A Windows launcher with system-tray and taskbar icon support, settings-sync capability, built with WinUI 3, Windows App SDK, and SSH/SFTP.
Little Launcher lives in the Windows system tray and/or taskbar. Clicking its icon opens a flyout with app and website shortcuts. It also provides SSH/SFTP-based settings synchronisation so you can keep your launcher configuration in sync across machines.
Key features:
- Multiple launchers — define multiple named launchers, each with its own icon and items.
- Application & website shortcuts — launch any executable or URL with one click from the flyout.
- Manual icon picker — choose item icons from Fluent glyphs, emojis, bundled app icons, uploaded images, or the selfh.st icon catalog.
- View modes — choose between list view, icon grid view, or a compact tray-sized small-icon grid with no labels.
- Groups & columns — organise items into groups and multi-column layouts.
- Direct flyout reordering — drag items in the live flyout to reorder them, with the same insertion-indicator style used in the editor.
- Direct flyout item actions — right-click items in the live flyout to move, edit, or remove them without opening the settings editor.
- System-tray icons — a tray icon that opens a flyout popup for shortcuts.
- Taskbar icons — a companion helper exe (
LauncherShortcut) can be pinned to the taskbar so one click opens the flyout without needing to find the tray icon. - SSH/SFTP settings sync — upload/download all launchers to a remote server using SSH.NET.
- Shared launchers — share individual launchers via local/network files or per-launcher SFTP. Owners publish items; subscribers receive read-only copies.
- Export & import — back up and restore items locally via JSON.
- Bookmark import — import bookmarks directly from Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or any browser's exported HTML bookmarks file into a launcher.
- Update paths per install type — unpackaged/WiX installs update via GitHub Releases + MSI, while Microsoft Store installs can check for and apply updates through the Store from inside the app.
Microsoft Store (recommended): Get Little Launcher from the Microsoft Store — installs and updates automatically through the Store.
Direct download: Grab the latest MSI installer or portable ZIP for your architecture (x64 or ARM64) from the Releases page. The MSI is a per-user install (no admin required) and keeps itself up to date via GitHub Releases.
Requirements: Windows 10 or 11 (build 22000 or later).
Little Launcher is a .NET 10 WinUI 3 app. See DEVELOPMENT.md for build prerequisites, the architecture overview, and the project layout.
Licensed under the PolyForm Noncommercial License 1.0.0: free for any personal and other noncommercial use, including modifying and redistributing it. Commercial use is not permitted. Copyright © 2024-2026 Ryan Ewen.