When I want to find an app I haven’t pinned to the home screen I swipe up from the bottom of the home screen to bring up a search bar where I can search for an app by name or scroll through list of all apps on the phone.
Thing is the search bar on my new pixel phone is actually a Google search bar that will search apps locally at the same time as providing web results, especially if it can’t find the app by name.
It’s a nice idea in theory but in practice I find it annoying, especially if I’ve just made a typo. Also, I’m just never going to use this search bar for web searching anyway because for that I would want my chosen browser so the web results are of no use to me.
I actually remember my old phone used to do what I wanted it to do, then one day it switched to what my new phone currently does and after a long time I found the solution to return it back to it’s previous behaviour except now I’ve forgotten what I did.
I only want to search my phone’s local storage for apps matching my keyword when I access the app drawer. How do I get rid of this Google search bar? (I’d love to get rid of the Google search bar from the home screen itself as well but I understand I can’t do that without root on stock android.
You can do that with an alternative launcher. They didn’t require root and there are some that are made to be very similar to the pixel launcher just with more settings.
I use lawn chair and have the search bar hidden normally, but it appears for local app only search when I swipe up.
I’m using action launcher and I really like the search. It searches apps but then has quick links too, so you can send the search query to a search engine, Google play or others
Best way is to use a different launcher. You can install a few and switch between them. Setting up a new one can be a bit time consuming but you get a feel for them doing so. Keep notes.
I used Nova for years but unfortunately it’s now owned by a data collection company. I found it difficult to find another but since being on Lemmy and reading posts like these, I’ve finally moved to Niagara.
It’s very different but I suggest it for you because of your need tothe search for installed apps. That’s what it’s based around, there’s no separate app drawer. It’s very clever and easy to use once set up, and well worth the effort.
The win is that it’s FOSS.It’s not FOSS but the privacy policies are decent. You can read a summary here.
Most features are free but the paid version has a seven day trial. It’s a very reasonable cost which you pay annually and I think it’s worth it if you’re going to use the app. It’s very mature and the dev deserves to get paid for it, especially at the low cost he’s asking. Check his website.
As you can probably tell, I’m a huge fan.
EDIT - as pointed out, it’s not FOSS. My apologies and I’ve edited accordingly.
Niagara Launcher is not FOSS, it’s closed-source. If you want an open-source search-based launcher, there are Kvaesitso and KISS Launcher for example
You are correct. I apologise and I’ll edit my comments. I don’t know why I thought it was foss but looking at the policies it seems reasonably decent.
I’ll check those suggestions as well. Thanks for setting me straight!
Niagara launcher, kiss or kvaesto are the way to go. If you want a decent app search. I would also recommend Smart Launcher 6; the search bar is pretty good. Not to mention the automatic app categories you get for all your apps.
It’s a very reasonable cost
Ok, cool.
which you pay annually
Pffffft. Nah.
Really? $9.50
Less than 80 cents equivalent per month.
Really?
Yeah. I’m really not going to rent an app launcher.
I understand the reason but it’s the only one I’ve found that’s actually different and good. Getting away from Nova wasn’t easy, a very small fee is trivial to me for that.
Besides, do you also not donate to anything else you use regularly or other worthy causes?
Paying a subscription for a product isn’t a donation. It’s a subscription fee.
Technically yes. But you don’t have to pay and the free version is perfectly usable.
And it’s such a small amount, per year, that you don’t have to pay, in practice it’s more like a donation.
I agree that you are technically correct, I just don’t think it matters. You are welcome to use it or not, and pay, or not.
On my pixel, if I type something in to the search bar so it displays search results (any results) and then scroll all the way to the bottom, there is a settings button I can click on that takes me to settings for the search. If I turn all the options off, then I get just my local apps in the results.
That does it. Thanks mate.
Graphene OS is a de-googled veraion of android you can install via a simple website. It has the exact feature you are looking for.
Quite a big change for a small feature
Its usually a small thing that is the last drop to make a change.
Planning to switch to Graphene OS for several reasons, but I have a reason why it will be better for me not to do that until a bit later so until then I’m just trying to be comfortable with stock.
Nova launcher
Go to the play store and search ‘on this device’.
You can add a search bar to the app drawer from the launcher settings that searches the app drawer.
As for system wide search. I ended up using sesame
I think this is a sign that you might have too many apps
It sounds like it but, in general I prefer to have 1 maybe 2 home screen pages of stuff I know I’ll use all the time right away and anything else I’d rather just search.
I suppose if you have only enough apps to fill maybe a single home screen page then by that standard I’d have a lot as between my less frequently used apps and all of Google’s pre-installed ones that’s probably a few pages, but generally I try to be sparing with them.
I like to use folders in my app drawer to organize them, maybe it’s something you can try? I run an old version of Nova before they got bought out
