The Android Auto application is missing on your phone? Try this and you might get it back.

Google recently led a campaign to make Android Auto less of an app and more of a background process. They even went so far as to announce that it won’t be a standalone app for future versions of Android. Recently, we saw that Google hid the Android Auto app icon for cars in some versions of Android 10.

What do we want to happen?

We want the Android Auto app to reappear.

Luckily, there’s a way to get it back to your launcher if you find it missing. This one is a bit confusing as it’s not seen on our OnePlus 7T but is seen on the Pixel 4 XL. Either way, we want to walk you through how to find the app-level settings so you can tweak the options you need while driving with Android Auto.

How to get there

The good thing is that this is possible even if you don’t have the Android Auto app readily available in your launcher. Follow the steps below to navigate the Android Settings app and locate the necessary menus.

• Open the Settings app
• Locate apps and notifications and select them
• Tap See all app #s
• Find and choose Android Auto from this list
• Click Advanced at the bottom of the screen
• Choose the last additional settings option in the app
• Customize your Android Auto options from this menu

Safe driving!

Hit! You should now be in your Android Auto experience settings options. From here, you can change things like using the latest UI options from older versions. Or maybe you want to prevent your audio apps from automatically resuming previous songs you played the last time you were driving (this is my favorite).

Looking ahead, we expect Android 12 to pretty much remove Android Auto and the app as we know it. That’s not to say the features won’t be there; they will simply be integrated into the Google Assistant experience.

Google has shown a pretty decent dedication to improving Android Auto, and now you have full access to its sometimes hidden settings.