Best Customization Apps for Android: Launchers to Widgets
Start in your phone's Wallpaper and style settings. To go further: Niagara or Lawnchair for the home screen, Arcticons for icons and KWGT for widgets.
How far you can change the look of an Android phone depends on which layer you touch. Wallpaper, colours and icon style are in the phone’s own settings. A different layout, or a full icon pack, needs a launcher, which is an app that takes over the home screen. Widgets and wallpaper apps then sit on top of whichever home screen you keep.
We read Google’s and Samsung’s help pages for the built-in settings, then went through the Google Play listing of every app below. They are grouped by what they change.
What your phone already does
Wallpaper and colours
On a Pixel, touch and hold an empty part of the home screen and tap Wallpaper & style. From there you can change the wallpaper for the home and lock screens, and under Colors pick a palette that matches the wallpaper or choose other colours. Layout changes the grid, and Google’s help page also covers a daily wallpaper and downloadable theme packs.
The matching colours are part of what Google calls Material You. Android’s documentation says it arrived with Android 12: the system takes a source colour from your wallpaper and builds its light and dark palettes from that. The same documentation encourages phone makers to adopt it, and Samsung’s Color palette, below, works on the same principle.
Icons
The same Pixel screen has an Icons section. Style offers Default, Minimal or Create your own, which generates a matching set, and Shape changes the outline of icons and folders. Google notes that icons in the all-apps list are not restyled. On the Pixel Tablet the equivalent is a single switch called Themed icons, which Google describes as changing supported app icons to match the device’s colour scheme.
Samsung Galaxy
Samsung’s version is under Settings, Wallpaper and style, Color palette. Turn it on, choose a palette taken from the wallpaper or a basic colour, and there is a switch to apply the palette to app icons, though Samsung says not every icon supports it.
Galaxy phones also have Themes: touch and hold the home screen and tap Themes. Samsung’s support page says a theme can change the wallpaper, the icons and the look of apps such as Phone and Messages. You need a Samsung account, some themes and icon sets cost money, and an icon set may not cover every app.
For deeper changes Samsung publishes Good Lock, free on Google Play. Its listing describes plugins for the lock screen, the clock, the Quick panel and the home screen.
Customisation apps compared
| App | Changes | Maker | On Google Play | What its listing offers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Niagara Launcher | Home screen | Mellowdrop Studio | Free, in-app purchases | A minimalist home screen made for one-handed use, with themes, fonts and icon packs |
| Smart Launcher 6 | Home screen | Smart Launcher Team | Free, in-app purchases | Sorts apps into categories by itself, colours that follow the wallpaper, built-in widgets |
| Lawnchair | Home screen | David Sn | Free, no ads, no purchases | Open source, modelled on the Pixel home screen with more grid and icon options |
| Nova Launcher | Home screen | Instabridge Sweden AB | Free with ads, in-app purchases | Icon themes, its own colour system, fine grid positioning, backup and restore |
| Microsoft Launcher | Home screen | Microsoft Corporation | Free, no ads, no purchases | Icon packs, a daily Bing wallpaper, a feed with your calendar and to-do lists |
| Arcticons | Icons | Team Arcticons | Free, no ads, no purchases | More than 14,000 line icons, open source |
| Delta Icon Pack | Icons | Leif Niemczik | Free, in-app purchases | Thousands of hand-designed icons, support for more than 20 launchers |
| Icon Pack Studio | Icons | Smart Launcher Team | Free, in-app purchases | Make your own icon pack, or adjust one you have installed |
| KWGT | Widgets | Kustom Industries | Free with ads, in-app purchases | An editor for building any widget: clocks, weather, battery, music |
| Android Widgets (Material U) | Widgets | Dita Cristian Ionut | Free, in-app purchases | Ready-made widgets that take their colours from the wallpaper |
| Material Photo Widget | Widgets | Filipe Belatti | Free, no ads, no purchases | Photo and slideshow widgets in 28 shapes, open source |
| Backdrops | Wallpaper | Backdrops Dev LLC | Free with ads, in-app purchases | Original wallpapers made by its own team, with a new one each day |
| Muzei | Wallpaper | Ian Lake | Free, no ads, no purchases | A famous artwork each day, blurred and dimmed behind your icons |
| Tapet | Wallpaper | Tapet | Free, in-app purchases | Generates patterned wallpapers on the phone and can change them on a schedule |
Launchers: the home screen itself
A launcher replaces the home screen and leaves the rest of the phone alone. Trying one is low-risk: Microsoft’s listing, for one, says you can switch back to your previous home screen.
Niagara Launcher is a minimalist home screen designed around one-handed use. Its listing covers themes, fonts, icon packs, built-in wallpapers and colours that adapt to your wallpaper, and says even the free version has no ads. Pick it for a tall phone you hold in one hand.
Smart Launcher 6 sorts your apps into categories for you and matches its colours to the wallpaper. The listing also mentions thousands of Google Fonts, icon pack support and widgets of its own.
Lawnchair is the one to try if you like the Pixel home screen and want more control over it. It is free and open source, supports Material You colours, and adds grid and icon settings. The listing says it is still in beta, so expect rough edges.
