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.
This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.
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.
Easily THE best, IMNSHO
TimLance
What a shame rankings can’t be adjusted. There are only two 1 star reviews in the last 5 years.Since the DragThing guy turned his back on us I have tried pretty much every similar launcher, paid for too many of them, and used Tab Launcher for much of the time but one specific feature simply didn’t work the way I wanted. With this latest v3 it now does everything I need and how I need - and then some. It is easily the most fullfeatured solution, options out the wazoo, many new to this latest version (multiple rows on a tab!). All for a ridiculously low price. And it is super easy on RAM. More, in my experience support has been excellent.After painstaking setup I am practically finished and I must say I am even more happy. I have eight stand-alone Tabs using all four sides of my laptop’s screen, all totally hidden. All only appear when I want (option to appear only when clicked) thus not interfering with the Dock or Menu Bar nor appearing inadvertently, getting in the way and requiring me to deal with it before getting back to what I was doing. Six of them have multiple rows/columns. I am still playing with how they look as there are so many options for shape, size, color, & fonts.
Developer Response
Thank you, this made our day. DragThing left a big gap, and filling it is exactly why we kept going. Multiple rows per tab came in 3.1, and there's more on the way. Glad Tab Launcher now works just the way you need. Ideas are always welcome at info@oktoid.org.
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.
• Web-address icons can now open in the browser of your choice: right-click the icon and pick one under "Set to Open With".
• Bug fixes.
Version 3.2.2
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
5.8 MB
Category
Productivity
Compatibility
Requires macOS 12.0 or later.
Mac Requires macOS 12.0 or later.
Languages
English and 6 more
English, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese
