Google Chrome App Launcher didn’t disappear. Here is how to install it for Windows and Linux.

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Primarily under my Linux Desktops but also under windows I like to have the Google Chrome App Launcher button to quickly find and open bookmarks or “Apps” installed into Google Chrome.

I either must have completely missed that or Google’s communication was fairly poor on that. Taking into count that the old URL https://chrome.google.com/webstore/launcher leads onto the generic appstore and no explanation or hint at all, I believe it’s one of those typical Google things that get worse at a constant rate. However, some digging brought actually some articles from mid 2014 that the launcher is now build into chrome itself and needs to be enabled through the chrome flags. Please note, “flags”, not a tick box button in settings.

So here is how to enable:

Try first to enable it here:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/launcher

If that doesn’t work.

Start Chrome and in the browser bar put into:

chrome://flags/#enable-app-list 

Now you should find in your launcher app some button like the below one which opens a window with your chrome apps and a search bar for your bookmarks.

There is also a flag for an experimental version

chrome://flags/#enable-experimental-app-list

resulting into the following.

I don’t really see an advantage, but I add it here for completeness.

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