Settings

Complete reference for all settings options.

Primary

Controls the main clock and weather block shown on the home screen.

Clock

Always uses your device's local timezone. The city name and timezone ID are shown for reference and cannot be changed here.

Label above time

Sets the small text displayed directly above the time. Three options:

• City / region name — the city derived from your current GPS location or manual weather location.
• Timezone abbreviation — short identifier such as CET or EST.
• Custom — any text you type, for example a nickname or a place name.

Weather

Toggle to show or hide the current temperature and weather conditions next to the time. When enabled, a weather location row appears below.

Weather location

Determines where weather data is fetched from:

• GPS (auto) — uses your device location if the location permission has been granted.
• Manual — search for any city by name. The result is stored and used until you clear it.
• Default (Zurich) — fallback when no permission is granted and no manual location is set.

Tap Grant GPS permission to request the location permission without leaving the settings screen. Tap Change to open the city search dialog.

Secondary

An optional second clock and weather block, useful for tracking another timezone (e.g. a remote team or family members abroad).

Show secondary

Master toggle. When off, none of the secondary settings have any visible effect.

Clock timezone

Pick any timezone from the full list. The list is sorted by UTC offset. Use the search box to filter by city or country name. Select None — hide second clock to remove the timezone without turning off the secondary block entirely.

Label above time

Same three options as the primary label (city name, timezone abbreviation, or custom text), applied independently to the secondary clock.

Weather

Toggles weather for the secondary location. The secondary clock always uses a manual location only — GPS is not used here. If no manual location is set, weather defaults to Zurich.

Colors

All three colors are picked from a full-screen color picker with hue strip, saturation/brightness canvas, preset swatches, and a hex input field.

Primary text

Color of the time digits and current temperature. Default: white (FFFFFF).

Secondary text

Color of the date line, weather details (high/low, wind, precipitation), and secondary clock text. Default: light grey (AAAAAA).

Background

Home screen background color. Default: black (000000). Near-black values are recommended for OLED battery savings and the best clock contrast.

Localization

Time format

• System default — respects the 12 h / 24 h setting of the device.
• 24 h — forces 24-hour display.
• AM / PM — forces 12-hour display with AM/PM suffix.

Date format

• System default — uses the locale date format of the device.
• Custom — enter a mask string using the tokens below.

Token	Output
d	Day number without leading zero (1, 2 … 31)
dd	Day number with leading zero (01, 02 … 31)
ddd	Short weekday name (Mon, Tue …)
dddd	Full weekday name (Monday, Tuesday …)
m	Month number without leading zero (1 … 12)
mm	Month number with leading zero (01 … 12)
mmm	Short month name (Jan, Feb …)
mmmm	Full month name (January, February …)
yy	2-digit year (25, 26 …)
yyyy	4-digit year (2025, 2026 …)

Temperature

• System default — Celsius for metric locales, Fahrenheit for US locale.
• Celsius (°C)
• Fahrenheit (°F)

Distance / Wind

• System default — km/h for metric locales, mph for US locale.
• Metric (km/h)
• Imperial (mph)

Appearance

Font

Applies globally to all text in the launcher — home screen, app drawer, recent apps, and settings.

• System default — the device's default sans-serif font.
• Serif
• Monospace
• Cursive

App icon shape

Controls how icons are clipped when displayed in the app drawer, recent apps, and shortcut slots.

• System default — uses the adaptive icon shape defined by the device (typically squircle or circle).
• Circle
• Rounded square
• Square — no clipping, full icon as provided by the app.

App icon color

• Full color — icons shown as-is.
• Grayscale — all icons converted to grayscale everywhere.
• Grayscale on home screen only — grayscale on shortcut slots; full color in the app drawer and recent apps.

Colorize grayscale icons with primary color

Visible only when a grayscale mode is selected. Tints the desaturated icons with your chosen primary text color, giving a monochromatic tinted look.

Recent Apps

Number of recent apps shown

How many recently launched apps appear on the recent apps page (swipe right from the home screen). Choose from 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25. Default is 15. The list is ordered by most-recently used and updates every time you launch an app.

App Shortcuts

Twenty shortcut slots arranged in four rows of five. Each slot can hold one app for quick launch directly from the home screen.

• Tap an empty slot (shows +) to open the app picker and assign an app.
• Tap a filled slot (shows the app icon) to replace or remove the app.
• Shortcuts are also accessible by long-pressing any slot directly on the home screen.

Reset

Resets everything to factory defaults in one step. A confirmation dialog is shown before any changes are made. The following are reset or cleared:

• Primary label mode → timezone abbreviation
• Weather → enabled, location cleared (returns to GPS / Zurich default)
• Colors → white text, grey secondary, black background
• Icon shape → system default
• Icon color → full color, colorize off
• Font → system default
• Time / date format → system default
• Temperature / distance units → system default
• Recent apps count → 15
• Secondary clock → disabled
• All 20 app shortcuts → cleared
• Recent apps history → cleared

Default Launcher

BasicLauncher must be set as the default home app to appear when you press the home button. Tap the button to open the system dialog for selecting a default launcher. On Android 10 and above the system role dialog opens directly; on older versions the Home settings screen opens instead.

Once set, the button is replaced with a checkmark confirmation. If you later change the default launcher via system settings, the button reappears automatically next time you open settings.

About

Shows the app name and version number. Tap the ? button on the right to reopen the how-to screen that explains the swipe gestures.

Tap basiclauncher.ch to open the project website.

Weather data is provided by Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com), free and open-source, licensed under CC BY 4.0. No API key is required. Geocoding for manual location search also uses the Open-Meteo Geocoding API.