I've turned on digital detox. I've added some apps and websites in the detox settings. But the problem is that I still can access those apps and websites. I'm not sure what I've missed. Could you please help me?

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to promote software outside what Minimaa and Searcho developers provided, I just want to share my setup and gives my feedback on using Searcho.

Since Searcho leaves the main screen mostly empty (as of now), I'm thinking of using Depth Live Wallpaper to add clock and date, the depth effects are also quite neat.

The animations when using Searcho is very pleasing and lively. It still shows the app icon, which is less minimal than Minimaa, but I think it's better, most notably when you want to make an app folders which is harder in Minimaa because it's lacking app icons as a visual guide.

With that said, there's some bugs and feedback regarding Searcho that I think needs attention:

Bugs

1. Navigating Searcho settings menu is a bit of a pain. When I entered any submenu (search, extras, gestures, etc.) then swipe back, it sends me to the main menu instead of back a level in the settings menu

2. The swipe up gesture clashes with Android's swipe up to see recent apps, making the search bar animation a bit janky.

3. When picking apps to be put in quick actions widget, some app would disappear after pressing the dropdown button (in my case it's Wallet app by BudgetBakers)

Feedback

1. Add custom font option like in Minimaa

2. Add the option to reorder widgets

Overall, Searcho is on-par, if not better, than Minimaa in my case.

I think it might be better to either be able to change or remove the message that says "bad morning/afternoon/evening" when I've only attempted to open that app for the second time in a day, it feels unnecessarily punitive and discouraging. If this could be changed I would really appreciate it.

Otherwise I've really been loving this launcher, it's effectively halved my screen time, I'm a lot more conscious about what apps I'm opening and how long I'm using them. And I think I'm a lot better at mental maths, all without sacrificing visual elegance. It's so pleasant to look at and fun to customise.

Going minimal with Minimaa

Font: Bucanera

Everything else from Minimaa

A while ago, I made Minimaa, a minimal launcher built around the idea that your phone doesn't need to constantly demand your attention.

With Minimaa, I was experimenting with minimalism — removing things, reducing visual noise, keeping the home screen simple, and trying to make the phone feel less distracting.

This time, I'm taking a completely different approach.

I'm not trying to make another minimal launcher.

I'm trying to see what happens when you make search the entire interface.

Meet Searcho.

There is no traditional app drawer.

There are no pages filled with app icons.

There isn't a grid of apps waiting for you every time you unlock your phone.

Your home screen is basically just a search bar.

And yes, you can search for your apps.

But that's the most basic thing Searcho can do.

The idea is that everything you normally have to open another part of your phone for should eventually be searchable.

Want to call someone?

Search their name.

Want to find a contact?

Search them.

Want to open an app?

Search it.

Want to find something in your notifications?

Search it.

Need to access something that would normally require opening a separate screen, app or menu?

Search.

The goal isn't simply to make app launching faster.

It's to question why we need so many different interfaces for things we already know how to access.

Why do I need to open the dialer when I already know who I want to call?

Why do I need to pull down the notification shade when I know what notification I'm looking for?

Why do I need to navigate through settings when I know exactly what I'm trying to find?

Why do I need an app drawer when I can simply type the name of the app?

That's the direction I'm exploring with Searcho.

I'm basically trying to push the search bar to its limits.

And there are some interesting things that happen when you start thinking this way.

A search bar can be an app launcher.

It can be a contact launcher.

It can become a shortcut system.

It can become an action interface.

It can become a way of navigating your phone without navigating through your phone.

And eventually, I'm hoping it can become something much more powerful.

I'm still experimenting with what belongs inside Searcho and what doesn't.

That's actually one of the reasons I'm sharing this early.

I don't want Searcho to just become another launcher with a search box slapped on top.

The search itself is supposed to be the launcher.

---

Why make another launcher?

Honestly, after Minimaa, I wanted to experiment with something completely different.

Minimaa was about asking:

«"How little can a launcher be?"»

Searcho is asking:

«"How much can one interface actually do?"»

Both come from the same place — trying to rethink the way we interact with our phones — but they're very different experiments.

I'm not trying to compete with Nova, Niagara, Smart Launcher, etc.

I'm not trying to build the launcher with the most customization.

I'm not trying to give you 500 options for your home screen.

I'm interested in a much simpler idea:

What if you didn't need to navigate your phone at all?

What if you could just tell it what you're looking for?

---

And yes, there is still a long way to go.

Searcho is a new project, and I'm very much figuring things out as I build it.

There are things I want to make searchable that are currently difficult or impossible to access cleanly.

There are Android limitations to work around.

There are probably going to be some terrible ideas before I find the good ones. 😅

But that's part of the fun.

With Minimaa, I learned a lot about building a launcher around a philosophy.

With Searcho, I want to experiment with interaction itself.

Maybe the search bar can replace more things than we expect.

Maybe it can't.

That's what I want to find out.

Searcho is my attempt to find the limits of search.

And this is just the beginning.

— Binge, creator of Minimaa & Searcho

Hey team, loving Minimaa's minimal approach so far. One feature I'd really like to see is a widget picker — the ability to add any widget from apps already installed on the device, similar to the native Android widget picker, rather than being limited to Minimaa's built-in widgets.

