Secure folder disappeared after getting new phone

July 20, 2023 6:38 PM

Got a new Samsung phone, transferred everything over, and now there is no "secure folder" on my phone, seemingly anywhere. I looked all in settings where it says to look. Ita not just that I don't have the secure folder content, there just is no "secure folder" at all. Also, I no longer have weather displayed on the phone screen even though the app gives me notifications. Any idea how to get my secure folder and my weather display on home screen back?
posted by bearette to Technology (6 answers total)

The weather display on the home screen is probably a widget (some apps have "widgets" that can display data on home or login screens). If you do a long tap on the home screen, that should get you a Widgets icon (on my phone, it's at the bottom of the screen next to Wallpaper and Themes). Tap that and scroll through the available widgets to find the weather ones. If you accidentally choose one you don't like and now it's on your home screen, you can just long tap on it and get a context menu with options. You can also long tap and then drag it around to a different location or (sometimes) resize if you want.

Regarding the secure folder, when you say it isn't there, you mean on your new phone, right? Not on the old phone? If that's the case, you might try checking your settings on the new phone (possibly Settings > Lock screen and security > Secure Folder) to make sure the secure folder feature's enabled and connected to your Samsung account. Then, if you've already done backups from the secure folder on your old phone, do a Restore on the new one to download the data. If you haven't, then do a secure folder backup manually on the old phone and then try restoring on the new one. (Note: I've never used Samsung's secure folder thing myself - these instructions are from Google, mostly from here and here.)
posted by trig at 12:28 AM on July 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

I found these directions for transferring the secure folder to a new Samsung phone from an old Samsung phone.

As for the weather, I have a Pixel 6 Pro running Android 14 beta, but for me, I vaguely remember that Android stopped postng the weather. The way to do it on my Pixel is to find a widget you like and drag that onto a home screen.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:30 AM on July 21, 2023

Response by poster: Thanks, I'll try those. When I say "secure folder not there", I mean I can't even locate the app itself in the location where its supposed to be
posted by bearette at 4:25 AM on July 21, 2023

Response by poster: (It's not in settings anywhere I've looked)
posted by bearette at 5:01 AM on July 21, 2023

Response by poster: I added the weather widget though, thank you!
posted by bearette at 5:01 AM on July 21, 2023

You can install the secure folder app from the Play store.
posted by quacks like a duck at 5:56 AM on July 21, 2023