Microsoft Launcher suits people who live in Microsoft’s apps: its feed shows your calendar and to-do lists, and the wallpaper can change daily from Bing. It can import your current layout when you set it up.
Nova Launcher is the one people search for by name, and it has changed hands. A statement on Nova’s own website says Instabridge, a Swedish company, has acquired it and intends to keep it maintained. The Google Play listing now carries a “Contains ads” label. Nova’s site says the Prime upgrade gives access to all features without ads, as a yearly subscription or a lifetime purchase, and the lifetime version is listed on the US store at $29.99. Whether that is worth paying when Lawnchair is free is the question to ask first.
If you want less on screen instead of more, Olauncher describes a home screen with no icons at all. It is free, open source and has no ads.
Several of these launchers ask for Android’s accessibility service. Niagara, Smart Launcher, Nova, Lawnchair and Olauncher all say it is optional and only used for gestures, such as a double tap to turn off the screen.
Icon packs
An icon pack does nothing until a launcher applies it. Whicons says so in the first line of its listing. Google’s Pixel Launcher does not support icon packs, according to the listing of the Lines pack, and Icon Pack Studio lists both the Pixel Launcher and Samsung’s One UI Home as unsupported. On a Galaxy phone, the Arcticons and Lines listings both point to Samsung’s Theme Park, part of Good Lock, as the way to apply a pack.
Arcticons is the safest first choice. It is free with no ads, and its listing calls it one of the largest free and open-source icon packs, kept growing by a community of contributors. Delta is hand-designed, and a review quoted in its listing says you will not have to re-learn your icons. Whicons is plain white icons, free with nothing to buy.
Icon Pack Studio takes a different route. You design one style and it applies that to every app on the phone, so no icon is left unthemed, which downloaded packs cannot promise.
Widget makers
Adding a widget needs no app: touch and hold the home screen and tap Widgets. These apps are for when the widgets your apps supply do not look right together.
KWGT is an editor. You place text, shapes and images, connect them to data such as the time, weather, battery or the song playing, and save the result as a widget. The free version has ads. The Pro key, $6.99 on the US store, removes them and unlocks importing presets and outside widget packs.
If building from scratch sounds like work, Android Widgets (Material U) offers finished clock, weather, calendar, battery and music widgets that recolour themselves to match your wallpaper. Material Photo Widget does one thing, putting your photos on the home screen, and is free with no ads.
For weather on the home screen specifically, see our guide to weather widget apps.
Wallpaper apps
Backdrops is built around wallpapers designed by its own team, which its listing says you will not find in other apps. It is free with ads, and a Pro purchase removes them.
Muzei is a live wallpaper that shows a famous work of art each day and blurs it so icons stay readable. It can rotate your own photos instead. Tapet downloads nothing: it generates patterns on the phone from colours and textures and can swap them hourly or daily.
Two more are worth knowing. Abstruct is the collection of Hampus Olsson, whose listing says he made the wallpapers for more than 26 OnePlus devices. Google’s own Wallpapers app offers its collections and a new image each day, though the listing has not been rewritten in a while: it still mentions Google+.
Which to pick
- You only want new colours and a new wallpaper: no app. Use Wallpaper and style in your settings.
- You want a free launcher that feels like a Pixel: Lawnchair.
- You want a calmer, one-handed home screen: Niagara Launcher.
- You want matching icons: Arcticons, with a launcher that supports icon packs.
- You want widgets nobody else has: KWGT, and budget for the Pro key.
- You want a wallpaper that changes by itself: Muzei for art, Tapet for patterns.
- You have a Galaxy phone: try Themes and Good Lock before any of the above.
Sounds are part of the look as well. We cover those in ringtone and notification tone apps.
What happened to the old list
The 2019 version of this article named Gboard, SwiftKey, IFTTT, KWGT, MIUI-ify and Navbar Apps. KWGT is above. Gboard and Microsoft SwiftKey are keyboards, both still on Google Play and both with their own themes. IFTTT changes what a phone does, not how it looks, and now sits in our guide to automation apps.
MIUI-ify is still listed. It puts a quick settings and notification panel in the style of Xiaomi’s MIUI at the bottom of the screen, and its listing says it uses the accessibility service to draw it. Navbar Apps no longer has a Google Play page.
Quick answers
How do I change app icons on Android?
On a Pixel, touch and hold the home screen, tap Wallpaper & style, then Icons. On a Galaxy, use Themes or the Color palette switch for app icons. For a full icon pack, install a launcher that supports one.
Can I use an icon pack without a launcher?
Not on a Pixel, whose own launcher does not support icon packs according to the packs’ listings. On a Galaxy phone, the Arcticons and Lines listings say Theme Park in Good Lock can apply one to Samsung’s home screen.
What is the best launcher for Android?
Lawnchair if you want something free that looks like a Pixel, Niagara if you want a simpler screen for one-handed use. Both are free to install and neither shows ads.
Is Nova Launcher still free?
It is free to install, and Google Play now labels it as containing ads. Nova’s website says the Prime upgrade removes them, by yearly subscription or a lifetime purchase.
