How to deploy a photo mirror on Xiaomi: all the ways from standard to professional

Mirror image reflection on Xiaomi smartphones is a challenge faced by both beginners and experienced users. Despite its apparent simplicity, not everyone knows that the standard MIUI gallery hides this feature in non-obvious menus, and third-party editors offer dozens of options for image transformation. In this article, we will discuss 5 working ways to deploy photos horizontally or vertically, from embedded tools to professional applications with support for layers.

The feature of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO devices is the MIUI shell, which is regularly updated. For example, in versions of MIUI 13-14, the photo editing algorithm changed compared to MIUI 12, and some functions moved to the submenu, we took these nuances into account and prepared current instructions for all modern models, from Xiaomi 13 Ultra to the budget Redmi Note 12.

Important: If you're looking for a way to deploy selfies (they're mirrored by default), there's a separate section at the end of this article that addresses this problem, and we've also looked at cases where standard tools don't work, like editing. RAW-files or photos from external storage.

1. Mirror reversal through the standard MIUI gallery

The fastest way is to use a built-in photo editor, which supports basic operations, including horizontal and vertical reflection, and is relevant for MIUI 12-14:

1. Open the Gallery app (flower icon).
2. Select the desired photo and tap it to open in full screen mode.
3. Press the Edit button (the pencil icon at the bottom of the screen).
4. Go to the Pruning tab (frame icon).
5. In the bottom menu, find the buttons: 🔄 Turn (rotation by 90)°) ↔️ Reflect horizontally (mirror left-to-right) ↕️ Reflect vertically (mirror from top to bottom)

Save.

⚠️ Note: In some versions MIUI The reflecting buttons are hidden behind the extra menu. ↔️/↕️, press three points ⋮ in the upper right corner of the edit screen and select More Tools.

Open the photo in full screen mode|Check the version. MIUI (Settings → The phone)|Press "Edit" (pencil)|Go to the "Pruning" tab"-->

Once saved, the original photo will remain intact — MIUI will create a copy with the suffix edited. If you need to replace the source, manually delete it after export.

2.Using Google Photos for Mirror Spreading

Google Photos offers more flexible editing tools than the standard Xiaomi gallery, which is suitable for users who sync photos to the cloud or want to save a history of changes.

1. Install Google Photos from Play Market if it is not already installed.
2. Open the application and select the desired photo.
3. Slip the Edit button (three bars at the bottom).
4. Go to the Tools tab (the circle icon with dots).
5. Choose Trimming and Turning.
6. In the lower menu, find the reflection buttons: 🔄 Turn (90)° hourly) ↔️ Reflect (horizontal mirror)

⚠️ Attention: There is no vertical reflection in Google Photos – use other methods from the article for this.

Keep a copy

Google Photos automatically backs up the original in the cloud, even if you delete the edited photo from your device, which is convenient for restoring source content, but requires free space in your Google account (15GB is free).

Standard gallery MIUI|Google Photo|Snapseed|Lightroom|Other-->

3. Professional reflection in Snapseed

For users who need advanced editing capabilities (such as partial reflection or layering), Google’s free Snapseed app supports nondestructive editing and preserves image quality when exported.

Instructions for mirroring:

1. Download Snapseed from Play Market.
2. Open the app and import photos via the + button.
3. In the lower menu, select the Transform tool (triangle icon with arrows).
4. Slip on the Reflect button (image icon) ↔️) and choose a direction: 🔄 Horizontal (left-right) 🔃 Vertical (top-down)

Exports

The benefits of Snapseed:

• 🎨 Support for masks and selective editing (you can only reflect part of the photo).
• 📊 Keeping a history of changes (can be reversed).
• 🔍 Possibility of export in format TIFF quality-free.

💡

In Snapseed, you can create a mirror preset and apply it to other photos in one click. ⋮ → Save the settings.

4. Reversing photos through the file manager

If you need to reflect photos without installing additional applications, you can use the built-in Xiaomi File Manager. This method is suitable for users who work with photos on external drives (for example, for users who work with photos on external drives, SD-maps) or in cloud storage.

Step-by-step:

1. Open the Files app (folder icon).
2. Go to the photo folder (usually DCIM → Camera).
3. Long press on the file → select Open with help.
4. In the list of applications, select Gallery or Google Photos.
5. Follow the instructions in Section 1 or Section 2.

⚠️ Note: If the photo is stored on SD-Before editing, make sure the card is not protected from recording:

1. Remove the card from the phone.
2. Check the position of the Lock lever on the adapter.
3. If the lever is in the Lock position, move it in the opposite direction.

5. Solving the problem with mirror selfies

Many Xiaomi users are faced with the fact that the front camera defaults to save the selfie in a mirrored form, this is done to make the photo correspond to the reflection in the mirror, but sometimes the “correct” display is required (for example, for documents or text on a T-shirt).

How to turn off mirror reflection for selfies:

1. Open the Camera app.
2. Switch to the front camera (camera turn icon).
3. Put the button on it. ⚙️ Settings (cogs).
4. Find the option Mirror selfie (or Mirror selfie in English).
5. Turn off the switch.

⚠️ Note: In some models (e.g. Xiaomi) 12T or POCO F5) This setting is hidden in the submenu. If you can't see the option, try it:

• 🔍 Go to Camera Settings → Additionally. → Mirror mode.
• 📱 Update the Camera app through Play Market.
• 🔄 Reboot your phone (sometimes helps with crashes) MIUI).

6. Alternative applications for mirror reversal

If standard methods don’t work (for example, you’re running RAW or need batch processing), consider specialized applications. We tested 5 popular editors and picked the best ones:

For batch processing, we recommend FastStone Image Viewer (available for Windows), which allows you to apply a mirror reversal to all photos in the folder in a few clicks.

1. Connect Xiaomi to your PC via USB (select File Transfer Mode).
2. Copy the photo onto the computer.
3. Open them in FastStone (select everything → Tools → Packet conversion).
4. In the settings, select Reflect horizontally/vertically.
5. Export back to the phone.

💡

To work with RAW-Use Adobe Lightroom or Darktable files (.dng,.arw) as standard gallery MIUI Does not support editing of raw photos.

FAQ: Frequent questions about mirror image reversal on Xiaomi