diff --git a/docs/widgets/app_launcher.md b/docs/widgets/app_launcher.md
index b0c1ba40..332fce4f 100644
--- a/docs/widgets/app_launcher.md
+++ b/docs/widgets/app_launcher.md
@@ -35,7 +35,6 @@ local app_launcher = bling.widget.app_launcher(args)
 
 ```lua
 local args = {
-    terminal = "alacritty"                                            -- Set default terminal
     favorites = { "firefox", "wezterm" }                              -- Favorites are given priority and are bubbled to top of the list
     search_commands = true                                            -- Search by app name AND commandline command
     skip_names = { "Discord" }                                        -- List of apps to omit from launcher
diff --git a/widget/app_launcher/awesome-sensible-terminal b/widget/app_launcher/awesome-sensible-terminal
new file mode 100755
index 00000000..4e47296c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/widget/app_launcher/awesome-sensible-terminal
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+# Based on i3-sensible-terminal
+
+#
+# This code is released in public domain by Han Boetes <han@mijncomputer.nl>
+#
+# This script tries to exec a terminal emulator by trying some known terminal
+# emulators.
+#
+# We welcome patches that add distribution-specific mechanisms to find the
+# preferred terminal emulator. On Debian, there is the x-terminal-emulator
+# symlink for example.
+#
+# Invariants:
+# 1. $TERMINAL must come first
+# 2. Distribution-specific mechanisms come next, e.g. x-terminal-emulator
+# 3. The terminal emulator with best accessibility comes first.
+# 4. No order is guaranteed/desired for the remaining terminal emulators.
+for terminal in "$TERMINAL" termite hyper wezterm alacritty kitty x-terminal-emulator mate-terminal gnome-terminal terminator xfce4-terminal urxvt rxvt termit Eterm aterm uxterm xterm roxterm lxterminal terminology st qterminal lilyterm tilix terminix konsole guake tilda; do
+    if command -v "$terminal" > /dev/null 2>&1; then
+        exec "$terminal" "$@"
+    fi
+done
+
+awesome-client 'local naughty = require("naughty"); naughty.notification { message = "awesome-sensible-terminal could not find a terminal emulator. Please install one." }'
diff --git a/widget/app_launcher/init.lua b/widget/app_launcher/init.lua
index 9dbd0ec3..8657a1e9 100644
--- a/widget/app_launcher/init.lua
+++ b/widget/app_launcher/init.lua
@@ -19,13 +19,9 @@ local path = ...
 
 local app_launcher  = { mt = {} }
 
-local terminal_commands_lookup =
-{
-    alacritty = "alacritty -e",
-    termite = "termite -e",
-    rxvt = "rxvt -e",
-    terminator = "terminator -e"
-}
+local AWESOME_SENSIBLE_TERMINAL_PATH = debug.getinfo(1).source:match("@?(.*/)") ..
+                                           "awesome-sensible-terminal"
+
 
 local function string_levenshtein(str1, str2)
 	local len1 = string.len(str1)
@@ -191,16 +187,7 @@ local function create_app_widget(self, entry)
 
     function app.spawn()
         if entry.terminal == true then
-            if self.terminal ~= nil then
-                local terminal_command = terminal_commands_lookup[self.terminal] or self.terminal
-                awful.spawn(terminal_command .. " " .. entry.executable)
-            else
-                awful.spawn.easy_async("gtk-launch " .. entry.executable, function(stdout, stderr)
-                    if stderr then
-                        awful.spawn(entry.executable)
-                    end
-                end)
-            end
+            awful.spawn.with_shell(AWESOME_SENSIBLE_TERMINAL_PATH .. " -e " .. entry.executable)
         else
             awful.spawn(entry.executable)
         end
@@ -741,7 +728,6 @@ end
 local function new(args)
     args = args or {}
 
-    args.terminal = args.terminal or nil
     args.favorites = args.favorites or {}
     args.search_commands = args.search_commands == nil and true or args.search_commands
     args.skip_names = args.skip_names or {}