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Organization

Organization

CyberLauncher provides flexible organization tools: color-coded categories, favorites, taskbar pins, Most Used / Most Recent history, and drag-to-reorder.

Categories

Built-in Categories

Category Description
All Every registered shortcut (pinned system entry, cannot be edited or deleted)
Uncategorized Default bucket for new imports (Alt+0, cannot be edited or deleted)
FAVORITES Pinned favorite apps (main-panel section)
ALL APPS Full library (main-panel section)
MOST USED Ranked by total launch count, with context-menu reset
MOST RECENT Ordered by last launch, with per-item remove + list reset

User categories get speed-dial hotkeys: Alt+1 … Alt+9 (in sidebar order), Alt+0 for Uncategorized.

Custom Categories

Create your own (Add category tooltip / sidebar button):

  1. Click Add category
  2. Enter a name in the New Category modal
  3. Press Create category (Category "X" created successfully)
  4. Assign apps to it from the Add / Edit drawer

Category Colors

Each user category has a color (Edit Category → COLOR → Save):

  • Visual identification in the sidebar
  • Color-coded result badges
  • Custom color picker

Managing Categories

Right-click a category in the sidebar:

Action Description
Edit category Rename and recolor (Edit Category modal)
Delete category Confirmation dialog (Delete category?); assigned apps move to Uncategorized (Category "X" deleted)

All and Uncategorized cannot be edited or deleted (context menu is disabled for them).

Favorites

Adding Favorites

Pin apps for quick access:

  • Right-click app → Pin to CyberLauncher Favorites
  • Or toggle the favorite indicator on the result card
  • Favorites appear in the FAVORITES section and rank first in search

Favorites Behavior

  • Favorites always rank first in search
  • Dedicated FAVORITES section in the main panel
  • Persist across sessions (stored in %APPDATA%/CyberLauncher/cyber-launcher-config.json)
  • Portable between machines via Settings → BACKUP & DATA → Export / Import

Taskbar (Launcher Bottom Bar)

Not to be confused with the Windows taskbar. This is CyberLauncher's own bottom bar with pinned apps.

Pinning

Action Description
Pin Right-click app → Pin to CyberLauncher Taskbar
Unpin Right-click taskbar item → Remove
Reorder Drag items to rearrange
Launch Click to open the app

Related Settings

Setting Description
Show Taskbar Tray Icon (Settings → GENERAL) Shows the CyberLauncher icon in the Windows taskbar panel (system tray area), separate from the launcher's bottom bar
Default Windows Shortcuts (Settings, Restore shortcuts) Adds essential Windows utilities (Calculator, Paint, Settings, File Explorer, PowerShell Admin, etc.) to the taskbar and favorites (Default Windows shortcuts restored successfully)

Drag and Drop

Adding Apps via Drag & Drop

Drag files from Explorer onto the launcher overlay (DROP TO ADD APP):

  • .exe files: info + icon extracted automatically
  • .lnk files: shortcut target resolved and imported

Folders cannot be added by drag & drop. To include folders in search, authorize them under Settings → SEARCH ENGINE → AUTHORIZED DIRECTORIES TO INDEX.

Reordering

Drag to reorder:

  • Fluid live reordering: Animated real-time rearrangement for launcher taskbar items and favorites
  • Cursor grab feedback (grabbing state) and outside-click dead-spot protection

Panels

Left Sidebar

  • Category list with speed-dial hotkeys (Alt+1…9, Alt+0)
  • Collapsible Rail Mode: Collapse into a compact 52px icon rail with Ctrl+Shift+B or on hover, with smooth fade mask transitions
  • Collapsible statistics block (Show / Hide statistics): total registered apps, total categories, total launches

Main Panel

Sections: FAVORITES / ALL APPS / MOST USED / MOST RECENT, with:

  • Grid view (Ctrl+1) / List view (Ctrl+2)
  • A–Z / Z–A sort toggle (Sort: A-Z (Click for Z-A))

Right Panel

  • Collapsible via Hide right panel / Show right panel toggle
  • Auto-collapses after launching an app via hotspot re-entry flow (v1.9.x)

Resizable Panels

Drag the 2px divider edges (col-resize cursor) to resize:

  • Category sidebar width
  • Most-used panel width

Footer (Bottom Bar)

Shows system uptime, launch counter (last 24 hours, not calendar day), and date-time. Each segment has a right-click context menu:

  • Hide system uptime / Hide launch counter / Hide date and time
  • Footer settings... jumps to the matching Settings → SYSTEM toggles (Show system uptime in footer, Show launch counter in footer, Show date and time in footer)

Import / Export

Export Configuration

Backup your setup:

  1. Go to Settings → BACKUP & DATA
  2. Under Export Configuration (Save your apps and settings to a JSON file) press Export
  3. Choose save location

Import Configuration

Restore from backup:

  1. Go to Settings → BACKUP & DATA
  2. Under Import Configuration (Restore a previous settings backup (.json)) press Import
  3. Select the export file; all organization is restored

Export Format

  • Single JSON file (%APPDATA%/CyberLauncher/cyber-launcher-config.json by default)
  • Covers apps, categories, favorites, taskbar pins, theme settings, shortcuts, indexer configuration, and scheduler tasks
  • Human-readable, editable manually, shareable between machines

The same tab also hosts CACHE MAINTENANCE (icon cache) and STORAGE & DIAGNOSTICS sections.

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