# Walker launcher missing after update
Omarchy 4 removed the Walker launcher. Super + Space now opens the Omarchy menu and Super + Alt + Space opens the apps-only launcher.
> **Short answer:** Walker was removed on purpose in Omarchy 4.0.0. Super + Space now opens the Omarchy menu, which searches apps and commands in one box, and Super + Alt + Space opens an apps-only launcher. Your old ~/.config/walker was renamed to a .bak folder by the Quattro upgrade. Rebind Super + Space to omarchy-menu toggle apps if you want the old feel.
- Applies to Omarchy: 4.0.0 and later
- Status: by-design
- Last verified: 2026-09-16
- Canonical: https://omarchylinux.org/fix/walker-launcher-missing-after-update/
_Unofficial community page. Not affiliated with 37signals or the Omacom Foundation. Omarchy is a registered trademark of 37signals LLC._

Walker was the app launcher Omarchy shipped through the 3.x series. In Omarchy 4 it is gone. The v4.0.0 release notes are blunt about it: Walker is gone, and `SUPER + SPACE` now opens the Omarchy menu itself. Nothing is broken on your machine. The keys just moved.

The part that trips people up is that the two shortcuts swapped meanings:

| Key | Omarchy 3.x | Omarchy 4.x |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `Super + Space` | Walker app launcher | Omarchy menu (apps and commands) |
| `Super + Alt + Space` | Omarchy menu | Apps-only menu |

So if you press `Super + Space` expecting a plain list of applications and get a command palette with Apps, Learn, Style, Setup and System in it, you are looking at the new default, not a fault. Checked against the shipped bindings in 4.0.4 (`default/hypr/bindings/utilities.lua`) and against 3.8.4 (`default/hypr/bindings/utilities.conf`).

## The fix

### If you just want your apps back (4.0.0 through 4.0.4)

1. Press `Super + Alt + Space`. That is the dedicated apps-only launcher now. The v4.0.0 notes describe it as having fuzzy and acronym matching with live app icon indexing.
2. Or press `Super + Space` and start typing an app name. The unified menu matches installed apps as well as Omarchy commands, so you usually do not need the second shortcut at all.
3. From a terminal or a script, the same two surfaces are:

   ```bash
   omarchy-menu toggle        # the full menu
   omarchy-menu toggle apps   # the apps-only launcher
   ```

### If you want `Super + Space` to open apps directly

Omarchy 4 moved Hyprland config from `.conf` to Lua, so this goes in `~/.config/hypr/bindings.lua`, not in any `.conf` file.

1. Open the file:

   ```bash
   $EDITOR ~/.config/hypr/bindings.lua
   ```

2. Unbind the default first, then bind your own. Order matters:

   ```lua
   hl.unbind("SUPER + SPACE")
   o.bind("SUPER + SPACE", "Apps", "omarchy-menu toggle apps")
   ```

3. Optionally put the full menu somewhere else:

   ```lua
   hl.unbind("SUPER + ALT + SPACE")
   o.bind("SUPER + ALT + SPACE", "Omarchy menu", "omarchy-menu toggle")
   ```

4. Reload. Hyprland re-reads its config on save, but forcing it and checking for Lua mistakes is cheap. The shell itself does not need restarting for a binding change:

   ```bash
   hyprctl reload
   hyprctl configerrors
   ```

The `hl.unbind` then `o.bind` pattern is the one the stock `~/.config/hypr/bindings.lua` documents in its own comments, and the one the Dotfiles chapter of the manual uses. See [the conf to Lua migration notes](/reference/hyprland-conf-to-lua-migration/) if your bindings did not survive the upgrade at all.

### Where your old config went

The Quattro upgrade script does not delete your Walker settings, but it does move them out of the way:

- `~/.config/walker` is renamed to `~/.config/walker.omarchy-upgrade-to-quattro.<timestamp>.bak`, where the timestamp is the moment you ran the upgrade.
- `~/.config/elephant` is removed outright. There is no backup of it. Same for `~/.config/autostart/walker.desktop`.
- The user units `app-walker@autostart.service` and `elephant.service` are deleted, along with `/etc/pacman.d/hooks/walker-restart.hook`.

Nothing reads the `.bak` folder. It is there so you can copy custom entries across by hand. The new equivalents are `~/.config/omarchy/extensions/omarchy-menu.jsonc` for your own menu entries and `~/.config/omarchy/shell.json` for plugin state.

## Verify it worked

```bash
omarchy-menu toggle apps            # apps launcher should appear
pacman -Qq | grep -E '^(walker|walker-bin|omarchy-walker|elephant)' ; echo "exit $?"
ls -d ~/.config/walker* 2>/dev/null
```

The `pacman -Qq` grep should print nothing and report `exit 1`. If it prints package names, your Quattro upgrade did not finish removing the retired set. The `ls` should show only a `.bak` directory, or nothing at all on a fresh 4.x install.

