The Poco Launcher (download here on Google Play) was developed by Xiaomi for use on the Pocophone F1, and is halfway there. It’s easy to use and doesn’t have too many features, but it still gives you a lot of control over aspects of your appearance and behavior. Some options, such as hiding apps and changing the size of icons, are only available in paid versions of competitors such as Nova Launcher.
In addition to being free, it is fast, very fast, remembering a time when Xiaomi developed only MIUI and its main highlight was speed. And it can be installed on any smartphone, regardless of make or model. Here are 10 tips to make the most of everything this Launcher has to offer.
Hide unwanted apps
You know those apps that come pre-installed on your smartphone, you never use them and they just take up space in the app drawer? You can easily take them out of sight with Poco Launcher. The feature can also serve as a “safe” for you to store apps that you don’t want to be visible on your device.
To do this, open the application drawer and slide your finger twice from the left edge to the center of the screen. You will see the “Hide app icons” screen and Poco Launcher will ask you to set a password. Set up a fingerprint (if your smartphone has a sensor) and a pattern, which will be needed to access hidden apps in the future.
Apps can be hidden, and can only be accessed with a password / © AndroidPIT
Now click on Add Apps. On the next screen, select the apps you want to hide and tap the âś“ in the upper right corner of the screen. Ready! From now on, selected apps will no longer appear in the app drawer. To access them, open the drawer, slide your finger twice from the left edge to the center of the screen and confirm your pattern or fingerprint.
Change the appearance of the icons
Poco Launcher supports “Icon Packs”, packages with thousands of icons for the most popular apps, which help to change the face of the system. You can have a Motorola with Samsung’s OneUI icons, or an Android 7 device and Android 9-style icons.
To install one of these packages, open Google Play, search for “Icon Pack” and choose the one you like best. Some are paid, others are free. After installing the package, hold your finger over an empty space on the home screen and tap Configure> More. Touch Icon Pack and select the one you want to use. You can have several packages installed on your phone, but only one of them in use at a time.
Icon packs help to change the «face» of the operating system / © AndroidPIT
Find your apps faster
This is for those who have many apps on the smartphone and sometimes get lost in the middle of so many icons. Poco Launcher automatically organizes apps by categories such as «Lifestyle», «Knowledge and Education», Games and others indicated at the top of the screen. Touch a category to see all the apps that fit it.
Still have a lot of apps? Use the scroll bar on the right side of the app drawer. Hold your finger on it, slide it up or down and you will see letters. So you can quickly “jump” to all apps that start with the corresponding letter.
Want something even more direct? Use the «Search for apps» bar at the bottom of the app drawer. Just start typing the name of the app. Usually one or two letters is enough to find you.
Poco Launcher offers several ways to find an app quickly / © AndroidPIT
Group your apps by color
This is another tip to make finding your apps easier: if you’re a visual person, you may want to group the icons by color. To do this, hold your finger over an empty space on the home screen and tap Configure> More. Touch Apps Drawer and activate the option “Group icons by color”.
Now go back to the Apps drawer and you will see a series of colored dots at the bottom. Touch a point to see all the icons of the corresponding color. Ah, activating this option disables the search bar at the bottom of the screen.
Grouping icons by color is another option for organizing Poco Launcher / © AndroidPIT
Stay “in the dark”
The light colors of the standard Android interface can «tire» the eyes, which is why many people are excited to include a «dark mode» in the next version of the operating system. But you can get a «taste» of this feature with Poco Launcher.
Hold your finger over an empty space on the home screen and tap Settings> More. Select the Dark option and, below, indicate the transparency of the app drawer, if desired (I recommend 25%). Tap apply and you’re done.
Obviously, this adjustment only applies to the app drawer and search results in Poco Launcher, as the app does not have permissions to change the appearance of parts of the system such as the notification panel or the settings screen. But it’s better than nothing, isn’t it?
Dark Mode tires your eyes less / © AndroidPIT
Tap to block
This falls into the category of “small changes that make life better”. Instead of pressing the power button to turn off the screen and lock your smartphone, you can configure the Poco Launcher to do this whenever you double-tap the home screen.
Hold your finger over an empty space on the home screen and tap Settings> More. Tap “Tap 2 times to lock the screen” and select the option that suits you best, I recommend “Lock instantly”. You will need to give Poco Launcher “Device Administrator” permission for this to work. Just follow the instructions on the screen.
Now try double-tapping an empty space on the home screen, and your smartphone should lock immediately. Unlock using your standard fingerprint.
To lock the device with 2 taps you need to give POCO Launcher Administrator permissions / © AndroidPIT
Change the layout of the app drawer
You can control the number of icons that appear in the app drawer at a time. The default is 4 columns, but you can choose 3 or 5. Hold your finger over an empty space on the home screen and tap Configure> More. Now tap on Customize Layout and choose the number of icons by sliding the bar under the preview. Click Apply and Done.
You can have 3, 4 or 5 columns of icons in the app drawer / © AndroidPIT
Change the icon size
On the same screen as the tip above you can also change the size of the icons. There are five options, from Extra Small (XS) to Extra Large (XL). Smaller sizes work well with more columns on the screen, while larger sizes look better with more columns. Choose your favorite and click Apply.
You can choose from five icon sizes / © AndroidPIT
Clean the memory
This feature can be useful for those who have a smartphone with 2 GB or less of RAM: Poco Launcher has an included memory cleaner, which closes apps that are not in use to free up RAM. Just touch the “rocket” icon on the home screen.
The number below the icon and the yellow border around it represent how much memory is currently being used. In the image below I was using 73% of my smartphone’s RAM, and after activating the 1 GB feature, they were released and usage dropped to 50%.
Memory usage is not something you should worry about on a day-to-day basis (Android already has a good memory management system) and it doesn’t even make sense to trigger this option constantly. But it can be useful at those times when you feel your smartphone “chokes”, or before opening a heavier game.
The Memory Cleaner can be useful for those with smartphones with little RAM / © AndroidPIT
Swap the transition animation between screens
You can change the animation that appears when you switch between the pages on the home screen. Hold your finger over an empty space on the home screen and tap Configure. Select the option «Transition effects» and choose the one you like best among the seven options available. Tap on an option to see a preview of the animation, and after choosing your favorite tap on “Back” at the top of the screen.
There are seven options for effects when changing pages on the home screen / © AndroidPIT
Have you tried Poco Launcher? Do you have any tips that we didn’t mention here? Leave your suggestions in the comments below.
