Getting to Know Your Launcher Part-2

If Part 1 was about learning to navigate Phi, Part 2 is where you actually make it feel like home. Settings are where the launcher goes from something you're using to something that's genuinely built around you your habits, your aesthetic, your workflow. There's a lot here, but don't let that intimidate you. This guide walks through everything in the same step-by-step way as before, and by the end you'll know exactly what every knob and toggle does.

There are two quick ways in. The first is through the drawer swipe up to open it, then swipe up again on the search bar. A settings option appears right there. The second is through Global Search swipe down on the home screen and either tap Launcher Settings from the default suggestions or type it in the search bar. Both paths land you in the same place.

Home Settings is the largest and most important section. It controls how your home screen looks, behaves, and responds to you. Think of it as the control room for everything you set up in Part 1.

Screen Order

This setting gives you a list of all the screens in Phi - Home, Phi Widgets, App Widgets, Dev Panel, and so on. You can reorder them which screen appears where as you swipe left and right, and you can toggle individual screens off entirely. If you never use the Dev Panel, there's no reason for it to exist as a swipeable screen — just disable it here and it disappears cleanly. This is a good first stop when you're setting up Phi for the first time, because it lets you define the overall shape of your launcher before you start filling things in.

Minimalist Widgets

This toggle hides the header bar and all edit controls on both the Phi Widgets screen and the App Widgets screen. It's designed for when you've finished setting everything up and just want those screens to look clean without any UI chrome getting in the way. The important thing to remember and this trips people up is that if you ever want to go back and add or edit a widget on either of those screens, you need to turn Minimalist Widgets off first. Once you're done editing, you can turn it back on.

Phi Widgets

This opens the Phi Widgets configuration where you can reorder the built-in widgets and turn individual ones on or off. If a particular Phi widget isn't useful to you, disabling it here keeps that screen focused on what actually matters. You can access this same setting directly from the Phi Widgets screen itself, as long as Minimalist Widgets is currently off.

Dev Panel

This is where you connect your developer platform accounts. Enter your username for GitHub, LeetCode, and Codeforces and the Dev Panel screen will automatically pull in your stats every time you visit. You only need to set this up once. This setting is also accessible directly from the Dev Panel screen, so you don't always have to come back here to update a username.

Home Clock

The clock sitting on your home screen is more customizable than most people realize. Here's what you can configure:

Home Search

This controls the search bar element on your home screen — both what it does and how it looks:

Home Dock

This is where you configure the dock rows at the bottom of the home screen — choose which apps appear in each row and how many rows to show. As mentioned in Part 1, the dock is being rebuilt from scratch in a future update so it behaves more like a proper persistent dock. If you're finding the current dock limiting, using Shortcuts from Edit Mode gives you more flexibility in the meantime.

Home Grid

Two things live here. First, the grid size — how many columns and rows the home screen snapping grid uses when you have the grid enabled. Second, the screen padding — the margin around the edges of the home screen. If your shortcuts or widgets feel like they're running too close to the edge of the screen, increasing the padding fixes that. If you want to maximize usable space, bringing the padding down lets elements sit closer to the edges.

Hide Icons

When this is on, Phi hides the icon images for Pinned Apps whenever it can, showing a more minimal look. Useful if you're going for an ultra-clean aesthetic where you know your app positions well enough that you don't need the icons as visual cues.

Hide Labels

Hides the text labels under pinned apps. Works independently from Hide Icons you can hide just labels, just icons, both, or neither, depending on the look you're going for.

Hide Folder Labels

Same idea but specifically for folder elements on the home screen. If you have folders placed on your home screen and the labels underneath them feel cluttered, this cleans things up.

Radial Wheel

Enables the Radial Wheel feature — a circular app menu that pops up when you interact with the home screen. Once enabled, you can add apps to it so your most-used apps are always one gesture away. If the Radial Wheel is enabled but has no apps added to it, long pressing will still fall through to Edit Mode, so you won't be locked out of editing.

Use Classical Wheel

When the Radial Wheel is enabled, this setting lets you choose between two styles. The Classical Wheel opens with a single tap on the home screen. The Modern Wheel opens with a long press.

Swipe Down to Search

When this is on, swiping down on the home screen opens Global Search. When it's off, swiping down pulls down the system notification panel. This comes down entirely to personal preference and how you use your phone — if you live in Global Search, keep it on; if you need quick access to notifications, turn it off.