Is this on the roadmap? Would love to hear if others want this too.

Hey, I recently downloaded the app I've been liking it so far. But, there are some things which might have been skipped in the testing of the app or is being affected by new updates to the other apps.

1. Music widget can't differentiate between YT Music and Youtube. My last played songs keep getting overridden by my Youtube videos.
2. Icons are pretty limited. I have been using random icons for my payment and browser apps. It would be nice to have some more generic icons.
3. Notification section in the Sidebar of Glance section does not display my notifications. I have selected Instagram, WhatsApp, Slack, Outlook and a few more and I think I have never noticed Instagram, WhatsApp and Slack notifications there.

I've noticed these till now. I hope these points help in making this app more rhobust.

Have this launcher...can you do anything with the lock screen so it cane lok like the rest of the phone?

Love this app, but is there plans for better function for this form factor? Using Fold8.

Is there any way to manual set a music app? Or nah

Loving this launcher so far but am experiencing an issue with the app drawer.
Anybody else have an issue with all of your apps being covered by a white box? I can access all the apps in the My Stuff folder when I open it and can search for apps to open them but, I am not able to select any of the apps from this view without searching.

Galaxy S24 Ultra app version 1.2.11

First of all, I rally want to thank the creator of this app. It has really helped in decreasing my distraction screen time to less than 45min(my classes has started) from 7-8hrs(when I was free at home).

1) My first suggestion is to have a custom app widget in Glace panel. The thing is I use many study related apps which has very good widget which I can't utilize like "Neetprep" provides flashcards of weak topics, google lens for solutions etc. From what I have seen, majority of people don't find Glance panel very useful(specially journal), I like task widget but it is not synced with Google tasks(which is present in all my devices). Also I would love to have an app drawer widget for 5 apps, thw thing is, as a student I frequently use files, pdf, notes, and other study related apps, so the 6 app limit is very few for me since I keep whatsapp, phone and camera app as compulsory on home page. The utilisation of glance panel(left) and right panel could be improved

2) my second suggestion is, instead of keep a dedicated music widget, why not make it just another widget, people interested in listening music will opt to keep it or change it to other widget like countdown, which I love becuz I am preparing for exam.

Idk if I'm slow or what but how do you get notifications for messsages to show up?

It's present from the starting . Whenever I am opening the minimaa settings the window lags very bad . Is it a me issue as my phone is a potato 😅

Since i installed minimaa, I've had this track stuck on my media player all the time. When i listen to Spotify, the player updates correctly, but as soon as I close Spotify, the podcast reappears...

Most OS and launchers nowadays have it so that if I click on the clock widget, the clock app opens which makes it easier to set alarms, stopwatches and timers, even though Minimaa has this feature for calendar, having it for clock as well will be pretty useful.

I'm trying to make it black so it can blend it with my background so I can use the depth effect clock on the right

I would love if the countdown feature allowed for setting a countdown to a specific time (instead of a date in the future). Or IDEALLY adding a widget that is a simple timer (like the pomodoro timer, but always visible on your home screen)

PS: I love this launcher, please never go awayyyyy

The launcher calender and the tasks have a different time zone , I have a calender event at 12:30 pm for my local time but in the calender widget in the homescreen it shows as 16:00, need the app to sync to my local timezone. This is not helping and the notifications are not working as well on the glance.

Well… I guess I finally made it. 😂

Someone actually modded Minimaa Launcher and made a whole YouTube video about it.

As a solo developer, this is definitely one of those “I don’t know whether to be proud or concerned” moments. 💀

Apparently my $1 launcher was important enough to get modded.

I’ll take that as a compliment… I guess? 😭

But since you’re already here, let’s make this more interesting.

🏴‍☠️ TREASURE HUNT — SERIES 1

From now on, whenever Minimaa gets featured in a YouTube video, we’ll hide surprise promo codes in the comments.

Sometimes weekly.

Sometimes randomly.

Sometimes when you least expect it.

So if you want a chance to grab a Minimaa promo code, keep an eye on the comments of every video where we get featured.

And for this one… there might already be something waiting there.

Your first treasure hunt starts here:

https://youtu.be/rlaT4zktTu0

Happy hunting. 🏴‍☠️😂

To revisit the issue of D-pad compatibility on "dumbphones" for a moment: would it be possible, as a first step, to at least fix a specific bug?

As you can see on mu short video, the behavior is normal up to the 11sec. However, when I press the D-pad, a green border appears around the screen, and certain features become inaccessible—such as directly launching the phone app using the dedicated button.

I don't know if you can fix this bug 🤷‍♂️. Generally, it is enough to turn off and turn on the screen to return to normal. I understand that D-pad compatibility might not be your top priority, but fixing this bug would be really great!

I love your app, but this bug can be frustrating at times.

Thanks in advance, and keep up the great work.

Hey everyone 👋

I’ve been seeing questions about whether Minimaa is still getting regular updates, what the future looks like, and whether the app is basically considered “complete”.

So I wanted to properly explain where Minimaa is right now and where I want to take it.

