Any way to remove searchbox on home screen?

[Lyphe 416]

I love my new Pixel 6 ... except that ugly af searchbox that can't be removed so far as everything I've tried. Is there any way to remove it outside of adding a 3rd party launcher? An app? A hidden option?

Thx if anyone has any ideas and cheers!

 

[Scott337]

No, it can't be removed from the stock Launcher.

 

[Bob61]

Install Nova Launcher, can customize however you want to. Makes switching devices easier as well as you backup and then restore on new device and get same experience device to device

 

[Davidoo]

Install Nova Launcher, can customize however you want to. Makes switching devices easier as well as you backup and then restore on new device and get same experience device to device

Exactly! First thing I did was install Nova and remove the search box.

 

[sulla1965]

Install Nova Launcher, can customize however you want to.

Which is an absolutely ridiculous thing to have to do.

 

[bkdodger2]

Which is an absolutely ridiculous thing to have to do.

It's crazy how they don't let you remove stuff. Obviously they want you to use that search bar lol. I mean Nova has been running incredibly well on my pixel and I actually do keep the search bar on top of my screen but I agree

 

[beantownsouth]

Which is an absolutely ridiculous thing to have to do.

I'm with everyone else. I use Nova and liked it so much I bought the Prime version of it. On my Pixel 5, the search bar took up way to much real estate. And why Google insists ya can't remove theirs is beyond me. Actually it pi**ed me off so bad, I'll never use the stock launcher again.

Stock Launcher.........................................................................Nova Launcher

 

[Dws51]

What do you lose by going to Nova or any 3rd party launcher? IE.. on IOS if you don’t use Safari you lose certain sharing abilities.

 

[Bob61]

What do you lose by going to Nova or any 3rd party launcher? IE.. on IOS if you don’t use Safari you lose certain sharing abilities.

As far as I can tell, nothing but gain lots of features and functions.

 

[lcs101]

What do you lose by going to Nova or any 3rd party launcher? IE.. on IOS if you don’t use Safari you lose certain sharing abilities.

For me there are just a couple small annoyances, like when I return to the home screen from an app or the app drawer, there is a slight delay before I can open another app or swipe left/right to one of my other screens. (This still happens when animations are turned off.)

But overall, the benefits of Nova still outweigh a couple of the minor annoyances like that.

 

[beantownsouth]

What do you lose by going to Nova or any 3rd party launcher? IE.. on IOS if you don’t use Safari you lose certain sharing abilities.

Compared to the stock Android launcher, you lose nothing, and gain a ton of functions. The swipe up/swipe down on each app icon is my favorite. My Google Photos Icon I have it set like this. Tap the icon and it opens the app, if I swipe up, it opens the camera, swipe down it opens Snapseed photo editor. I have my wife as a contact icon on my home screen, tap it once and it opens as her contact, swipe down it opens messaging to her, swipe up, instant phone call to her.

You can set each icon to open a different function by swiping up or down. In a nut shell, each app icon can now have three functions if you want. Just one of the better features. It's crazy how much you can customize it. To me it's just as fluid and as fast, as the stock Android launcher, on my Pixel 5. Like I sad in my above post, with my P5, I need all the real estate I can get, and Nova gives me that option. Two clicks and I can go right back to the stock launcher. The real question is, why would I.

 

[ras47]

To each his own, but I use the search box constantly. I wouldn't dream of removing it.

 

[bkdodger2]

I actually use Nova and I leave the search area on but one of the things additionally that I don't like about the stock launcher is the way you can move the widgets on the screen. Another positive with Nova is you can overlap widgets easily and use more of the screen real estate as opposed to stock

 

[lcs101]

Compared to the stock Android launcher, you lose nothing, and gain a ton of functions. The swipe up/swipe down on each app icon is my favorite. My Google Photos Icon I have it set like this. Tap the icon and it opens the app, if I swipe up, it opens the camera, swipe down it opens Snapseed photo editor. I have my wife as a contact icon on my home screen, tap it once and it opens as her contact, swipe down it opens messaging to her, swipe up, instant phone call to her.

You can set each icon to open a different function by swiping up or down. In a nut shell, each app icon can now have three functions if you want. Just one of the better features. It's crazy how much you can customize it. To me it's just as fluid and as fast, as the stock Android launcher, on my Pixel 5. Like I sad in my above post, with my P5, I need all the real estate I can get, and Nova gives me that option. Two clicks and I can go right back to the stock launcher. The real question is, why would I.

This is the best part of Nova and why I'd struggle to ever give it up.

 

[lcs101]

I actually use Nova and I leave the search area on but one of the things additionally that I don't like about the stock launcher is the way you can move the widgets on the screen. Another positive with Nova is you can overlap widgets easily and use more of the screen real estate as opposed to stock

I decided to leave it on for the first time when setting up my 6. So far, I'm finding it pretty useful.