Your home screen, squared away.
sqTile is a local-first Android launcher built around square tiles. Your calendar, reminders, habits and unread badges live on one calm grid — and none of it goes to a server of mine.
A launcher that does the small things properly.
Most launchers are either a wall of icons or a subscription with a dashboard. sqTile sits in between: a tidy grid that actually tells you something, and nothing that phones home.
Square tiles, real information
Seven tile sizes, from a single icon square to a full-width banner, each one recolourable. Apps, folders, contacts, weather, your next event, a habit streak — laid out on one predictable grid.
Badges that come from your notifications
Grant notification access and tiles show unread counts. Notification content is read for the badge and never stored or transmitted.
To-dos, reminders and habits built in
Capture something from the home screen and it schedules an on-device reminder. No second app, no sync service, no sign-up.
Local-first by architecture
There is no server of mine to send your data to. Layout, tasks and settings live in the app's private storage; back them up to a file you control.
Every dependency has to earn its place
Libraries get picked for what they cost in download size and RAM, not for convenience. A launcher runs all day — it has no business being the heaviest thing on your phone.
Measured, not guessed
Any release that touches the startup path gets benchmarked on a real phone before it ships. If a number moves the wrong way, the next thing I work on is finding what slowed it down — not the next feature.
Built for people who want their phone to be quiet.
sqTile is not trying to be every launcher for everyone. It's aimed at a specific kind of user — and everything on the backlog is judged against that.
The intentional phone user
Wants a home screen that shows what matters today, not 40 icons and a news feed.
The privacy-minded
Reads permission lists. Prefers on-device processing and no account over convenience.
Tinkerers & customisers
Enjoys arranging a grid until it's exactly right, and wants export/import to keep it.
Light task-manager users
Needs to-dos, reminders and habits close at hand — without adopting a whole system.
Just landed, and what's next.
Shipped in small updates rather than big releases — eight of them since the launcher reached the production channel, written up as they land in the changelog. Keep the app updated, or subscribe and I'll tell you when each of these lands.
Clocks that read the way your phone does
Every hour on the grid — clock, calendar, reminders, dashboard — follows the phone's own 12/24-hour switch, and two chips in settings override it when you disagree.
Your own wallpaper behind the grid
The wallpaper set on your phone can sit behind the tiles now, with the tiles themselves as see-through as you want them.
A grid that stays where you put it
Tiles go anywhere, swap places instead of shoving each other around, and one tap on "align" straightens a desktop that drifted.
Weather in °C or °F
Pick the unit yourself instead of taking whichever one the launcher guessed from your language.
Icon packs
Point sqTile at an icon pack you already own and let it feed the tiles, the dock and the app list.
A dock you edit in place
Swap and reorder dock icons on the home screen itself, watching the row rearrange as you drag.
An analog clock face
The clock tile can show hands instead of digits, at any size you give it.
Tiles that flip when something lands
A new notification turns its tile over — a different move from the flip you get when you launch the app.
More languages
English, Polish, German, Italian and Ukrainian today, with the next few being translated now.
A full weather screen
Tapping the weather tile should open a proper forecast, not send you to the dashboard.
Widgets on the dashboard
Room for the Android widgets you can't replace with a tile — without letting them loose on the grid.
Apps behind a PIN
Picked apps asking for a PIN before they open — weighed against what a launcher can honestly promise, since it isn't the only door in.