Disable Launchpad Fade Transition Effect in Mac OS X Lion

Launchpad shows a fading transition anytime it is opened or closed, making for a nice effect over whatever is in the background. It’s pleasant looking, but if you don’t like it you can disable the fading with a few defaults write commands. You can also choose to disable only half of the transition, either for showing or hiding Launchpad.

Disable Launchpad Fading

Launch the Terminal and enter the following commands separately:

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -int 0
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -int 0

Now you must kill the Dock so it relaunches with the changes:

killall Dock

Launchpad is a subprocess of the Dock so killing the Dock forces Launchpad to reload, and the change will be immediately noticeable when you open Launchpad again. Gone is the smooth transition, and now it’s a sudden switch, almost like changing desktops but without the side scrolling animation. If you only want to disable half of the effect, say for when Launchpad is being hidden, only use the defaults write command with “springboard-hide-duration” in the string.

Re-enable Launchpad Fading

To reenable fading and go back to the default OS X Lion setting, use the following commands:


defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration

defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration

Again kill the Dock with:

killall Dock

Launchpad will now be back to it’s usual self with the fading transitions. If you’re not certain, hold down the shift key and see if the transition is in slow motion.