Make Launchpad Bigger (or Smaller)

Enlarging the Icons

Let’s say you want to change the grid size to four rows by four columns of app icons , which will make for significantly bigger icons. Open a Terminal window (open Finder, select the Applications list, and then in the list of applications double-click Terminal within the Utilities folder), and type the following two lines, the first of which refers to the number of icon rows and the second of which refers to the number of icon columns:

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-rows -int 4 

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-columns -int 4;killall Dock

Then activate Launchpad to see the changes

Shrinking the Icons

To make the icons smaller, we simply increase the grid size. Increasing the grid size to 10x10 icons will shrink the icons significantly into a compact layout but still leave them usable. It can be done as follows by typing these two lines into a Terminal window:

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-rows -int 10 

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-columns -int 10;killall Dock

Experiment with the settings until you find something you like, but be aware that each time you reduce the number of rows and columns, you’re also reducing the number of app icons in each Launchpad folder and possibly creating overflow folders.

Restoring Default Icon Sizes

To restore the default grid size in Launchpad, again open a Terminal window, and type the following two lines:

defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-rows 

defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-columns;killall Dock

Once you do this, you might notice that all your icons are spread out across various pages within Launchpad. This is a side effect caused by making icons bigger. You can either drag and drop them back into place or simply issue the following command in a Terminal window, which will reset Launchpad to the default values (although also deleting any Launchpad folders you’ve created):

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