5 Useful Ways to Fix Phone Icon Missing on iPhone

Why is the phone icon missing on iPhone?

With the phone icon on your iPhone, you can easily make a phone call or view your call records. However, at times, you may find the phone icon lost on iPhone, especially after updating the iOS system. Why does this happen?

Unlike most other pre-installed apps, the Phone app can’t be completely deleted. But it may be removed from your Home Screen accidentally. Or it could disappear due to some temporary software glitches.

How to fix the phone icon not showing on iPhone

After knowing the potential reasons, now you can try these 5 ways below one by one to check which is useful for you to restore the missed phone icon.

Solution 1. Find missed phone icon in App Library

Searching the phone icon in the App Library can be the easiest way to get it back .

Just open the App Library by swiping left through all your Home Screen pages. All your apps are neatly categorized. Find it in folders or type Phone to search the app. When you locate it, long-press and click Add to Home Screen to restore.

Solution 2. Use the Spotlight Search

The Spotlight Search feature can help you find missing apps on iPhone.

For iPhones with iOS 16 and above: Tap the Search button located above your iPhone’s dock > Search for the Phone app > Drag the Phone icon to your home screen or dock or long-press the icon and choose Add to Home Screen to make it.

For iPhones with iOS 15 and below: Swipe down from the top of your iPhone’s screen > Tap the Search bar > Type in Phone > Long-press on the app icon and drag it to your home screen or dock or click Add to Home Screen to restore.

Solution 3. Ask Siri to open the app

Siri, your trusty iPhone assistant, can assist you in accessing the lost apps on the device.

To open the Phone app using Siri, simply say, "Hey Siri, open the Phone app," and Siri will promptly launch the Phone app for you. Keep in mind that this will only open the Phone app when you need to make a quick phone call. But can’t help you manually place the app on your home screen.

Solution 4. Reset the Home Screen Layout

Restoring the default Home Screen layout might be a useful way. This action won't erase your content or data, but it will remove your app folders (not their contents). Then all pre-loaded iOS apps will return to their original positions when you first installed them on the device, and the apps will be sorted alphabetically.

If you need to reset it, you can go to Settings > General > Reset > Choose Reset Home Screen Layout to make it. After that, you can see that your phone icon is reappearing on your Home Screen.  This method is also suitable for getting Settings icon back on iPhone.

Solution 5. Unhide the hidden Home Screen pages

Accidentally hiding a home screen page, which includes the Phone app on it, might lead to the phone icon missing on iPhone issue.

To solve this problem: Long-press on the background of your home screen until the apps begin to jiggle > Tap the dots at the bottom of the screen > If any of the pages are unchecked, it means they are hidden. To make these pages visible along with all the apps on them, check the unchecked pages.

Bonus: Selectively back up iPhone contacts to avoid losing data

The sudden disappearance of apps on an iPhone can indeed be concerning, especially when it comes to potential app data loss. Regularly backing up your phone's data is crucial to prevent the similar worry. And if you need to selectively back up contacts or other data on your iPhone, FoneTool can help you easily achieve this process.

 Fast backup speed: FoneTool offers a super data transfer speed between your iPhone and PC, surpassing the speed of the similar software in the industry including iTunes/iCloud.
Preview and selective backup: You can preview all files on the computer to decide which file should be backed up.
No data loss: FoneTool keeps all your data in original quality and only depends on a USB connection which ensures absolute data security.
No Apple ID limitation: You can transfer data easily between two iOS devices even if they are using different Apple IDs.

So why not click the button to get it on your Windows PC and try to selectively back up your iPhone data flexibly?

Step 1. Open FoneTool and connect iPhone to computer using a USB cable.

Step 2. On the home screen of FoneTool, choose Phone Backup > Selective Backup > Get Started. (If you need make a full iPhone backup like iTunes/iCloud, please choose Full Backup.)

Step 3. Click the Contacts icon to select the contacts you need to back up and click OK to continue.

Step 4. Then select a destination by clicking Backup Storage Path to choose a storage path, and tap Start Backup.

Next time when you need to restore the backup, you can go to Backup History > Click Restore dot to finish the process.

Conclusion

From this passage, you can know how to fix the phone icon missing on iPhone issue. Hope these 5 ways can help you a lot. If need, you can use FoneTool to selectively back up your iPhone. And the selective backup feature can also help you back up iPhone data without photos.