Please Help! Lost all of my home screen website shortcut icons

[DrSmith]

Android 11
Moto g stylus (XT2115DL)

Here is what happened.

In 'Settings/Network and Internet/Advanced/Private DNS' on my phone I changed the setting from 'Private DNS provider hostname' = 'dns.adguard.com' to 'Off' because it was causing problems with an app by blocking the ads.

Now the app works again.

BUT...

All of the website shortcuts on my home screen disappeared completely. I tried turning the private DNS on again but they are gone. I had dozens of them that were really important and I don't even know what is missing yet until I need it and won't have it. Some I use all the time and others only on occasion. They are REALLY important. It will take forever to reconstruct them. I know, I know I should have backed it up. But that lecture won't help now.

Is there any way to restore these or at least get some kind of list of what they were. I assume not, but if there is some genius here who can help it would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you.

Edit: Just figured out I can get some of them from my Chrome browser history. But dozens of them won't be in there.

 

[ocnbrze]

don't know how to get them back, curious though, why not just bookmark your websites? most browsers also have a bookmark widget where you can access the websites without having to open the browser first.

 

[DrSmith]

don't know how to get them back, curious though, why not just bookmark your websites? most browsers also have a bookmark widget where you can access the websites without having to open the browser first.

You can only access the bookmarks in Chrome. Some apps such as doing a Google search open a browser window that require you to click to switch the window to Chrome in order to access the bookmarks. Easier to just find them on the home screen.

Yeah I am 99% sure I'm screwed.

Edit... example... I do a Google search from a widget and it gives me the results. I click on the result I want and it takes me to a Web page. If I want to save a bookmark I have to first click another button to open the page in Chrome. Easier to just save the web shortcut. But POOF, dozens of them are gone. Also, I notice my customized widget shortcuts disappeared too.

 

[ocnbrze]

chrome has a bookmark widget. you can scroll thru your bookmarks directly on the screen.

 

[DrSmith]

chrome has a bookmark widget. you can scroll thru your bookmarks directly on the screen.

Thank you for that info. But the reason I didn't bookmark is that I usually find new links by using the Google search widget and there is no option to bookmark when I click on a site from the list it returns. You have to first click on "Open in Chrome" from the menu and then you can bookmark it. It is easier to just save the website shortcut. So I rarely bookmarked anything.

 

[ocnbrze]

well if you are going to do that then i would recommend getting a custom launcher. i use Nova . you can backup and save your home screen.

Nova Launcher - Apps on Google Play

Your home screen, just the way you like it.

play.google.com

if you pay for the prime key, you will unlock a lot more customizations:

Nova Launcher Prime - Apps on Google Play

Your home screen, just the way you like it.

play.google.com

 

[Hadron]

Yeah, those desktop bookmarks will have been in the configuration of your launcher (the app that manages the desktop - the android desktop and app drawer are not part of the OS, but are provided by an app). If the stock launcher has deleted them then I can't think of any way of getting them back. Why changing a VPN setting would do this is not obvious to me, but it's clearly happened.

I'm afraid I'm old school: I just open a browser for any searches I want to make, then if there's something I want to bookmark I can bookmark it there and even sync or back-up the bookmarks. I dislike search widgets anyway, but the inflexibility and limitations you describe give me an extra reason for removing them from my desktop (which on some phones means using a custom launcher, since Google seem to think that I should not have the choice not to have their widget - which is another of the reasons I don't use them, I dislike corporations telling me how I should set up my phone).

 

[Dannydet]

Keep this in mind, browser shortcuts that are on any of your home screens are virtual shortcuts, not an actual system path that you can retrieve and rebuild.
Once they're gone, they're gone forever.
App shortcuts are not effected.
Food for thought.

 

[DrSmith]

Why changing a VPN setting would do this is not obvious to me, but it's clearly happened.

Thank you all for the responses.

I am told by someone else that when you set up the alternate DNS, it encrypts the URLs of the Website shortcuts and that is probably why it deleted them when it was disabled. Not completely sure this is correct, but sounds plausible even though many of those links were set up long before the private DNS.

Yes, I am convinced they are lost forever.

I did not like saving the shortcuts this way, but it was convenient and easy to access them. Some of them, like a link to Google Tasks eliminated the need to install the app. Others were just saved that way because it was easier than bookmarking for the reason I already gave and I was pressed for time.

I had planned on backing them all up one day or copying them or even manually storing them in a text file but the last time I checked there were really no good ways to deal with these shortcuts in bulk (like converting them to bookmarks). So I put it off and paid the price.

Too late now! Oh well.

Thanks for all the replies.

PS: For some reason it also deleted some (but not all) of my Widgets. Looks like the ones it didn't delete might have been for the stock built in apps. This wasn't a big issue and I was able to recreate them. But it is puzzling why it would do that especially since to my knowledge those Widgets had nothing to do with the Internet and I can't see why they would even have access.