HELP SMS messaging icon just _vanished

littlerock

Help - I was exchanging some text messages with family a few minutes ago, put the phone down briefly and picked it up again to resume, only to find the messaging icon had vanished. There is now just a gap on the home screen where it used to be. Can anyone help. It is a sony xperia phone.

[Deleted User]

Add it back in?

Is it still in your apps?

grumbler

Xperia? There are dozens of various Xperias.

What version of Android?: Settings >> About phone

In the recent versions to add an app to the home screen you go to the "apps drawer", find the app you need and move it slightly with your finger.

littlerock

ok just fixed it. I found the messaging app in Settings /apps but that showed it as fully enabled. So why wasn't it on my home screen as an icon? well I was looking for answers on the web and came across one where someone said their messages icon had disappeared from the iPhone screen (like mine,) but the functionality remained as if the icon was invisible. They found pressing on the space where the icon used to be would display the messages.

I figured it was worth a try so I pressed around in the vacant space where the icon used to be but nothing happened. I pressed again, a bit harder and this time a list appeared of the apps whose icon are on the home screen. One app liisted was messaging. So I pressed on that and the screen flashed and returned to displaying the home page icons with the messaging icon back in place.��

What I think is that you can press in a gap anywhere on the home screen and it will display a list of the apps there, by name. By pressing on those names you can toggle the relevant icons on or off.

Jon_01

littlerock wrote: »

What I think is that you can press in a gap anywhere on the home screen and it will display a list of the apps there, by name. By pressing on those names you can toggle the relevant icons on or off.

Yes, that's how most versions of Android work.

littlerock

I never knew that before. You learn something every day

blink18

littlerock wrote: »

I never knew that before. You learn something every day

maybe you need to come out from under that little rock I jest of course

but its not about pressing harder, its about the length of the press, you have short presses and long presses, the short one is to just select the item, like when you wish to open an app etc, the long press does other things like making the icon movable or brings up a little menu for uninstalling the app, changing the icon etc etc which would be akin to right clicking on a computer.

think of it like on a computer, one click will highlight an icon, click and hold gives the option to move it around etc, no real difference on android, the click and hold in the app drawer for instance will add the icon to the homescreen, click and hold anywhere on the homescreen will bring up a list of widgets and sometimes apps you can add to the homescreen, click and hold on any icon on the homescreen will make it moveable etc

pretty much universal around all android devices.

littlerock

my phone is a couple of years old and extremely basic in terms of functionality. I am not someone who feels the need to go on line while on the move. (when i get where i am going i use my tablet). So I only use it as a phone and assumed that it could do very little more.

I did try the click and hold option to restore my messaging icon when i first lost it but that did not work, so I suspect my phones functions are limited and selective. Certainly it is a pigmy compared to my sister's iPhone or OH' s Galaxy S6.

Is there a decent guide to basic android phone functionality which covers things like that?

blink18

littlerock wrote: »

my phone is a couple of years old and extremely basic in terms of functionality. I am not someone who feels the need to go on line while on the move. (when i get where i am going i use my tablet). So I only use it as a phone and assumed that it could do very little more.

I did try the click and hold option to restore my messaging icon when i first lost it but that did not work, so I suspect my phones functions are limited and selective. Certainly it is a pigmy compared to my sister's iPhone or OH' s Galaxy S6.

Is there a decent guide to basic android phone functionality which covers things like that?

take a look on the play store there's some quick start guides that explain basic functions etc, most say they are for nexus devices and the like, but much of it can be applied to any android device, be that a phone, tablet, android tv boxes etc

https://play.google.com/store/search?q=android%20quick%20start%20quide&c=books&hl=en_GB

some good guides on issue for those wanting to learn about android functions etc
https://issuu.com/telitecsl/docs/quick_start_android

https://issuu.com/saravanapavan/docs/android_tips_tricks_apps_and_hacks_

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJoj6TMzykk