Xiaomi smartphone owners often face situations where the interface seems overloaded with unnecessary elements. One of the most intrusive components is the left panel, which appears when swiping to the right of the home screen, and may contain news, widgets or a recommendation tape that is not convenient for everyone in everyday use.
The interface of MIUI and the new HyperOS system by default offers many personalization features, but their excess sometimes gets in the way.The left panel is one of those elements that many users tend to turn off immediately after buying a device. This frees up space and speeds up desktop navigation.
In this article, we will take a look at all the ways you can deactivate the side menu, learn how to manage widgets, turn off news feeds, and customize your system to suit your habits, and set up the interface in just a few minutes, but greatly improves the comfort of your smartphone.
What is left panel in MIUI and HyperOS
The side menu on Xiaomi smartphones is a separate screen space designed to quickly access information, and its content may differ from firmware version to version, most commonly with weather widgets, pedometers, clipboards or news feeds.
The system component that handles this element can be called different things, and in global versions it is often Google Discover or Glance, and in Chinese builds it is the company’s own services, and the functionality of the panel depends on the configuration region and the operating system version.
Having this panel doesn't affect the performance of the device critically, but it takes up a place in navigation.A random swipe can open up unnecessary content that distracts the user.That's why the question of how to remove the panel on the left of the Xiaomi remains one of the most popular among brand owners.
⚠️ Note: Complete removal of system components of the panel is possible only with root access rights, which is not recommended for ordinary users.
Disabling Glance feed and news widgets
The most common type of left panel is Glance tape (formerly known as Mi Video or simply newsfeed), which displays articles, videos and promotional recommendations, and can be turned off through the standard settings menu.
You first need to go to the desktop settings. When you're on the home screen, pinch with two fingers or pinch an empty area to call the edit menu. In the menu that appears, find the Settings or Add button, and then select More.
In the settings list that opens, look for the section associated with Tape or Glance. The switch should be active. Click on it to deactivate the function. Then, when you swipe to the left, the panel will no longer appear.
☑️ Checking out the Glance shutdown
If the standard path didn't work, try to find settings through the system's general menu. Go to Settings → Desktop. There may be duplicated options that control the display of side elements. In some versions of MIUI, this item is hidden inside the widget settings.
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If you can’t find the Glance switch, try changing the smartphone region in settings (Settings → Additional settings → Region) to India or Indonesia – there the tape settings are often taken out in a separate menu.
Managing widgets and fast applications
In addition to the news feed, on the left, you can have standard Android widgets like Notepad, Calendar, or Weather, which are not part of Glance's feed, but they also take up space, and you can remove them by editing the widgets.
Go to the widget control menu, swipe left to the end. There's usually an edit button (pencil or gear) at the bottom of the screen or in the corner. Click on it to see the list of active items.
In the list of active widgets, click the minus or the delete button next to the unwanted item. You can only leave the ones you use regularly, such as the weather or pedometer, the rest of the items will be moved to the archive or become inactive.
| Type of widget | Wherever | How to clean up |
|---|---|---|
| Google Discover | Left edge of the screen | Settings → Google → Discover |
| Glance/The Tape | Left edge of the screen | Desktop settings → Glance |
| System widgets | Left edge of the screen | Editing widgets (minus) |
| Yandex (if it's worth it) | Left edge of the screen | Settings of the Yandex widget |
It is important to distinguish between Xiaomi system widgets and third-party widgets you installed. If you installed applications from Yandex or other services, they can create their own left panels, in which case you need to look for the settings inside the aggregator application itself.
Setting up the side menu of applications (App Vault)
In some versions of the shell, the interface is divided into two parts: the left panel with widgets and the right (or central) with applications. However, there is also the App Vault feature, which can appear when swiping.
To manage this list, go to Settings → Special Features → Side menu of applications. Here you will see a list of programs that the system offers for quick start. You can remove applications from this list or completely disable the feature.
Often users confuse the widget bar and the app bar. App Vault is a list of frequently used programs, not a news feed. If your goal is to clean the screen of unnecessary visual noise, disabling both elements will give the best result.
Hidden settings through ADB
Removal of widgets of third-party services (Yandex, Google)
Often the left panel is filled with content from services installed by the user, such as the Zen-tape widget or Google Discover, which can be very heavy and consume traffic.
For the Yandex widget, click on the gear inside the widget, or press it on the screen and select the settings. There's usually an option called "Show Ribbon" or "Recommendations." Turn it off, and you'll only have the search bar and the weather.
For Google Discover, go to the settings of the Google app itself (through three dots in the corner of the feed or in the phone settings). Find the General or Discover section and uncheck the feed display. This will remove the news stream, leaving only the search bar if it is provided by the interface.
⚠️ Warning: After the system update, the widget settings may reset. If the panel appears again, check the settings again, as the update may have returned default values.
Resetting launcher settings as a radical method
If none of the methods worked and the panel continues to appear, there may have been a failure in the launcher (desktop shell), in which case it helps to reset the settings of the system application "Desktop".
Go to Settings → Apps → All apps. Find the Work Desktop (or System Launcher) list. Click on Clean (Bullet Icon) and select Clean Everything.
After this desktop setting, including icons and widgets, go back to factory, and the left panel should disappear or return to the default state, where it can be properly disabled through the settings menu.
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Launcher reset is a safe procedure that doesn’t delete your personal photos or contacts, but returns app icons to their original locations.
Sometimes the problem is cache. Before you reset completely, try just clearing the launcher cache. It takes less time and saves your current icon layout. Go to the same app settings and select Clear cache.