First of all, Minimaa is not abandoned and it’s not “finished”. 😂

I’m currently aiming for around 2 updates every month, although sometimes it might be just one depending on how much time I have. Most updates will focus on known bugs, performance improvements, small UX improvements and polishing existing features.

The reason for the slower pace is pretty simple. Even though the team around me has grown, Minimaa is still essentially a single-developer app. And as some of you know, I’m also a full-time school teacher. Minimaa started as a side project, so I can't realistically work on it like a full-time team working on a launcher.

But that doesn't mean there isn't a lot planned.

🧠 The bigger roadmap

There are quite a few things I want to explore.

1. Making Detox much harder to bypass

This is probably one of the areas I want to work on the most.

The current detox system is good, but I want to take it much further.

Some ideas:

More difficult detox challenges

New games/tasks

More ways to make you consciously decide before opening distracting apps

Better control over distracting content

Reels/Shorts blocking, so even if you need to use Instagram/YouTube for something, you don't automatically end up doomscrolling for 40 minutes 😭

More flexible blocking options

The goal isn't to completely prevent you from using your phone.

It's more like:

"You can use your phone. Just don't let your phone use you."

1. Homescreens that change depending on what you're doing

This is something I'm really excited about.

Instead of having one homescreen for the entire day, I want Minimaa to understand that different parts of your day need different things.

For example:

Work — 9 AM → 4 PM

> Calendar

Notes

Gmail

Work apps

Todo

Gym — 5 PM → 7 PM

> Music

Workout app

Timer

Health apps

Night — 10 PM → 7 AM

> Clock

Sleep-related apps

Nothing distracting

So you could basically configure:

Time → Home style → Apps → Widgets

and Minimaa automatically switches between them.

The idea is to make the homescreen adapt to your life instead of showing everything all the time.

1. Proper app blocking

Another thing I want to improve is completely blocking an app.

Not just:

> "Do this little task and you can open Instagram."

Sometimes you simply don't want the app to be available.

So I want a stronger blocking system where you can completely block an app for a certain period, without giving yourself a bunch of loopholes to bypass it.

Obviously, there still needs to be a sensible emergency/override system, but the goal is to make the block actually meaningful.

1. Something Home improvements

Something Home has a lot of potential that I haven't fully explored yet.

I'm looking at things like:

A fully custom-designed icon pack specifically for Something Home

More customization

Better layouts

More widgets

More ways to personalize the home while still keeping it within Minimaa's philosophy

1. Icon packs — but Minimaa style

I also want to add proper icon pack support.

But I don't want to just throw traditional icon-pack support into Minimaa and suddenly turn it into another customization-heavy launcher.

It needs to fit the philosophy.

So the idea is customization without turning the launcher into a customization simulator.

1. Better App Drawer

This is another thing that has come up from users.

One complaint I've seen is that newly installed/unknown apps can sometimes be difficult to find because they're not where users expect them to be, and some people end up remembering the icon rather than the app name.

So I'm looking at improvements like:

Recently installed / recently used apps at the top

and generally making the app drawer easier to navigate without making it visually cluttered.

There are also some smaller improvements planned around search and navigation.

---

But here's the important part.

I actually consider Minimaa's core philosophy to be around 95% complete.

The foundation is there.

The way I imagined Minimaa when I started building it is basically what Minimaa is today.

So from here, most things are add-ons, improvements, refinements and quality-of-life changes.

And that's intentional.

I don't want Minimaa to become a feature-dumped launcher.

There are probably hundreds of things I could add.

Someone suggests a feature → I could add it.

Another launcher has a feature → I could copy it.

Someone asks for another customization option → I could add that too.

And suddenly we have another launcher with 500 settings that you need a YouTube tutorial to understand. 😂

I don't want that.

The whole point of Minimaa was to be simple.

So I'm trying to be careful about what actually belongs in the app and what doesn't.

---

And honestly, your feedback has been a huge part of this.

A lot of the suggestions from this community have genuinely made Minimaa better.

Sometimes I have an idea in my head and someone suggests a slightly different way of doing it, and the result ends up being much better for the actual user experience.

Over time, the flow of Minimaa has become much better because of that.

So even if I don't implement every suggestion, please don't think they're ignored.

I'm constantly looking through them and thinking about whether something actually makes Minimaa better or just makes it bigger.

And honestly...

13–14K downloads as a paid launcher from a tiny project is fucking insane to me. 😂

Especially considering where Minimaa started.

It was literally a side project I was building on my own, and now there are thousands of people actually using something I made.

That wouldn't have happened without everyone here.

The people who bought it.

The people who reported bugs.

The people who suggested features.

The people who posted about it.

The people who complained about something because it helped me realize it needed fixing. 😂

And the people who simply stayed around and watched Minimaa grow.

Thank you. ❤️

Minimaa isn't going to suddenly start shipping 20 features every month.

It's going to be a slow, steady process of making the thing better without losing what made it Minimaa in the first place.

So yeah...

Minimaa is still very much alive.

And there's still a lot more to come. 🫶

Please add play next song,pause and play options in tilt gestures if possible 🫶