Mac OS X

How to Adjust the Launchpad Icon Size and Grid Layout in OS X

Launchpad on Mac is one of the cool and iOS inspired feature in Mac OS X, which first introduced in Mac OS X Lion. Which allows you to quickly launch the listed apps from the Dock bar, very quick and convenient. The new app launchpad lets you to scroll through and manage applications itself present in the Applications directory on your computer so you’ll never have to sift through the Applications directory again. And when you purchase Software from the Mac App Store, it pops right into Launchpad.

By default, the Mac Launchpad app grid usually displays icons in 7 rows and 5 columns of apps, and with a fixed icon size.

However, for those who are often installed too many or few apps, the default layout does not seem humane. Fortunately, the OS X system allows you to switch and customize the Launchpad icon grid and size freely you’d like to see on the Mac. The only thing you need to do is typing few lines commands in Terminal.

How to Adjust the Launchpad Icon Size

If you want to make the smaller icons smaller,  simply increase the size of grid. Increasing the size of grid to 10×10 icons will reduce the icons size significantly into a scaled-down layout but even now leave it usable.

Step#1 Open a Terminal window on your Mac (go to ‘Utilities’ directory via ‘Go’ menu and open Terminal from the list of Applications),

Step#2 Enter the following command lines, the first of which represents the total number of icon rows and the second of which represents the total number of icon columns.

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-columns -int X;

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-rows -int X;

defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool TRUE;killall Dock

For example, to set the Launchpad grid to 3×5 you’d use the following syntax:

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-columns -int 5;

.defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-rows -int 3;

defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool TRUE;killall Dock

Try out the above settings until you notice something suitable, but you must aware about the fact that every time you reduce the total number of columns and rows, you’re also lowering the number of app icons in every launchpad page and possibly making overflow directories.

If you want to return to the default setting, just change the column and row counts back to what yours was originally. The default on my MacBook Pro Retina display is a 5 x 7 grid, but yours may be different depending on screen size and screen resolution.

To bring the default grid size in Mac Launchpad, once again you need to enter some commands in a Terminal window, they are:

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-columns -int 7;

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-rows -int 5;

defaults write com.apple.dock ResetLaunchPad -bool TRUE;killall Dock

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