Xiaomi is a Chinese manufacturer in great growth in recent years, thanks to the arrival on the Italian market of smartphones for each price range, technological gadgets and dedicated stores in some shopping centers around Italy. In fact, it is now in open competition with Huawei, and is rapidly gaining ground in the ranking of the best-selling smartphone manufacturers in the world. Among its strengths, the MIUI operating system stands out, based on Android but highly customized, so as to offer a hybrid experience between the Android and iOS world (the iPhone operating system). If you too have been convinced by the goodness and performance of a Xiaomi smartphone and its operating system, in this guide we will show you all the special functions and tricks of MIUI on Xiaomi, so you can take advantage of the 360-degree operating system, customizing it according to our daily needs and habits.
ALSO READ: Best Xiaomi smartphones (Redmi and Mi)
Article Index
- Install new themes
- Special functions for the display
- Pull down the notification curtain
- Move or remove many apps at once
- Customize the top bar (status bar)
- Unlock the phone with your face
- Take a screenshot of the phone screen
- Clone apps
- Password protect apps
- Quick access to an app's settings
- Check the phone volumes separately
- Set Do Not Disturb mode at specific times
- How to activate faster animations
- Turn the phone off and on automatically
Best MIUI tricks
Many of the functions described below will not have escaped the most attentive users, but there are also little known tricks to optimize the user experience of a Xiaomi, valid for novice users but also for users who have used Xiaomi from years.
Install new themes
The MIUI integrated launcher is very nice, but we can make it really perfect by installing one of the themes made available to Xiami, so as to customize the background, icons and lock screen in one shot. To install new themes just press on the Themes app, present by default on all Xiaomi smartphones, and choose the preferred theme in the list.
If the Themes app doesn't work, we can always install an alternative launcher and install one of the downloadable icon sets from the Play Store or one of the free wallpapers in HD .
Special functions for the display
MIUI offers special functions to make the most of any display, increasing productivity and usability in the most hectic situations. To access these features, we open the Settings app and go to the Display menu to access the special functions.
For example, we will be able to activate the reading mode (useful for less straining the view while reading), change the size of the text, enable the Double touch to activate the screen (double tap on the screen to wake it up from the lock screen) or enable the Lift to activate (iPhone-style: with the screen locked, just lift the phone to immediately see the lock screen). To customize the text and the rendering of the screen, we can also use the items in the Contrast and colors section.
Pull down the notification curtain
To read the notifications received, we do not necessarily have to lower the top bar or one of the two upper corners downwards: to read the notifications and access the Quick Toogle, just swipe your finger down from anywhere on the screen (when we are in one of the homescreen). In this way we will avoid having to use two hands to scroll the drop-down menu on 6-inch phones or higher.
Move or remove many apps at once
If we have to move or uninstall many apps at the same time, MIUI will allow us to do so without entering the menus and without moving the apps one by one. First we open the icon shift mode by pinching two fingers on one of the homescreen (with the two fingers starting from the edge and ending in the center): now just select the apps (a confirmation symbol will appear at the top corner right of the app) and drag them all together into one of the homescreen below; to uninstall them instead just press the Uninstall button at the top after selecting them.
Customize the top bar (status bar)
The upper bar (also called status bar) can also be customized on MIUI. We open the Settings app and go this time to the Notifications menu and status bar . From here we can choose whether or not to show the notification icons, whether to show the operator's name at the top or only on the lock screen, whether to show the connection speed in real time, how to show the battery indicator (simple, with percentage or circle) and customize the notifications to be displayed in the bar (from the Application Notifications menu).
Unlock the phone with your face
With the latest versions of MIUI, the possibility of unlocking the phone with the face has been included, exactly as happens on the latest generation iPhones (Face ID); to obtain this type of unlocking, open the Settings app, press the Lock screen and password menu then tap on Add face data . We will be asked for the security password of the device and, after a few seconds, the front camera will be activated to acquire the image. At the end of the operation we will be able to unlock the phone by bringing it to face height and waiting for the front camera to recognize our face (for safety we advise you to always leave the unlock with the fingerprints and the security code active).
Take a screenshot of the phone screen
To take a screenshot of the screen or app currently active, we can follow three different paths:
- swipe three fingers from the top to the bottom of the screen;
- press the Power and Volume Down keys simultaneously for 2 seconds;
- expand the top status bar, expand the Quick Toogle and click on Screenshot .
Clone apps
One of the most innovative features on Xiaomi is the cloning of apps, which allows us to have two identical apps installed on the same phone, so that we can manage a double account (for example we can have two separate WhatsApp or two Facebook with two different accounts) . To clone the apps we open the Settings and press on the item Cloned Apps . In the list of apps that will open we activate cloning on those we intend to use; in a few seconds the app will be cloned and we can use it separately from the main app, so as to manage two accounts on the same phone.
Password protect apps
To protect our apps from prying eyes, just use the protection system present in MIUI. To activate the password on the apps, we open the Settings and go to the App lock menu.
In the new screen that will open we choose which apps to protect with a password (some will already be selected), then we press on Set the password to choose the password with which to protect the apps. From now on, we will only be able to access blocked apps by entering the chosen password.
Quick access to an app's settings
To check the notifications of an active app, to check the assigned permissions and to set the energy saving quickly (without going through a thousand menus), simply scroll from the bottom edge to the center of the screen and hold for 2 seconds (to access to the menu of active apps), keep pressed on the preview of the app to be modified and finally press the gear-shaped button.
The app management page will open, where we can choose whether or not to display the notifications, whether to start the app automatically with the operating system and whether we want to bypass energy saving (useful for messaging apps and apps which must always remain active in memory). From this menu we can also forcefully close the app, uninstall it and clear the cache or data (or both).
Check the phone volumes separately
The volume keys allow you to change the ringtone volume, the alarm volume or the multimedia volume based on what we are doing at that moment on the screen. To quickly change all the volumes of the smartphone, we press one of the volume keys and we tap on the three dots under the volume bar (just below the bell): we will see the volume bars ( Multimedia, Ringtone and Alarm clocks ). From this menu we can also activate silent mode or do not disturb .
Set Do Not Disturb mode at specific times
The Do not disturb mode on MIUI allows you to silence calls and notifications with a single tap on the screen, so as to receive calls only from the numbers set as priority (an elderly or sick relative for example). This mode can be activated automatically during working hours or at night by going to Settings, clicking on the Sounds and vibration menu, selecting the Silent / Do Not Disturb menu and finally pressing on Schedule the switch-on time .
In the screen that appears, press down on Add, choose a name for the rule and configure the schedule, choosing the days of the week and the time slot in which we do not want to be disturbed. At the end, press the tick symbol at the top right to confirm the rule: from now on, in the indicated time slot and on the set days, the phone will automatically activate Do Not Disturb mode.
How to activate faster animations
MIUI is an Android-based operating system full of special effects and transitions, which can put the cheapest Xiaomi phones in difficulty (especially with many open apps). In this case we can improve the fluidity of the animations by going to the Settings menu -> Additional settings -> Developer options (we can unlock it by going to the System Info menu and repeatedly pressing on MIUI Version ) and changing the items Animation window scale, Transition animation scale and Duration scale Animator, setting them all to .5x . In the same screen we can also activate the entry Force GPU rendering, so as to leave most of the graphic tasks to the video processor integrated in the phone.
At the end of the changes we restart the phone and check if the fluidity of the system has improved; if the phone is still slow, we advise you to follow the advice in our guide on how to optimize slow smartphone or old tablet .
Turn the phone off and on automatically
One of the most effective tricks to keep an Android smartphone always fast and snappy is to turn it off and on again at regular intervals, so as to empty the app and system cache as well as other small optimizations that can only be obtained with a restart (for example avoiding a app remains in memory). Instead of proceeding manually with this operation, we can set the MIUI to automatically carry out the operation at night, so as not to disturb our activity during the day.
Let's open the Settings app, go to the Battery and performance -> Battery optimization path and finally tap on Schedule on / off . In the new screen, we activate both the On time and Off time items, we choose a night time to restart (just set 1 or 2 minutes of difference between off and on) and the day of the week where to perform the operation (we recommend to act on Friday or Monday).
With these settings we will now have a phone that restarts by itself at night on a specific day, so as to always maintain optimal performance.
Conclusions
The tips and tricks exposed in this guide are only the surface of what you can do with a MIUI on Xiaomi. Our advice is to visit and check every menu and every system app, in order to discover new features ignored at the time of purchase or even after several years.In another article, how to remove advertising from Xiaomi smartphones and disable ads on MIUI
Many of the Xiaomi for sale dominate the purchase guides made on the site, as seen also in our guide to the Best Chinese smartphones by price range . If we want to delete the system apps that accompany MIUI, we recommend you visit our article on How to Delete the system apps from Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi and Android .
If we use a Xiaomi smartphone or an Android smartphone in general for the first time, we advise you to follow the suggestions in the guide on Things to do immediately on the new Android smartphone .
