Modern Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones come with powerful cameras that create high-resolution images by default.It’s great for printing large-format photos or professional processing, but creates problems with everyday use.High resolution means that each shot takes up a significant amount of internal memory, quickly filling the device’s storage.
In addition, many messengers and social networks have strict restrictions on the size of the transmitted files. The user may face a situation where it is impossible to send the original photo to Telegram or WhatsApp due to exceeding the limit, or the download process is delayed indefinitely.
MIUI and the new HyperOS have built-in tools for basic image work, but they are often hidden from the eyes of the average user. There are also third-party solutions and cloud services that automate the compression process. Understanding the difference between changing resolution and changing the quality of the JPEG file will allow you to choose the best method for a particular task.
Why photos take up so much space on Xiaomi
The main reason for the large weight of files is the algorithm of the camera matrix. When you take a picture, the image processor processes millions of pixels to create a detailed picture. The standard resolution for modern models is from 12 to 50 and even 108 megapixels. Each pixel contains information about color and brightness, which together gives a huge array of data that is encoded in the JPEG or HEIF format.
Another factor is that there is no aggressive compression during the shooting phase. Xiaomi engineers customize the cameras to save as much detail as possible for later processing. This means that the files are not compressed to the smallest possible size, but maintain a high bitrate. For the user, this turns into a minute of video or a series of ten photos can take hundreds of megabytes.
⚠️ Attention: Format HEIF (High Efficiency Image Format takes up half the space and is of the same quality as the image. JPEG, It may not open on older devices or in some programs.
It's also worth considering that today's photo processing algorithms, such as HDR and night mode, create multiple frames and combine them. Although we get a single file at the output, its structure can be more complex and its weight can be greater than that of a simple picture taken in perfect lighting.
Use of the built-in editor of the MIUI and HyperOS Gallery
The fastest way to change your image settings is to use the standard Gallery app. In Xiaomi shells, this tool is quite functional and allows you to perform basic operations without installing additional software. However, it is important to understand that the standard editor is primarily designed for framing and overlaying filters, and the direct resolution resizing function can be hidden or implemented through the Save as a Copy function with new parameters.
To start, open the image and click the "Change" button, and here you'll find the "Cadrage" tool, which allows you to cut the edges, thereby reducing the total number of pixels in the image. After cropping, save the file as a copy. This is the first step to reducing the size of the image in pixels will become smaller.
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When saving a copy in the Xiaomi gallery, always leave the original to be able to return to the original quality in the future.
If the gallery's built-in tools fail to explicitly specify the desired resolution, you can use the print or PDF function, where scaling settings are sometimes available, but this is inconvenient. A more effective built-in method is to use the Send -> Save to Files function with preselected size, if this option is available in your Android version.
⚠️ Note: A standard gallery editor may slightly reduce quality when saving a copy due to re-coding JPEG, Even if you haven’t changed the compression settings explicitly.
Compression via the Google Photos app
Almost all Xiaomi smartphones have Google Photos pre-installed, a powerful tool that not only stores images in the cloud, but also manages their size efficiently on the device. Free up space automatically finds copies of photos that have already been saved in the cloud in the phone’s memory and deletes them, leaving only optimized versions.
To reduce the size of a particular photo manually through this service, open the image, click "Change" and select "Copy and paste" or use the export function. However, finer customization is available through the web version or storage settings. If you agree to loss-of-quality compression for the sake of space, turn on "Saving space" mode in the backup settings.
- 📸 Open the Google Photos app and select a photo.
- ✂️ Click Change and select the framing tool to remove excess areas.
- 💾 Save as a copy so you don’t lose the original.
- ☁️ Use the "Free Space" feature to remove heavy originals from your phone's memory.
It’s important to note that Google Photos uses its own compression algorithms, which often produce better visual results with a smaller file size compared to standard converters, and this is especially true for RAW photos that take up a huge amount of space.
Third-party applications for changing resolution and weight
When built-in tools are scarce, specialized applications from the Google Play store come to the rescue, allowing you to flexibly manage image parameters: change the resolution in pixels, set a target file size in kilobytes, and choose the compression ratio, which is the most professional approach to solving a problem on a mobile device.
One popular solution is the "Image Size" or "QReduce" app, which works like a conveyor: you upload a photo, you set a target setting (for example, a width of 1920 pixels or a weight of 500 KB), and the program recalculates the image matrix, which is fast thanks to optimization for the Snapdragon and MediaTek processors used by Xiaomi.
☑️ Selection of compression application
When using third-party software, it is important to pay attention to the permissions the app requests. To work with photos, it only needs access to media files. If a simple converter requires access to contacts or location, this is an excuse to refuse to use it for security reasons.
| Annex | Type of compression | Package processing | Preservation of EXIF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Photo | Cloud/Local/Local | Automatic. | Partial |
| Image Size | Local (pixels/Kb) | Yes. | Yes. |
| QReduce | Local (target weight) | Yes. | No. |
| MIUI Gallery | Filling/Filters | No. | Yes. |
Setup the camera for shooting in the optimal format
The best way to reduce the size of a photo is not to create giant files initially. In the Xiaomi camera settings, you can change the settings of the shooting. Go to the camera menu, click on three bars in the corner and select "Settings." Here is the item "Size photo" or "Special aspect ratio".
The default is often set to a maximum resolution (like 108MP or 50MP). Unless you plan to print photos on billboards or do cropping in post-processing, it makes sense to switch to a standard 4:3 ratio at 12MP. That's more than enough for smartphone, tablet and even 4K TV screens.