Nova Launcher, one of the most beloved Android home screen replacements, is effectively shutting down. After more than a decade of development, Kevin Barry—its original creator—revealed that he was asked to step away from the project. With that, active development comes to an abrupt stop.
Nova has been around since 2011 and became a go-to choice for anyone who wanted a customizable launcher. In 2022 it was acquired by Branch, a data analytics company. Sadly, most of the team was laid off in 2024, leaving Barry to carry the project alone. He had been preparing the codebase for an open source release, removing proprietary code and navigating licensing. That effort ended when he was asked to stop all work on Nova by Branch.
The launcher remains available on the Play Store, but with no updates and no path forward, it is now all but frozen in place. The promise of handing it off or open sourcing it is gone. This leaves a void in the Android ecosystem. Nova was not just a tool. Over time it became a community hub and a symbol of Android freedom.
If you are still using Nova today, what remains is nostalgia and a flexible setup that may soon age badly. If you’ve been relying on it, you may want to explore alternatives before things quietly degrade. Without the backing of its creator, whether by choice or circumstance, Nova seems to be entering a legacy mode.
In short, Nova Launcher is no longer evolving. It helped shape Android for years, but now it marks the end of an era.