How to bring an application to the Android desktop

I accidentally deleted a message shortcut on my phone

The modern user has many application icons on the smartphone desktop. This and social networks, messengers, tools and system software. Often there are situations where, for some unknown reason, one or more icons disappear. Getting them back on their own is sometimes problematic, so people turn to the Internet for help. Let’s figure out how to bring the disappearing icons back to your phone’s home screen, and consider why they can disappear.

Determine what caused the disappearance of an icon of a particular application is quite difficult. Everything depends on a number of preceding factors, the most popular of which are these:

• Transferring a program to a memory card;
• Accidental deletion of an application;
• Moving the utility icon to a different location on the screen, or adding it to a themed folder;
• System failure;

It is almost impossible to independently determine the reason of disappearance of the application icon, so let’s not hesitate and move on to solve the problem.

Save open browser tabs

All modern browsers support saving open tabs in the previous session. This means that if you close your browser or restart your smartphone. Information about visited resources, sites, and open pages will remain. Some people prefer to save shortcuts on the desktop. And someone just leaves all the necessary tabs open. How to work with the tabs we will briefly tell you below.

How to work with browser tabs

View all open pages by clicking on the tabs icon. Usually this is just a number inside a square. Clicking on the number will open a list of open tabs with sites. You can switch between them by clicking on the one you need or on the website name. You can close the unnecessary site by clicking on the cross icon in the upper right area.

The number of simultaneously opened tabs directly affects the speed of your smartphone. For new devices you can run 30-40 pages at a time. For this reason it is recommended to leave no more than 10-15 pages loaded at a time. Or close the browser when you do not need access to sites. This way you free up your smartphone memory and save battery power longer.

If you use Vyber or Watsapom, read how to turn off recommendations and spam. For more security disable installation from unknown sources.

How to remove the widget

Removing a graphical element from one of the desktops of an Android smartphone is a very easy operation: to clear the screen of a program/application widget that is no longer needed, you need to make a long tap on the icon, which will result in a basket at the bottom or top of the display (depending on the model of device in question), where you can drag the widget.

This procedure removes exactly the icon of the program. Graphic element, and the program, as before, remains installed on your smartphone and accessible from the main menu of the device. And if you need to perform a complete removal, you should do this by the standard method provided by the operating system.

How to create a website shortcut on Android

Users can use the opportunity to add a shortcut for a contact from the phone book. To do this, you will need to click on a free space and wait for the menu to open. In it click on the widget button and “Select contact”. Then you will open the phone book, where you select the desired number. You can make several contacts by analogy.

In addition, users can display the icon of a favorite site, which is visited every day. Go to the browser, open the desired resource and click the 3 dots in the top corner to open the menu. In the list provided click on “Add to Home Screen.

How to add a shortcut web page and speed dial

Many people daily use devices based on the Android operating system, but do not know anything about the hidden reserves of their own gadgets. For example, there is such an interesting feature as adding a shortcut to a phone contact. To do this you need to click on the free space on the screen and wait until the context menu appears. In the window that appears, you need to tap on “Widgets” and then on “Select contact. After that, the phonebook will open. You only need to click on the necessary name.

The same way you can install on your desktop several icons with contacts of subscribers with whom you communicate most often.

Missing a shortcut on Android how to restore

The icon can disappear in several cases: you delete it accidentally, for example, when you take the smartphone out of your The icon could “flip” by dragging to another screen. Or you can simply remove the application itself, so the launcher icon is also removed from the desktop. What would restore the icon on the desktop do the steps described above.

If you do not have enough places for shortcuts, there are several ways out: create a new screen, group several icons into folders (for example, create folders with games, social networks and programs separately) or remove an application you don’t need.

• Open the desktop, scroll to the desired screen with an icon.
• Press your finger on an unwanted app. The icon will hang in the air, or shake (visual effects are different on smartphones).
• At the top of the screen you will see a “Uninstall”, “Remove” or “Trashcan” icon, just drag our icon there and it’s done.

How to delete a shortcut on the Android desktop

Removing the icon of the application, it remains in the memory of the device. In order to remove the application go to “All applications” menu and perform the actions described above.

Adding a link to your phone’s desktop

Not everyone knows it’s easy to add a link to a website or page on your Android smartphone’s desktop so you can access it instantly. Let’s see an example, based on Google Chrome.

Open the desired page and click on the three dots.

Click on “Add to Home Screen” in the menu.

You can write the name of the link, if you are not satisfied with the current one, or leave it as it is and click “Add”.

How to create a shortcut on the Android desktop?

Agree that sometimes it is convenient to have some files at hand. Not to search through folders, and run them directly from your desktop. Why?

You often need to access certain documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc., and then click “Add shortcut to shortcut” in the “Start” menu. On a notebook or a computer with almost any operating system onboard you can easily create a shortcut or move a file to the desktop. How about doing the same in Android?

I want to warn you right away that we will not be able to move the file to the desktop. But let’s try the shortcut.

As we know, in order to display an application shortcut on the desktop, you need to take a long tap on the screen. After that, a list of things you can pull up on the screen appears. Unfortunately, we will not see our file there. But, this is Android, which is very flexible and for any problem there is always a solution. In this case the optimal solution would be to use a file manager. I’m just sure you already have it installed, and if you don’t, I suggest you do it now. When I buy another Android device, among the applications that I install first of all is the file manager ES Explorer, which, in my opinion, is one of the best of its kind. This application is free and allows you to do many operations with files and folders on your device. I plan to write a detailed review of explorer in the nearest future. But this is my personal choice, you can use what you prefer. The example of this program will show you how to make a shortcut to the file and put it on the Android desktop.

So, we have the file manager, what next? And then everything is very simple.

Run ES Explorer (or whatever you have installed), find the file you want and select it. Next, go to the menu “” (you may have a slightly different name). Here, among others, find the “Add to Desktop” command. In the attached screenshot this command is at the top. (By the way, you can read about how to take a screenshot on Android in my last article.) Press this button and you are done. The shortcut of the file we need is created on the desktop.

File selection add a shortcut to the Android desktop

It’s very simple, as you see. Also, don’t forget that when you remove it from the desktop, you only remove the shortcut. The file itself stays where it is.

If this article was useful to you, please share it in social networks!