The mail widget on my phone

On the home screen of my phone (Moto G running Android 5.1) I have, or rather had, an email widget, which showed me the topic lines of the most recent few e-mails, so I could tell at a glance if there was anything new. Earlier today, though, it stopped working: It just said “Loading”, and kept on saying that no matter how long I waited (though I could still open up the app and read mail through it just fine).

OK, I decided, I’ll just remove that widget and put it back in, and see if that helps. And that’s where it went from bad to worse: I was able to remove the widget, but I can’t remember how I put it on in the first place. And when I Google for how to do it, it says to just press and hold in any empty spot, and a window will come up with the option to put in a widget. But when I do that, all that I get are wallpaper options, no widgets.

How do I get this widget back and working?

OK, you know how sometimes, you try for hours to fix something, and finally ask for help, and then fix it yourself a couple of minutes later? Yeah, that.

For anyone else who stumbles upon this, you have to open Apps from your home screen, and then at the top there’s a tab for widgets, and you can go from there.

I guess it varies by OS. You’re running Lollipop. I have Marshmallow. To get widgets, I long press on an empty space, and a menu comes up on the bottom. There are three icons from left to right, Wallpapers, Widgets, and Settings.