Double Tap to Lock

Enables locking your phone by double tapping the home screen. Convenient if you don't want to reach for the power button every time.

Double Tap App

If Double Tap to Lock is off, you can assign double tapping the home screen to open a specific app instead. Some people use this for their notes app, their camera, or anything they open constantly throughout the day.

The drawer is where you spend time when you need to find an app, so getting it dialled in makes a real difference to how fast and comfortable the experience feels.

Drawer Style

Choose between Grid (icon-based layout) and Minimal List (text-first layout). Grid is better for visual people who scan by icon shapes and colors. List is better for people who read app names quickly and don't want to hunt visually.

Show Icons

In List mode specifically, this toggles whether app icons appear alongside the names. Turning it off creates an extremely minimal text-only list, which some people love and others find too sparse.

Apps Alignment

Controls whether app names and icons are aligned to the left, center, or right of the drawer. Center alignment gives a more symmetrical look; left alignment feels more like a traditional app list.

Columns

Sets how many columns appear in Grid mode. This one matters more than it seems — if you set too many columns for your chosen icon size, apps end up squished together and it feels cramped. If you set too few, you're scrolling more than you need to. Find the number that feels right for your icon size and screen width.

Reverse App List

Flips the alphabetical order so Z comes first and A comes last. Niche, but occasionally useful if your most-used apps happen to cluster at the end of the alphabet.

Shuffle Apps

Randomizes the app order entirely. Mostly a fun option, but some people swear by it as a way to break muscle memory and encourage themselves to use the search bar instead of scrolling.

Sort by Frequency

This one is worth understanding properly because it behaves unusually at first. When enabled, apps gradually move toward the top of the drawer based on how often you open them. In the first few days it'll feel chaotic — apps keep jumping around as Phi learns your patterns. But after a week or two of normal use, it settles into something genuinely useful. The apps you reach for most end up right at the top without you ever having to manually organize anything. Give it time before judging it.

Quick Open

When enabled, if your drawer search narrows down to exactly one result, that app opens immediately without needing a tap. Combined with a fast typing habit, this makes launching specific apps extremely quick — just swipe up, type three letters, and you're in the app.

Swipe Up to Search

When you open the drawer, swiping up on the search bar immediately brings up the keyboard so you can start typing right away. Saves a tap for people who almost always search rather than scroll.

Search at Bottom

Moves search results to the bottom half of the screen when you're typing. This makes a big difference for one-handed use because your results end up right where your thumb naturally rests, rather than at the top of the screen where you'd have to stretch.

Scroll Type

Choose between a Minimal scrollbar (just a thin indicator) and an Alphabetical scrollbar (a full A-Z sidebar you can tap or drag). The alphabetical scrollbar is very useful if you have a large number of apps and want to jump to a section instantly instead of scrolling through everything.

Scrollbar Position

Put the scrollbar on the left or right side of the screen, whichever feels more natural for how you hold your phone.

Wallpaper Opacity

Controls how much your wallpaper shows through the drawer background. A completely opaque drawer feels solid and focused. A more transparent one creates a layered effect that can look really good depending on your wallpaper. Play around with this — it has a bigger visual impact than most people expect.

Show Icon Label in Grid

Toggles whether app names appear under icons in Grid mode. Turning this off creates a cleaner icon grid if you know your apps well enough that you don't need the names.

Show Screen Time

When enabled, a small indicator appears showing how long you've used each app. It's a subtle way to stay aware of usage habits without needing to open a separate Screen Time or Digital Wellbeing app.

This section gives you surprisingly deep control over how app icons look across the entire launcher, and the key thing to understand here is that Phi separates icon settings into three different contexts — Drawer, Dock, and Pinned (which also covers shortcuts and folders on the home screen). This means you can have completely different icon styles in each place. For example, a colorful icon pack in the drawer but smaller, monochrome icons pinned on the home screen.

For each of the three contexts, you can configure:

If you want to go deeper on icon customization — things like mixing icon packs, using adaptive icons, and getting the most out of themed icon support — the User Guide and Tips section inside the app covers that in detail and is worth a read once you've got the basics down.

For now, the best thing you can do is open Settings and start exploring. Phi is built so that nothing is irreversible, and almost every change is instant and visible, so you can't really go wrong. Try something, see if you like it, change it if you don't. That's genuinely the fastest way to find your perfect setup.