Nova Launcher is shutting down – it’s time to look for an alternative

Kevin Barry, founder and creator of Nova Launcher, one of Android users’ favorite custom launchers, has announced his retirement and will no longer be involved in its future development.

“I’ve been the only one working on Nova for the past year. I needed to let you know that I have left Branch and am no longer involved with Nova Launcher,” the developer said in a blog titled ‘So Long’.

Nova Launcher is a tool used by many Android enthusiasts to customize the look and feel of their operating system to their liking. The launcher his been around since 2012 and has over 50 million downloads from the Google Play Store.

Originally, Nova Launcher was created and developed by Kevin Barry. In July 2022, Nova Launcher was acquired by analytics firm Branch.

As part of the deal, the original team, consisting of Kevin Barry, Nova Community manager Cliff Wade, and a handful of other people, was hired to control the future direction and development of Nova Launcher. Branch promised Barry and Wade complete control of Nova’s development.

In August 2024, Branch laid off the entire team responsible for the Android launcher. According to Rob Wainright, one of Nova Launcher’s developers, only Kevin Barry and one other employee remained on the employee roster.

“Nova still has one full-time staff member and a developer who splits their time between Nova and other projects, but those two are going to be stretched extremely thin with code, hundreds of support emails, the community, PR, etc.,” Wainright responded when somebody asked what the future of Nova Launcher was going to look like.

Last Saturday, Kevin Barry announced that he had left Branch and is no longer involved in the development of Nova Launcher.

“For the past several months, I have been preparing the Open Source release of Nova Launcher. This work included cleaning up the codebase, reviewing licenses, removing or replacing proprietary code, and coordinating with legal to ensure a proper release,” he says.

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When Branch acquired Nova, former CEO and founder Alex Austin promised to release Nova Launcher’s source code to the community if Barry ever left the company. However, Branch ultimately asked Barry to stop working on Nova Launcher and the open-sourcing effort.

If you’re using Nova Launcher on your Android device, nothing will change immediately. In the long run, however, issues will likely pop up, especially when Google releases new Android versions. This might be the right opportunity to uninstall Nova Launcher, or to look for an alternative.