How to restore an invisible folder on my Android home screen?

[Android Central Question]

I couldn't find anything remotely similar to this so here goes...

In a state of half sleep, just as I turned of my alarm, with my screen still on, my hand feel on the phone and was touching the screen. I woke up maybe a minute later and figured out that I'm doing something to the phone so I quickly removed my hand and got a notification for something, which my foggy brain didn't process right away.

Now I am missing a favourites folder on my home screen which is visible only if I long press on the spot where it used to be but when I do that the only option on top is to remove the said folder and I don't want it gone. Also, since a folder is kind of there, I thought maybe I could get it back if I put something else in it so I picked up a random icon and tried to place it on the blank space but it wouldn't take. It didn't go in the folder and it didn't stay in that spot, the random icon automatically went back to it's original space.

I didn't lose the icons, I know how to get back lost icons from the main menu, this was a mix of some app icons and internet pages I added to my home screen, pages I was logged into, apps are not a problem but I don't want to go through a bunch of pages and login again so can you please think of a way to restore the said folder?

 

[Javier P]

Welcome to the forums. What phone and launcher are you using?

 

[NinaKayCRO]

Sorry, I forgot to write that. I have an Android 8.1.0 version, Nokia 6 and Launcher 3

 

[Javier P]

Sorry, I forgot to write that. I have an Android 8.1.0 version, Nokia 6 and Launcher 3

Thanks for registering! Try this, long press an empty spot on your home screen and see if there's an option to recover that folder, maybe under the 'settings' option.

 

[Rukbat]

If not, go to your app drawer, drag one of the apps that used to be in the folder to a blank spot on the home screen. (Don't worry that it's already there - "apps" on the home screen are only shortcuts, and you can have 10 shortcuts to the same ap.) Now go back to the app drawer, find another app that used to be in the folder, drag it to the first app you put on the home screen, and that will create a folder with both apps in it. Keep going until you've reproduced the entire folder. Then remove the invisible one.

 

[NinaKayCRO]

@Rukbat Like I said in the original post, it's not just apps, there were some web pages that I added to the home screen and in that folder, pages I was logged into. It would've taken a long time to go one by one. I was looking for a simpler solution since the folder appeared to be Schrödinger's; it was there and it wasn't there until I long pressed on an empty space. I couldn't open it and add anything to it or even see it, until I long pressed and then I could see just the circle with apps and pages and I could even move it, but not use it in any other way.
@Javier P I didn't have any option available other than remove which I didn't want to do since I hoped I could somehow recover just that folder.

Anyway with my phone being on automatic backup I went and checked when was the last time it backed up, saw that it happend before I put the folder in limbo and decided to reset to factory settings (I'm aware of what this does) so that I could activate that backup. I got the folder back I was still even logged in on one app inside but I got a plethora of solvable problems; I had to log in everywhere (change some passwords even), Twitter wouldn't let me log in for a while, I also have a mobile banking app which I can't reactivate any other way than going to the bank, I'm an avid book reader so I had to tweak that app to my liking and there are a lot of settings in there, and the worst is that I had to format my SD card to get it to work with the phone (now I have to put on new music and I lost photos)... So yeah, I found a solution but it wasn't one I wanted to do.

I hope people will keep posting answers here so that other people don't have to go through this the way that I did.

 

[Rukbat]

There appears to be an inconsistency between the latest version of Android Studio and Pie (and possibly back as far as Oreo), so that - in some situations - an app shortcut or a folder will be on a home screen, but all you can do is long-press it and get the menu - you can't access the app or the folder. I haven't downloaded a new version of AS in weeks, so it might be fixed by now, but anything written in version 3.14, using API 28 is going to be susceptible to the problem.