By default, most launchers will put all newly installed apps on the Home Screen. Unless you explicitly toggled that option off. Now, some users report that apps are not showing on the home screen of their Android smartphones. If you are among them, make sure to check the steps we listed below.
Table of contents:
- Allow apps to show on the Home Screen
- Add apps from the drawer to Home Screen
- Try third-party launchers
Why are my apps not showing on the home screen?
There are a few reasons for this to happen. As we already noted in the introduction, maybe you disabled the option to show new apps on the Home Screen, or your launcher is configured like that. Also, there’s a simple workaround. You can easily add shortcuts to the Home Screen from the app drawer.
1. Allow new apps to show on the Home Screen
Firstly, make sure that your stock or third-party launcher allows for adding newly installed apps to your home screen. There’s usually an option in launcher settings or home screen settings that controls whether every new app that you install is placed on the home screen or not. Although, sometimes it’s hidden from plain sight.
On most launchers, just tap and long press on empty space on the Home Screen and open Settings from the contextual menu. You should see the option to enable or disable placing new apps on the Home Screen.
Make sure that the option is enabled and, every new app you install, will appear on the home screen. Have in mind that, once the primary (default) home screen is full, the apps will be placed on other screens (home screen pages) to the right (left swipe).
Also, if your Home Screen doesn’t have the app drawer as an option, you’ll certainly find all apps on other home screens. Just swipe left and you should see them.
In case you experience some issues with the default system launcher (e.g. One UI Home on Samsung phones), navigate to Settings > Apps and find and open the default launcher. Tap Storage and then clear the data. That should reset the Home Screen Layout to the default values.
2. Add apps from the drawer to Home Screen
If there are some apps you recently installed but can’t don’t appear to be on the Home screen, don’t worry. You can always add them from the app drawer. Unless you hid particular apps (Home Screen Settings > Hide apps), all apps on your device should appear in the app drawer and you’ll have an easy time locating particular apps.
To add apps from the app drawer to the Home Screen, follow these instructions:
- Either tap on the drawer button or swipe up from the home screen to bring up the app drawer.
- Tap and hold on to the icon of the app you want to add to the home.
- Once the home screen appears, just drag and drop the icon wherever you want on the Home Screen.
That’s it. Rinse and repeat for all apps you want to have on your home screen. If the apps are still not showing on your Home Screen on Android, try with a third-party launcher.
3. Try third-party launchers
Finally, if the stock launcher can’t add apps to the home screen for some inexplicable reason, you can use one of the numerous custom launchers from the Play Store. We can recommend (no affiliation with TeslaCoil whatsoever) Nova Launcher which is definitely our personal choice.
Not saying that launchers like Microsoft Launcher or some others are not good. It all depends on your vision and preference.
And, with that said, we can conclude this article. Thank you for reading and feel free to share your thoughts, questions, or even alternative methods in the comments section below. We always look forward to your feedback.
Editor’s note: This article was initially published in July 2021. We made sure to revamp it for freshness and accuracy.
