Xiaomi Deep Setup: What You Can Turn Off to Accelerate

Modern Xiaomi smartphones, which run on the shells of MIUI or the new HyperOS, offer users incredibly wide functionality, but often suffer from excessive background processes. Device owners often face intrusive advertising in system applications, fast battery discharge and periodic slowdowns of the interface. The main reason lies in pre-installed services, which are by default active and consume processor resources.

Competent optimization can turn a mid-budget gadget into a fast and responsive tool, and a flagship can extend battery life by several hours. In this article, we will discuss what system settings can be safely changed to remove digital noise. You will learn to turn off unnecessary analytics services, advertising and functions that are rarely used in everyday life, but constantly hang in memory.

Before you start any manipulation, you should understand that the interface may vary slightly depending on the version of the firmware. However, the logic of Android remains the same for all models, whether it is the old Redmi Note or the newest Xiaomi 14.

Disabling MIUI and HyperOS system advertising

The most annoying feature of the shell is the built-in advertising that appears in standard applications like Explorer, Music or Security, which is not a virus, but a regular monetization feature that developers allow to manually disable. The first step is to deactivate the MSA (MIUI System Ads) service responsible for advertising notifications.

To do this, go to Settings → Passwords and Security → Access to personal data. Find the msa service in the list and turn off the switch. The system will require you to wait 10 seconds, then click “Cancel”. If you fail the first time, repeat the procedure 2-3 times, as the servers may temporarily not respond.

• 🚫 Turn off GetApps from the same menu if you don’t use Xiaomi’s app store.
• 📉 In the Safety app, click on the gear and remove the ticks from the "Receive recommendations" and "Automatic cleaning" items».
• 📂 In “Conductor” go to the settings and turn off “Popular” to remove the news feed on the main screen of the application.

⚠️ Note: After revoking permissions from msa, ads may disappear within 24 hours, rather than instantly.

In addition, check your personalization settings. In Settings → Passwords and Security → Special Features (or “Privacy”), disable the use of your ad ID. This will prevent apps from collecting your interests for targeted display of banners.

Optimizing battery and background processes

Autonomy is a key parameter for any smartphone. The MIUI shell is known for aggressive work with background applications, but sometimes it allows unnecessary processes to eat away at charge. First, you should set up Energy Saving for each particular application that you rarely use.

Go to Settings → Applications → All apps. Select an unnecessary application (such as games or social networks that you rarely use) and click on Energy Saving. Set the value “Limit activity in the background” to prevent constant server surveys and traffic consumption.

Also, look at the memory extension feature, which uses part of the internal storage as RAM. On fast models with a high RAM capacity (12 GB or higher), this feature is better off, as it can slow down the drive and increase memory wear.

• 🔋 Turn on “charge saving mode” in advance by setting activation at 30% or 40%.
• 📉 Turn off “Rise to Turn on” and “Double tapping” to wake up the screen if you don’t use these gestures.
• 📡 Remove weather and news widgets from your desktop as they constantly update data over the network.

An important aspect is to set up syncs: log into your Mi Account and Google account, and turn off synchronizing data that you don’t need (like synchronizing your browser or calendar data if you’re not using it on your phone), which will significantly reduce the number of background requests to the network.

Configuring notifications and interface

The constant stream of notifications from system applications creates information noise and distracts. Xiaomi likes to notify users about the release of new games, promotions in the store, or just “helpful tips.”

Go to Settings → Notifications and Status bar. You should turn off “Recommendations” and “Advertising Notifications.” It is also useful to go to the settings of each particular application and prevent them from showing notifications unless they are messengers or working tools.

For minimalist users, you can customize fonts and element sizes. In Settings → Screen → Text size, you can not only change the font, but also the scale of the interface. Scaling down allows you to fit more information on the screen, which is especially true for models with a diagonal of 6.67 inches and above.

⚠️ Warning: When disabling system notifications, be careful.Do not disable critical services such as Security or system updates, or you may miss important virus or crash warnings.

The lock screen deserves special attention. In MIUI, it is often oversaturated with wallpaper carousel widgets. To remove the constant change of pictures and unnecessary finger movements, go to Settings → Lock screen and disable Wallpaper carousel. This will also save traffic, since images will no longer be loaded in the background.

Acceleration of animation and speed

Visual smoothness is one thing, real response speed is another. Standard animations in MIUI can seem like stretching, creating the illusion of slow work, and you can hide it through the developer menu by rescaling the animation.

To activate the hidden menu, you need to quickly click on the "Version" 7 times. MIUI» or "Version" OS» In the About Phone section, when you see the "You're a developer" sign, go back to the main settings menu, go to the Additional → For developers.

Find the section "Drawing" (or "Animation"). You're interested in three things: "Window animation", "Engineering animation" and "Duration of animation." By default, they are 1x. Change them to 0.5x or even turn them off completely. The interface will become noticeably sharper and faster.

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Don’t set the animation value to 0x at once. A value of 0.5x gives you a better balance between speed and visual comfort, while maintaining an understanding of the logic of transitions between screens.

You can also find a limitation of background processes in the developer menu, but you need to be extremely careful here: setting a rigid limit (for example, “No More than 2 Processes”) can cause the music player to turn off when switching to another application, and the navigator to reset the route.

• 🚀 Turn off Advanced Memory if you have less than 6GB of RAM, it can speed up the work.
• ⚙️ Enable the option to Download Wi-Fi data only for important updates so as not to clog the channel.
• 📱 Use Simple Mode for the elderly only, as it limits functionality and changes the interface.

Memory and storage

A full storage is the main reason for the brakes on any smartphone. Android and the MIUI shell require free space for the cache and temporary files to work correctly. If the memory is filled to the full, the device will start to work slowly regardless of the power of the processor.

Use the built-in Security → Cleanup app, which finds garbage, cache and duplicate photos, but don't rely on automatic cleaning alone. Manually check the Download folder and the messenger cache (Telegram, WhatsApp), which can take up tens of gigabytes.

The table below shows you which folders take up the most space and what you can do with them:

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Regular manual check of the Download folder and messenger cache frees up more space than any automatic cleaning.

Don’t forget about cloud services. If you have photos synced with Google Photos or Mi Cloud enabled, use the “Free Space” feature, which will remove from your device those pictures that are already securely stored in the cloud.

Network settings and other

The last setup is for networking, and the smartphone is constantly scanning your environment for Wi-Fi networks and Bluetooth devices, even if you're not going to connect to anything, which consumes the battery and puts extra strain on the communication module.

In Settings → Wi-Fi (or Connect and Share), search for Wi-Fi Assistant. Turn off Auto Connection and Show Notifications for Available Networks. The phone will stop constantly asking you to connect to open networks in shopping malls.

Similar to Bluetooth, in advanced Bluetooth settings, disable “Show notifications about nearby devices.” This will remove pop-ups suggesting you connect to your neighbors’ headphones or speakers.

⚠️ Warning: Disabling Device Search may make it difficult to transfer files through Mi Share or pair quickly with new Xiaomi accessories.

It’s also worth checking your geolocation settings. In High Accuracy mode, your phone uses GPS, Wi-Fi and mobile networks simultaneously. If you don’t need up to a metre accuracy (like a navigator), switch to Network Coordinates mode, or simply turn off the geolocation when it’s not in use.

When you set all of these things in a comprehensive way, you can make the user experience much better, the smartphone is cleaner, faster and more economical, and the rule of thumb is to keep things that you're not sure they're going to do, and always be able to reset them to factory values.