MeowMenu

MeowMenu is a panel-plugin launcher for XFCE4. It originated as a fork of Whisker Menu and brings saved layout presets, file search, a full-screen launcher mode, and deeper visual customization — while staying native to Xfce and light on resources.

Quick Install

Ubuntu / Debian — download the .deb from the Releases page and run:

sudo apt install ./xfce4-meowmenu-plugin_<version>_ubuntu26.04_amd64.deb
xfce4-panel -r

Build from source (all distros)

git clone https://github.com/matteobonanomi/xfce4-meowmenu-plugin.git
cd xfce4-meowmenu-plugin
meson setup build && meson compile -C build && sudo meson install -C build
xfce4-panel -r

Then right-click the panel → Add New Items → MeowMenu.

What’s different from Whisker Menu

MeowMenu is a fork of Whisker Menu, so the two share a lot. The table below is a feature inventory showing where they differ and where they overlap — not a ranking.

Feature	Whisker Menu	MeowMenu
Saved layout presets	✗	✓
Places / file search	✗	✓
Full-screen launcher mode	✗	✓
Corner radius / opacity	✗	✓
Icon-grid app view	✗	✓
54 languages	✓	✓
XFCE panel native	✓	✓
Keyboard navigation	✓	✓

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