Key Takeaways
- If you’ve hidden apps on Android and need to find them again, there are multiple places to check.
- The app drawer lists all installed apps, and the All Apps list in Settings lists everything running on your phone.
- Once Android 15 is released, you should also check the biometrically-locked Private Space in the app drawer for your apps.
Android offers you a lot of different ways to customize your home screen, from the usual widgets and folders, to the custom app icons and matching wallpapers (AI-generated or otherwise) of Google’s Material You design language. And when you take into account that Android gives you the ability to choose an entirely new launcher, you can fundamentally change how your home screen works with little effort.
During that customization process — maybe you’re setting up a new Pixel 9 to your liking — you might have hidden some apps from your home screen and now have no idea how to find them again. While the definition of “hiding” varies from launcher to launcher, and soon from Android version to Android version, there are a few surefire ways to find hidden apps on your phone. Here’s how to locate the apps you’re looking for if they’re not on your home screen.
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How to find hidden apps on a Pixel phone
Search the app drawer for your missing app
Unlike other launchers, the Pixel launcher Google uses on Pixel phones doesn’t offer a direct way to “hide” apps like you might find on a Samsung Galaxy S24 or through a third-party launcher like Nova Launcher. That doesn’t mean it isn’t very easy to accidentally remove an app from your home screen while moving everything around, just by dragging it to the wrong place.
If that happens, the best place to look first is in Android’s app drawer, the searchable list of every app that came pre-installed on your phone and that you’ve downloaded from the Google Play Store. To access it:
- Swipe up from the bottom of the home screen.
- Tap the top search bar (your phone might already have it selected) and type the name of the app you’re looking for.
- If you don’t know its name, scroll through the app drawer until you see an app icon you recognize.
From there, you can add the app back onto your home screen or launch it directly from the app drawer if you’re ready to use it right now.
Look through the All Apps list to see everything installed on your phone
If the app you’re looking for wasn’t in the app drawer, there’s an even more complete list of applications installed and running on your Pixel phone in the Settings app. Inside, you’ll be able to see not only your installed apps, but also more functional system components that you need to run your phone’s various helpful features, like Android System Intelligence, which governs things like generating Live Text subtitles and recognizing songs for the Now Playing feature on the lock screen, for example.
To access the All Applications list:
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap on Apps.
- Tap on “See all apps.”
- Tap on the search icon in the top right (a small magnifying glass) and type the name of whatever app you’re looking for.
- Alternatively, scroll through the list until you see an app icon you recognize.
- To see absolutely everything installed on your phone, tap on the three dots in the top right corner and tap “Show system.”
Don’t accidentally delete any of the apps that appear when you select “Show system.” They might be essential.
If the app you’re looking for isn’t on that list, there’s a good chance it isn’t on your phone anymore. Unless, of course, you’re running Android 15 and the app is an entirely different place.
How Private Space hides apps in Android 15
A biometrically-locked folder in your app drawer
Once Android 15 rolls out for Android phones, there will be yet another way to hide apps with Private Space. Once you enable it in Settings, Private Space gives you a dedicated folder of apps that’s invisible until you unlock it with your fingerprint, face, or passcode. Apps have to be directly installed into Private Space, can’t be accessed until they’re unlocked, and their data and notifications are kept separate from the rest of your phone.
Private Space gives you a dedicated folder of apps that’s invisible until you unlock it with your fingerprint, face, or passcode.
While it’s a little more intense than just hiding an app from your home screen, Private Space will be available on any phone running Android 15 without needing to download a new launcher or any separate app. That should make the whole process of hiding and finding hidden apps even more straightforward.
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Finding hidden apps is about knowing where to look
Unless you explicitly uninstall an app — your phone will ask you to confirm you want to uninstall it — no app is ever truly gone from your smartphone. You can take comfort in that fact, especially considering how simple it is to find apps.
The beauty of Android, particularly Google’s flavor of it, is that it tries to balance the ease-of-use of Apple’s iOS with the functionality and flexibility you might get out of a desktop computer. That means you might have to learn a bit more before you feel truly comfortable using your phone, but you’ll likely be able to do a lot more, too.
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