I've lost everything on the main screen (widget gone)

Hi I’m a total newbie and not good with technology - I bought a fairphone last week - its the first smartphone I’ve ever used. My wife set it up and downloaded simple stuff that I would need but today as I was trying to do something I seem to have accidentally removed everything on the main screen. How do I get it back? How can I add apps & messaging / camera etc back to the main screen? Please help as I very frustrated! thanks

Press on the right or left edge of screen so that the QuickAccess menu (circle with six dots) appears and tap the circle with six dots to access all apps/widgets.
Now search for the app you want.
Tap and hold your finger on the app.
Move a little with the app, don’t release your finger.
By itself your homescreen wil appear.
Put the app at a place on the homescreen you want it to be.
Now you can release your finger from the app.

thank you Lidwien, but I should have been clearer. The quickaccessmenu is what has disappeared - I think by mistake I had removed it and now I can’t get it back again. Is there anything I can do?

It seems you installed a Launcher different than the default Fairphone Launcher, are you able to open the Play Store and search if you installed a launcher? If so you should also be able to remove it to come back to the standard one :smile:

Please try this first: turn off your phone and then restart.

Other solution, swipe on your home with two fingers to the right. On the next screen or the one after that will show you the ’ “your app” widget, showing last used/most used apps’.

1 Like

It works!!! Thank you Lidwien - the quick access menu was hiding at the end of the screen… though I still don’t know how to restore it! But at least I can use the phone :smile:
thanks for your help

In a few days you will get a notification to update to 1.8.5.
After the update you’re screen will show the the quick access menu again.
If not, let me know.

I might be totally misunderstanding this, but is it possible you are talking about the “Your apps” thingy, not the “quick access” thingy? (I get that idea from the “hiding at the end of the screen” part). And is it also possible that you just removed it from your central home screen? If so, you swipe to the home screen where it currently is, you can tap&hold the quick access menu and drag it to your ‘central’ home screen, or any other.

By the way, this “Your apps” thingy it is called a “Widget”, and you can place a lot of different widget on your home screens to quickly show you information from the app the widget belongs to. You will find more of them in the widget drawer: if you choose the dots @Lidwien wrote about, you will come to the apps drawer, and you can choose the widget drawer on top. If you ever accidentally delete the “Your apps” widget, you can restore it from there by dragging and dropping. (I hope I’m not offending you by this explanation.)

If you actually were talking about the quick access menu, and you can access it like @Lidwien described, hold it for a moment - a “edit” field should appear, and if you keep holding and choose it, you can choose the apps you want to be shown there.

2 Likes

Yes, after reading the following messages I too think it could be YourApps and not EdgeSwipe :wink:
Thank you @humorkritik :smile:

hi good morning. Thank you all for your help especially humorkritik - you do not offend me at all - this is exactly the kind of explanation I need as all these words are completely new to me.

I have managed to find everything I need on the phone and have dragged all the apps and functions on to the home screen. Happy times

But the six dots are somehow stuck in a corner off the main screen. I can access the six dots but would like to add the shortcut back to the main screen (I had accidentally removed it which caused the problem) but I don’t know how to do this.

thanks

Can you tell me on which version you are?
Tap on the six dots
Tap on the app Fairphone Updater
Are you on 1.6, 1.8 or 1.8.5?

hi, I’m on the fairphone cherry 1.6

Is it possible that you mean the six dots above the “Your apps” widget (which gives you quick access to recently used and frequently used apps)? The six dots give you quick access from this widget to the apps drawer where you can see all your installed apps (except some background system apps). They are supposed to be on top of that thing.

If you want to drag this widget to your ‘central’ home screen, you just have to tap&hold&drag them where you want it to be.

Be careful: if you hold any widget or app symbol on your home screens, a red X and the text “remove” will appear on top of the screen. Everything you drag there will be deleted from your home screen (but not deleted from your phone - you can easily get them back by dragging apps and widgets from their respective drawer to the home screens).

By the way, there is a blog post which explains a bit about these things. You can find it with this link.

1 Like

Within a few days you will recieve a notification to update to version 1.8.5.
If you can live with the situation as it is today, then I would suggest you wait for the update.
After the update your screen will be showing ‘normal’ again.

I can live like this for a few days !

The Quick Access is this:

The “All Apps” widget is this:

This topic was automatically closed after 10 days. New replies are no longer allowed.