Familiar Desktop retires as Omarchy brings its mouse-friendly desktop into Core
Tom Ballard has ended feature development on his popular dock-and-titlebars plugin now that Omarchy is building the same ideas in. Existing installs keep working, and there’s a careful migration guide for when you’re ready to switch.
Image: tcballard/omarchy-plugin-familiar-desktop (GitHub)
One of the most popular third-party desktops for Omarchy is stepping aside. Tom Ballard (@tcballard) has retired Familiar Desktop, the plugin that gave Omarchy a dock, minimise, window controls and other mouse-friendly habits. According to the README, he made the call on October 13, 2026, “after Omarchy incorporated much of its mouse-friendly desktop functionality into Core.”
That’s the same work we covered when Omarchy announced a traditional desktop mode with a dock. Familiar’s migration guide describes the Core version as a dock for floating workspaces with app launching, minimisation and window cycling, plus titlebars integrated into the floating workspace flow.
Ballard is careful about timing, and so should you be. As of October 14, the replacement has merged into Quattro development, and the README states plainly: “This is not a claim that it is available in stable Omarchy or on your installed desktop.” In other words, it’s coming in the next version, not something to chase today. He also says there’s no requirement to switch to a development channel, and the guide warns that Core won’t automatically import your Familiar settings, pins or layout.
Nothing breaks overnight. The repo is not archived, the source and existing releases stay available under the MIT licence, and existing installations “are not remotely disabled or removed by this announcement.” If your Omarchy doesn’t have the Core desktop yet, you can keep running Familiar for now, though Ballard can’t guarantee compatibility with future Omarchy updates or any support turnaround.
The last release, v0.1.7, shipped on October 13 as a small security patch: a running app can no longer turn its app ID into a remote icon download. Ballard is explicit that it “does not restart the feature roadmap.” The planned v0.2.0, the Mac/Windows split and a curated app collection are all off the table.
When you do move on, don’t just run omarchy plugin remove, which the README says does not perform Familiar’s cleanup. Instead, run the bundled script from your normal desktop session, as your own user and without sudo:
bash "$HOME/.config/omarchy/plugins/io.github.tcballard.familiar-desktop/uninstall.sh"
It restores journalled windows, refuses to continue while minimised windows remain, resets Familiar-owned configuration and only removes the plugin once cleanup succeeds. The end-of-life and migration guide walks through backing up settings, disabling Familiar to try Core first, rolling back and recovering from a failed removal.
Familiar itself started from rosakodu’s omarchy-dock, and Ballard’s farewell thanks contributors including @nixfred for installer, input, PWA and drag fixes, @k-kostin for ARM development support and @luinbytes for a drag-axis fix that is still under review. It’s a nice ending for a community plugin: the ideas it proved out are heading into Omarchy itself.
Source: https://github.com/tcballard/omarchy-plugin-familiar-desktop
