Have you ever gone to open an app on your smartphone, and discovered that it’s not in its usual spot on your home screen? If that happens to you, no need to panic – it’s probably been accidentally moved to a different home screen, or put in an app folder.
There are a few things you can do to locate apps that have wandered off, depending on the type of phone you have. The first thing I’d suggest would be to keep swiping from right to left on your home screen, to see if it’s been moved onto another home screen.
If you can’t see it, check for any folders – generally these look like slightly greyed out squares, they might have a name that’s vaguely related to the apps in them, or if you’ve done it by accident they might be called “Untitled”, or have no name at all. If you find one of these, tap on the folder to open it, and if the app you’re looking for is in there, you can tap and hold on the icon and drag it out onto your home screen.
On iPhones, if you keep swiping to the left, eventually you’ll find your App Library, and if you tap on where it says “App Library” at the top, you’ll see an alphabetical list of all the apps on your phone. From there, you can tap and hold on the runaway app and drag it out onto the home screen to wherever you’d like it to be – just remember to tap on “Done” in the top right once you’re happy.
On Android phones, you’ll eventually run out of home screens, but you can swipe upwards on any home screen to open your All Apps List (or on some you’ll have an All Apps button at the bottom of the screen, which should look like a grid of dots). Sometimes the list is alphabetical, and sometimes it’s arranged in the order that you’ve installed the apps, but you can either swipe upwards or from right to left to see them all.
If you can’t find the app in your App Library or All Apps List, then you can always go to the App Store or Google Play Store, search for the app and then tap on “Get” or “Install” to put it back on your phone.