Personalizing your smartphone is the first step to making it yours. When you pick up Xiaomi, Redmi or POCO, the first thing you see when you press the power button is the lock screen. The standard wallpapers preinstalled by the manufacturer are often beautiful, but they become boring over time, and you naturally want to replace them with a family photo, a snapshot of your favorite landscape, or an abstraction that lifts your mood.
But the process of installing images in the MIUI shells and the new HyperOS has its own nuances that not everyone knows about. The interface of settings can vary depending on the version of the operating system and the firmware region. Sometimes the desired option is hidden in the depth of the menu, and in other cases the system offers to use the wallpaper carousel function, which works according to its own rules. Understanding these differences will help to avoid confusion and quickly achieve the desired result.
In this article, we will discuss in detail all the available ways to replace the image on the lock screen, you will learn how to install a static picture from the gallery, how to adjust the automatic change of backgrounds and what to do if standard methods do not work. We will also touch on the topic of battery optimization, since some types of dynamic wallpaper can consume more energy.
Image Preparation and Format Requirements
Before you go to system settings, you need to prepare the source file. The quality of the final picture depends on the resolution of your screen and the source file. If you load a low-quality image, it will look blurry and grainy on a high-resolution display. Modern Xiaomi smartphones often have screens with FullHD+ or even 2K resolution, so the source must be of appropriate quality.
The optimal format for mobile devices is JPG or PNG. These formats are natively supported by the system and do not require conversion. If you plan to use an image with transparency or complex graphics, you should choose PNG. For ordinary photos, a quality JPG with minimal compression is quite enough.
⚠️ Note: Do not use images in format RAW or HEIC directly, if your version MIUI It doesn't automatically support their conversion, which can cause the system to fail to display previews or to refuse to set the background at all.
It's also important to consider the aspect ratio. Smartphone screens are vertical, so you have to frame horizontal images. When you select a photo in a gallery, the system will suggest a crop area, but it's better to prepare a vertical frame in advance so you don't lose important details of the composition. Horizontal photos are often cut in the center, which can cut off the heads of people in group pictures.
💡
Use images with a resolution of at least 1080x2400 pixels for perfect quality on modern Xiaomi screens.
Classic method of installation through the Gallery
The simplest and most common method most Android users are familiar with is installing directly from the Gallery app, which works the same on older versions of MIUI and on newer updates, and the algorithm is as linear as possible and does not require deep immersion in system settings.
To start, open the Gallery app and find the image you want. Once you open the photo, click the three dots at the bottom of the screen or swipe up to open the action menu. In the list that appears, select Set as Wallpaper. The system will tell you to choose whether to apply the image to the lock screen, the main screen, or both.
- 📸 Select “lock screen” if you want to see the photo only when the screen is turned on.
- 🏠 Select “Home screen” to have the background on the desktop with icons.
- 🖥 Choose “Both Screens” if you want a uniform visual style everywhere.
Once selected, the system may suggest that you crop the image further, a special frame will show you which part of the photo will be visible on the screen, move the picture to select the best angle, and press the confirmation button, the image will immediately apply, and you can check the result by blocking the smartphone with the power button.
☑️ Pre-installing check
Configure through the wallpaper menu in the system
If for some reason the method through the gallery didn't work, or if you want to select a background from the system collection, you can use the regular Wallpaper app, which is built into the MIUI/HyperOS shell and provides access to Xiaomi cloud storage, you can find both static and live wallpaper, and you can also customize the carousel.
Go to Settings and find Wallpaper or open the same app on your desktop. At the bottom of the screen, you'll see tabs, one of which is usually called Local or Mine. Going there, you'll see folders with images stored in the device's memory. Select the folder and the specific photo you want.
Unlike gallery, Wallpaper often offers additional effects, such as allowing depth effects where the time on the lock screen is partially overlapped by objects in the photo (if you use a depth-enabled font), and previewing how the image will look with widgets and icons.
Why are some photos not displayed in the Wallpaper?
Use of the Wallpaper Carousel (Glance)
Special attention should be paid to the feature that is active by default on many new Xiaomi smartphones, the Wallpaper Carousel (formerly known as Glance), which automatically changes images on the lock screen, downloading them from the Internet. For many users, it is a convenient way to constantly see new content, but for others it annoys, as it prevents you from posting your static photo.
To use the Carousel for your purposes, you need to change its settings a little. Go to Settings → Always on screen and lock screen → Wallpaper carousel. Here you can choose the source of the images. By default, you can choose "Recommended", but you can switch to "My Albums", in which case the carousel will only flip through your personal photos.
The main advantage of this approach is that you can create a slideshow of dozens or hundreds of photos, and the screen will come alive every time you pick up your phone, but it's worth remembering that this feature requires permissions to access data and can consume traffic if you don't configure the download only over Wi-Fi.
⚠️ Warning: Wallpaper carousels may conflict with widgets on the lock screen. If you notice that the clock or notifications are overshadowing important parts of the photo, try turning off the carousel and use a static image.
Installation problems and their solution
Despite the simplicity of the process, users sometimes face difficulties, the most common problem is that the installation button is inactive or the image is not applied after confirmation, this may be due to application access rights or a crowded theme system cache.
If you're trying to install a photo and the system is giving you an error, check if the Power Saving mode is on in extreme mode. Some personalization features can be blocked to save charge. It's also worth checking for updates for the Themes and Wallpaper system app through the GetApps store.
The table below shows common errors and ways to fix them:
| Problem. | Possible cause | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| The "Apply" button is inactive | No specific image selected | Tap the photo to highlight it in a frame |
| Photo stretched or cropped | Wrong aspect ratio | Use a crop tool when installing |
| Black screen instead of photo | The file format is not supported | Convert photos to JPG through the editor |
| Carousel doesn't flip through the photo | No Internet connection. | Check your Wi-Fi or mobile data settings |
Another cause of failures can be a crowded smartphone memory. If there is less than 100 MB of free space on the disk, the system may not be able to create a thumbnail or a temporary file to process the image. Clearing the cache or deleting unnecessary files often solves the problem instantly.
Live Wallpaper and Its Impact on the Battery
In the pursuit of beauty, the device's technical state is not to be forgotten: Live Wallpapers are animated backgrounds that respond to touch or just cycle video, and they look spectacular, but they put a constant strain on the GPU.
On modern Snapdragon or MediaTek processors, the difference in consumption may not be as noticeable, but on budget Redmi or POCO models, live wallpaper can cause faster battery discharge. In addition, active animation on the lock screen can cause micro-twitching of the interface when unlocked if RAM is scarce.
If you notice that your smartphone is starting to run out or heat up faster in your pocket, try going back to static images. For visual diversity, you can use static parallax wallpapers that create the illusion of motion when you tilt your phone, but consume significantly less resources.
💡
High quality static images are the best choice for balancing the aesthetics and battery life of a smartphone.