## Why it happens

Omarchy 4.0.0 rewrote the whole desktop shell as one Quickshell process. The bar, notifications, OSDs, lock screen, polkit agent and the menu are now plugins inside `omarchy-shell`. Once the menu could search its own nested entries, keeping a second palette with a second shortcut stopped making sense, so the launcher was merged into the menu.

Walker also carried real costs. It ran as a resident `walker --gapplication-service` process started from an XDG autostart entry, and on at least one amdgpu machine that process hard-froze the desktop because the autostart entry carried no renderer override, reported in issue #6443 and closed by dhh the day before the 4.0.0 release with the note that Walker is gone on Quattro. The 3.x series also had a long tail of walker and elephant packages disappearing or mismatching on upgrade, which is what issue #2546 and its siblings were about.

The upgrade path is explicit. `omarchy-upgrade-to-quattro` lists `omarchy-walker`, `walker-bin`, `elephant` and thirteen `elephant-*` packages in its retired set and removes them in one pacman transaction, with a dependency-aware fallback group so they come off together rather than failing one at a time.

## If that did not work

**The Apps menu is empty or says "Nothing here yet".** This is a real bug, not the redesign. Issue #11107 reports it as a regression in 4.0.3-1, still open as of 2026-09-16, with the Apps submenu caching an empty row set that never recovers in that session. The one cause pinned down so far is a cloned or third-party menu plugin: a clone of `omarchy.menu` gets a scoped shell API whose `appLibrary` is null, so its Apps list stays empty (issue #11028, also #10946 and #11307). Check what you have loaded and drop the clone:

```bash
omarchy plugin list
omarchy plugin remove <your-clone-id>
omarchy restart shell
```

One reporter on #11107 confirmed the stock launcher worked again once they deleted their own launcher plugin.

**Typing a query that matches nothing does nothing.** Walker had an elephant `websearch` provider that fell back to a browser search. The native menu has no such fallback. Issue #7012 tracks it and is still open. Two pull requests add a fallback to the menu (#7075 and #8012), and neither is merged as of 2026-09-16, so for now you need your own binding or menu entry.

**Flatpak apps do not show up.** Tracked separately in issue #8650, where the session `XDG_DATA_DIRS` misses the Flatpak export directories. Not a Walker issue.

**You are still on 3.x.** Different problem entirely. On 3.1.5 and later, install the meta package rather than the individual providers, then restart the services: `omarchy-pkg-add omarchy-walker` followed by `omarchy-restart-walker`. Full detail is on [command not found: elephant](/fix/command-not-found-elephant/).

**The shell itself is not running.** If neither shortcut does anything and the bar is missing too, the problem is upstream of the menu. See [Quickshell crashes or bar missing](/fix/quickshell-crashes-or-bar-missing/).

## Related

- [Omarchy manual: Navigation](https://omarchy.org/manual/navigation/) and [Shell Plugins](https://omarchy.org/manual/shell-plugins/)
- [Upgrading 3 to 4 (Quattro)](/upgrade/3-to-4-quattro/)
- [Custom keybindings lost after Quattro](/fix/custom-keybindings-lost-after-quattro/)
- [Where did Waybar go](/fix/where-did-waybar-go/)
- [command not found: elephant](/fix/command-not-found-elephant/)
- [Keybindings reference](/reference/keybindings/)
- [Release v4.0.0](/releases/v4.0.0/)

## Sources

- [Release v4.0.0 (Quattro): the launcher and the menu, together](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/releases/tag/v4.0.0)
- [Issue #11107: Apps menu (Super+Space > Apps) always shows "Nothing here yet", regression in 4.0.3-1](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/11107)
- [Issue #11028: Cloned menu plugins get null shell.appLibrary, Apps submenu is empty](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/11028)
- [Issue #7012: Menu launcher lost Walker's web-search fallback for no-match queries](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/7012)
- [Issue #6443: Walker autostart service bypasses the GSK_RENDERER=cairo workaround, hard-freezing the desktop on amdgpu](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/6443)
- [Issue #2546: Walker and Elephant missing after system upgrade](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/2546)
- [Issue #8650: Flatpak apps don't appear in the launcher: session XDG_DATA_DIRS misses Flatpak export dirs](https://github.com/omacom/omarchy/issues/8650)
- [Omarchy manual: Navigation](https://omarchy.org/manual/navigation/)
- [Omarchy manual: Shell Plugins](https://omarchy.org/manual/shell-plugins/)