TabLauncher keeps your favorite apps, files, folders and web pages one flick of the mouse away — organized in colorful tabs that sit quietly on any edge of your screen until you need them.
Version 3 is a complete visual rebirth. Tabs used to be static — now they are living, organic shapes you can sculpt. Pick a preset like Classic, Pill or Wave, or open the Shape Studio and drag the curves yourself. Paint each tab with multi-color gradients and outlines, and watch everything move with fluid animations — tabs morph open and closed, icons glide apart to welcome a drop. The whole launcher feels alive.
DESIGN IT YOUR WAY
•Sculpt the exact shape of your tabs: corners, shoulders, curves — every dot and tangent is draggable.
•Gradients with as many color stops as you like, plus ready-made recipes based on your tab color.
•Outline strokes, shadows, transparency, fonts and label styles — make it blend with your desktop or stand out.
•Five hand-tuned shape presets to start from, and your own presets to save and reuse.
STAY ORGANIZED
•Unlimited tabs on any edge of any screen; every screen edge remembers its own layout — including a gap for the camera housing on modern MacBooks.
•Special tabs: currently running apps, recently modified files, real folders that stay in sync, and a music player for your files and internet radio.
•Import your Dock in one click — apps, folders, web links, even the spacers.
•Window previews when you hover a running app's icon.
•Drag anything in: apps, documents, folders, web pages.
MAKE IT WORK LIKE YOU DO
•Choose how the launcher opens: rest or touch the pointer at the edge, hover a tab, click, or keep it always open.
•Choose how it closes: after a delay you set, or when you click an icon, a tab, or anywhere outside.
•Auto-hide completely, leaving elegant gradient markers where your tabs sleep.
•Global keyboard shortcuts for any item, custom AppleScripts per icon, and system-event triggers (wake, login, timers) to launch or quit apps automatically.
•Fully scriptable with AppleScript.
Light on resources, heavy on personality. Your existing tabs and settings migrate automatically.
Not sure yet? Try TabLauncher Lite first — it's free forever and has every feature of the full version, just limited to three tabs.
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Good when it works
Everwho
This is a decent app with a nice amount of operational flexibility that does what’s it’s designed to do pretty well. The only issue is that it has become, in recent years, rather unstable. I used the Lite version for several years without a problem but recently it began to frequently crash, seemingly at random. And by “crash” I mean, after waking the computer from sleep, the tabs disappear from my desktop and won’t reopen until I reboot the entire computer (or log out and log back in). When this started happening several times a day, I got frustrated and purchased the full version -even though I don’t need the full features- in hopes that it would prove to be more stable and for a few weeks it appeared to be, but now this version too is beginning to crash with increasing frequency. I like this app a lot and with the demise of DragThing have come to rely on it so I’m hoping an update will eventually be released, one that is more compatible with the current MAC OS.
Developer Response
Thanks for the detailed report, and sorry about those wake-from-sleep crashes. The update you were hoping for is here: version 3.0 is now on the App Store, rebuilt for current macOS with stability as a top priority. Your tabs and settings carry over automatically. If anything still misbehaves, write us at info@oktoid.org and we'll dig in.
Was great, seems unusable in Ventura
jaytay579
I have loved this little utility for years. Colour-coded tabs for different types of applications is exactly what my brain wants. It was also incredibly easy to customize so that I could make finding and launching applications work the way that my brain works. I perhaps didn't appreciate HOW easy it was to use until suddenly it wasn't. Specifically, when I switched to a new computer that came with Venture pre-installed, I found that I could no longer just add and remove things from the Tab Launcher tabs by drag-and-drop. Some applications would, with some futzing, finally land in the bar, but others would just create an Alias on my desktop behind the bar, no matter what system/security settings I adjusted nor what extra keys I held down (I had some luck with Command-dragging, but only some!) I really hate to abandon this app, but it hasn't been updated in so long, I feel abandoned by it. I hope the developer will revisit it some day, at which point I'll happily revisit this review and hopefully feel I can give Tab Launcher the five stars that it once deserved!
Developer Response
Thank you for your review.An update was released to support MacOS Ventura.Hope that you continue to enjoy using TabLauncher.
It Works
roger 4011v
I got this application to replace DragThing, which will apparently not be updated for the 64-bit world. It was quite frustrating to set up - it kept expanding to cover the left corner of the menu bar (on HIgh Sierra); the suggested fix to adjust the size is to shrink the size of the icons, which didn’t work for me. As noted elsewhere, there’s no onvious way to get support for the application. Now that I have it set up, though, I”m quite happy with it - I shrink a bit with fear eery time I add a new icon to a tab, though.srb
Developer Response
Thanks for sticking with it through that frustrating setup. Version 3.0 just landed — the biggest update in the app's history, rebuilt for current macOS, with completely reworked layout and sizing around screen edges: tab shapes and sizes are now precisely adjustable, and every screen edge remembers its own layout. And support is easy to find these days: info@oktoid.org.
Sweet Dock Alternative.. a few issues
BWH74
UPDATE..- Developer is friendly & responsive. He was unable to replicate issue I was having with the Special-Tabs feature. Could be a function of something else I’m running (I’ve got a lot of third-party system tools)- The preference settings related to tab behavior are still a little confusing to me, but with some trial and error I have configured my multi-tab dock so I don’t accidently switch between tabs. - After over a month of use I’m hooked on this dock alternative and have increase my review to 4.5 stars (rounded up).ORIG REVIEW..Love this tool. Will give it 5-stars if a few bugs get resolved. 1.) There’s a memory leak associated with one or more of the ‘special tabs’. These tabs can be enabled in the preferences (one shows all running apps, another tab shows all open windows, etc). These are neat features but I experience a severe memory leak when using them. I can watch the memory used by this app go from 50MB to over 900MB using Apple’s Activity Monitor application. Within a day I get a message from OSX telling me that the system has run out of memory & prompting me to force quit some applications. 2.) If you organize your apps into multiple tabs, moving between them is a little wonky. I frequently, accidently switch tabs when the mouse passes over the tab even though I have ‘Wait to switch tabs’ preference set to the longest time (click to switch tabs). I would love to be able to force the app to only switch tabs if I click on the tab, but even with the associated prefence set the tabs still switch on mouse hover some of the time.
Developer Response
Thanks for the thorough review — and the patience with the special tabs. Version 3.0 just landed: the biggest update in the app's history, rebuilt for current macOS. Tab behavior got exactly the attention you asked for — opening and closing are now explicit choices, including click-only modes, so no more surprise hover switches. If the memory leak ever resurfaces, info@oktoid.org — we'd love to know.
This update fixes two issues you reported to us:
• Dropping a file onto an app icon opens the file with that app again, and dropping it onto a folder icon sends it into the folder — instead of just adding the file to the tab.
• In the Windows special tab options, "App icons instead of previews" no longer disappears when Screen Recording permission is missing — that is exactly the mode that doesn't need it.
Every message and review reaches us, and it is what decides what we fix next. If something bothers you, or you would like TabLauncher to do something it doesn't, please write to us at info@oktoid.org.
Thank you for using TabLauncher, and for all the support!
Version 3.1.2
The developer, Oktoid, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
Data Not Collected
The developer does not collect any data from this app.
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Accessibility
The developer has not yet indicated which accessibility features this app supports. Learn More
Information
Seller
Mio Hamano
Size
5.7 MB
Category
Productivity
Compatibility
Requires macOS 10.13 or later.
Mac Requires macOS 10.13 or later.
Languages
English and 6 more
English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese
