How to remove intrusive alerts and ads on Xiaomi

Modern smartphones in the Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO line offer users powerful functionality and an attractive price, but this often comes at a cost of increased attention from the system to their own wallet. Owners of devices based on the MIUI shells and the new HyperOS regularly face a flood of notifications from embedded applications that insist on signing up, installing a game or clicking on an advertising link. This is not just annoying, but also consumes battery power, and distracts from important tasks at the most inopportune moment.

Fortunately, the Android system that underpins Xiaomi’s firmware allows you to manage the flow of information flexibly. Completely disabling all alerts immediately is impossible without losing functionality, but properly configuring each communication channel can turn your smartphone into a clean and calm tool. In this article, we will examine all levels of protection against digital noise, from system settings to hidden developer parameters that will help you regain control of the device.

Before we start taking drastic measures, we need to understand the difference between system security notifications and marketing spam. If the former are really important for the gadget, then the latter can and should be blocked. The msa system service (MIUI System Ads) is the main source of advertising, and disabling it is the first step to clean the interface. Let's look at the setup process in detail, Step-by-step.

Basic setting of the notification center

The first step to silence is to revisit Android’s standard settings, and in modern versions of Xiaomi’s shells, alert management is placed in a separate menu that can be accessed through settings or by long-term clicking on the app icon, and here you will see a list of all the programs that have the right to bother you throughout the day.

You don't have to completely ban notifications for important messengers or email clients, just change their priority or type. For example, for social networks, you can leave only private messages, but hide likes and comments. To do this, go to Settings → Notifications and status bar → Notification management. Here you can see an extensive list where you can pinpoint the behavior of each program.

Note the "Important Notifications" feature, which in recent versions of MIUI is trying to determine what's important to you, but often gets it wrong by skipping spam, and manually browse the list and disable the "Important" slider for stores, news aggregators and built-in services like "Music" or "Video".

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Use the "Do Not Disturb" mode at night by setting it to automatically turn on on on schedule in the Lock Screen section.

Special attention should be paid to system applications, which are often hidden in the depths of the menu. Update services, memory cleaning and security can generate a constant stream of messages that “the phone is slowing down” or “needs to upgrade”, disabling these options will not disrupt the device, but only remove visual noise.

Disabling Advertising in System Applications

The biggest problem for Xiaomi users is the built-in advertising that appears in standard utilities, not just notifications, but full-fledged banners and pop-up windows that overlap the interface, and to get rid of them, you need to disable the msa service (MIUI System Ads), which is responsible for displaying marketing content.

The procedure requires care, as the system will try to convince you to leave the ad on. You need to go to Settings → Passwords and Security → Access to personal data. In the list, find the msa service and turn off the switch. When you try to turn off, a countdown timer (usually 10 seconds) will appear, after which you will need to click “Cancel” several times until the system fails.

• 📱 Security: Open the application, click the settings gear and find the "Get recommendations" item by disabling it.
• 🎵 Music: Go to the app settings, select "Advanced Settings" and remove the tick from "Show Advertising".
• 📁 Explorer: In the Explorer settings menu, find the About Program section or just Settings and turn off receiving recommendations.

⚠️ Note: After disabling the msa service, the ads may not disappear instantly.In some cases, you need to restart the device or wait up to 24 hours until the servers update your account status.

Also worth checking the settings of the Themes app, which is where you often hide notifications about new paid wallpaper and promotions, go to the user profile (human icon) and turn off the "Receive Notifications" and "Show Ads" settings in the settings, which will significantly reduce the number of pop-ups when using standard phone features.

Managing Notifications from Browser and Sites

Often, the endless stream of notifications is not the apps, but the sites you accidentally allowed to send push notifications to. Chrome, Yandex or the built-in Mi Browser can stream news, discount notifications and questionable content directly to the lock screen.

To stop this flow, you need to go to the settings of a particular browser. Usually the path is: Settings → Notifications → Sites (or Site Notifications). Here you will see a list of all the resources that have been authorized. Ruthlessly delete or block any suspicious domains and news aggregators that you do not use.

For Xiaomi’s built-in browser, the situation is similar: Open your browser, go to settings (three bars or dots), select “Notification Settings” and disable all sliders related to news and recommendations, an action often ignored by users, even though browsers are the main channel for delivering advertising junk.

Remember that some sites may use vulnerabilities or aggressive scripts to request permissions again. If notifications resume after cleaning, try to completely clear your browser data through the app menu in Android settings.

Set up notifications for specific applications

Control of third-party apps like social media, instant messengers and games requires a personalized approach. Android 13 and later, as well as the latest versions of MIUI, allow you to manage not only the presence of notifications, but also their categories, which means that you can receive messages from friends, but not see ads inside the application.

To fine-tune, click and hold the app icon on your desktop, select About (or Info), then go to Notifications. Here you will see a list of categories. For example, in the marketplace app, you can turn off the categories Promotions, Recommendations and News, leaving only Order Status.

Using notification channels is a powerful tool that many people ignore, and when you go into the notification settings of a particular app, you can see dozens of points, go through them and turn off anything that isn't critical, and it makes the notification curtain cleaner and your attention focused.

Special facilities and working arrangements

Xiaomi has several modes in its arsenal that help it temporarily or permanently eliminate unnecessary noise, and one of the most useful is the Do Not Disturb mode, which can be configured very flexibly, allowing it to block all sounds and vibrations, except calls from selected contacts.

You also need to look at the Pocket Mode or Read Mode feature, which is that in the read mode (book) the interface becomes monochrome, and many visuals and pop-ups are blocked to keep the text from distracting, which is a great way to use the phone only for document handling.

• 🌙 Sleep mode: Automatically switches on "Do Not Disturb" and darkens the screen at a given time.
• 🚫 Ad Blocking: In some regions, there is a separate “Receive Recommendations” switchboard in the security settings, which duplicates the msa settings.
• 🔇 Quiet mode: Allows you to turn off the sound completely, but leave vibration for the alarm clock.

For those who want maximum silence, there is the possibility of creating automation through the app "Tags" (built in Xiaomi) or third-party programs, for example, you can configure the script: "If Bluetooth headphones are connected -> Enable Do Not Disturb mode" This will allow you to listen to music without sudden interruptions to messages from chats.

⚠️ Warning: Enabling Do Not Disturb mode may cause important confirmation codes to be missed (SMS) Emergency alerts from emergency services unless exceptions are set up.

Solving problems with persistent notifications

A separate category of stimuli are sticky notifications that can't be swiped, usually from applications that run in the background: pedometers, antiviruses, players or launchers, which can often be removed in the standard way, because the system considers them important for the application to work.

To fight them, you need to understand which app is generating them. Press the notification (or click on the gear next to it if the Android version allows) to find out the source, then you can either delete the application or, if necessary, prevent it from working in the background.

Go to Settings → Applications → All applications, find the culprit, select Battery and set the background activity limit to No Limits (paradoxically, but sometimes it helps to reset the glitch) or, conversely, Energy Saving, so that the system more often “kills” the process and resets the notification.

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Sticky notifications are most often created by poorly optimized apps that try to keep themselves in the smartphone’s memory.

In extreme cases, if the notification is a system bug, cleaning the cache of the Google Play Services service or the application itself that creates the problem helps, and updating the problematic application through the store is also an effective method, since developers often fix such errors in patches.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)