations, a Shade Picker that’s extremely useful when you want to discover the hex code of any coloration in your display for design work, a UUID Generator for builders, and even LocalSend integration for cross-device file sharing. Individually, every plugin reads like a modest comfort. Collectively, they rebuild the way in which you work together together with your total machine, one fewer context swap at a time.
As a result of Wox is a light-weight shell, many of those plugins are scripts. To make sure they run accurately, you need to have Node.js and Python put in in your system, as Wox will name these runtimes to execute the plugin logic. Each set off key phrase stays absolutely customizable from the plugin settings panel, so if a default conflicts together with your workflow, you possibly can remap it to something you like.
You have already got the keyboard, may as effectively use it correctly
Wox doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t have fun your launches, present you a streak counter, or ask for a assessment. It simply stays out of the way in which and will get quicker the longer you utilize it. Sooner or later, you’ll discover that the keyboard has turn out to be the one approach you open something in your laptop — and also you will be unable to determine precisely when that occurred. That is a greater trick than any launcher demo I’ve ever seen.
