How to see how long you use the Android Xiaomi apps

Xiaomi’s Android smartphones provide users with powerful tools to analyze their digital activity. Many device owners do not even realize that their gadget keeps detailed statistics on the use of each application they launch. This information is hidden in the bowels of system settings and is designed to help control screen time. Understanding how your hours spent on social networks or games are distributed can be the first step to improving productivity.

Redmi and Poco users often wonder how to access this data without installing third-party software. Fortunately, the built-in MIUI or HyperOS shell features allow for detailed activity tracking. You can not only find out the total time spent with your phone in your hands, but also see how many times you unlocked your screen in a day. Digital well-being is not just a buzzword, but a real attention management tool.

In this article, we will take a look at all the available ways to view statistics, and we will look at both standard methods through system settings and hidden features available through an engineering menu or special commands, learn how to set limits and understand why some applications may not appear in the shared list. The accuracy of the statistics depends on the access rights you give to system services when you first start.

Using the Digital Well-Being function

The main tool for monitoring activity in modern versions of Android is the built-in Digital Wellbeing service. On Xiaomi smartphones, it is deeply integrated into the system and is available by default. To get into this section, you need to open the main settings menu and find the corresponding item, usually located at the top of the list or inside the Special Opportunities tab.

The interface is presented as a visual pie chart, each sector of the circle corresponds to a specific category of applications or a specific service, clicking on any sector, you will see a detailed breakdown by usage time for today and for the previous days, the system allows you to switch between the view per day, week or month, which helps to track the dynamics of changes in your habits.

⚠️ Note: If you clear the data of the Digital Well-being application through application management, all accumulated statistics history will be permanently deleted.

Inside the section, you can set focus mode or set timers for specific programs, for example, you can limit your use of Instagram or TikTok to one hour a day. Once the limit is exhausted, the app will be blocked until the next day, although it can be temporarily unlocked on the button, which is an effective way to combat procrastination.

Search for statistics through screen settings

An alternative way to use time is to go directly to the screen, and the path to it may vary slightly depending on the version of the MIUI shell. You'll need to go to the Settings menu, then select Screen or Screen and brightness, and there's often a link to usage statistics.

This section is a time-sorted list, usually with messengers or social networks, and the statistics are updated in real time, so you can see the numbers go up as you read this article, and it helps you understand how much time the background processes or the browser tabs that are constantly open eat up.

The feature of this browsing method is that you can quickly go to the settings of a particular application directly from the statistics list. Just click on the icon next to the program name. You will open a menu where you can limit background activity, prohibit notifications or forcefully stop the process.

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Use the Time of Use widget on your desktop to always see the current statistics without going into the deep settings menu.

Limit settings and parental control

Once you've figured out how much time you spend on your phone, it's logical to think about control. Xiaomi's Android system allows you to set tight limits. You can set limits not only on your total device usage time, but also on your nighttime stay. Between 23:00 and 7:00, the phone can go black and white, reducing the attractiveness of the interface.

Parents have Family Link, which allows them to broadcast statistics on their child's device usage to their parent's phone, allowing them to remotely block apps or set a schedule for their child's use, for example, by automatically locking their child's phone during school lessons.

When setting constraints, it is important to consider system applications. Some processes, such as Google System Services or Phone, can take a significant amount of time in statistics, but you can not limit their work, as this will lead to unstable operation of the device.

Analysis of battery performance as an indicator of activity

Often users forget that the most accurate information about running processes can be found in the power section. The Settings path → Battery and performance (or simply Battery) contains detailed statistics on energy consumption. Since the screen and processor consume the most energy when applications are active, this section indirectly shows the time of your activity.

This shows you active and background time, and if you see that an application you haven't used has 2 hours of active time, that's a cause for concern, maybe a miner or a malfunctioning script is running in the background, and battery consumption anomalies often indicate hidden activity.

Unlike the Digital Well-Being section, here the data can be more technical: you'll see consumption in milliamp hours (mAh) and percentages. By comparing this data over time, you can calculate how energy-efficient your smartphone is. Heavy games will show high consumption in a short time, while reading can take a long time at low consumption.

Hidden functions and engineering menu

For advanced users who want to access deeper data, there is a Xiaomi engineering menu that can be logged in through the standard Phone app by typing a special code. However, beware: changing the settings in this menu can affect the operation of radio modules and communication.

In the engineering menu, we're not so much interested in diagnostics as in usage logs, and even though there's no direct time meter, you can see the status of services that are running and their priority, and that helps you understand why applications don't close and keep hanging in memory, affecting overall performance.

Also worth mentioning is the adb shell dumpsys usagestats command, which is available when you connect to a computer, which gives raw data on the time of use of all packages, and it's a professional tool for developers, but the average user can use it to identify hidden processes that are not shown in the standard interface.

⚠️ Warning: Never change the values in the engineering menu unless you know exactly what a particular parameter is responsible for.

Frequent problems and lack of statistics

Sometimes users are faced with a situation where statistics are not displayed or show zero values, most often due to the fact that the data collection service was stopped or removed along with the system components when customizing firmware. This is rare on global versions of MIUI, but on Chinese firmware without preinstalled Google services, functionality may be limited.

Another reason could be a failure in the application itself, “Digital Well-being” in which case helps to clear the cache or update components of Google Play Services. If the problem persists after the reboot, it may be worth checking for system updates, as Xiaomi regularly fixes bugs in its shells.

The lack of statistics can also be caused by the use of third-party launchers or those that conflict with system meters. If you have a customized theme, try to return the standard and check if information appears. Interface modification compatibility is an important aspect of stable system operation.

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If no statistics are kept, check for permission to use your device for Google System Services and the Digital Well-Being app.