How to Add a Shortcut to Xiaomi: The Complete Guide

Xiaomi’s MIUI interfaces and new HyperOS offer users huge customization options, but sometimes basic actions like shortcutting may not be obvious to the beginner. A shortcut is not just an icon, it’s quick access to a feature, whether it’s launching an app, opening a specific settings section, or going to a favorite site. Understanding how to manage those elements dramatically speeds up the interaction with your smartphone.

Often, users are faced with a situation where, after installing a new software, its icon does not appear on the home screen, but hides in the menu of all applications. In other cases, you need to bring a specific feature to the desktop, such as Flight Mode or Flashlight, so as not to search for them in the curtain. We will analyze all the nuances of creating, moving and designing shortcuts in the current versions of shells from the Chinese manufacturer.

A good workplace is key to a productive work with a gadget. A well-configured desktop can reduce the time it takes to find the right app by 40%. In this article, we will look at the mechanisms for adding shortcuts, working with widgets, and solving typical problems when icons disappear or are not created.

Differences between app and shortcut in MIUI

Before you start, it’s important to understand the technical difference between the app itself and its shortcut: an application is an installation package (APK) that takes up space in a phone’s memory and has executable code, and a shortcut is just a pointer link, a small file that tells the system, “Run this particular program component.”

In the Xiaomi ecosystem, this difference is visible visually and functionally, and if you remove the app itself, all the shortcuts created for it will stop working and turn into broken links, but removing the shortcut from the desktop will not affect the work of the program itself, it will remain installed and accessible through the All Apps menu.

⚠️ Note: Do not confuse the app shortcut with the widget. The widget is a dynamic element that displays information in real time (weather, hours, currency exchange rates), whereas the shortcut is solely for quick launch.

There are several types of shortcuts that the Android operating system supports in conjunction with the manufacturer’s shell:

• 📱 Standard shortcut: Launches the app from the homepage.
• 🌐 Web shortcut: Link to a specific page of a site that works through a browser.
• ⚙️ Action shortcut: Direct access to the function (e.g. scanning) QR-camera-code).

Adding the installed application shortcut to the desktop

The most common task is to return the program icon to the home screen if it is lost in the menu. Depending on the launcher settings, the interface can behave differently. By default, global firmware versions often turn on the Classic Menu mode, where icons appear automatically, but in Chinese versions or after resetting, the No Menu mode can be activated.

To add a shortcut manually, you need to open the menu of all applications. This is usually done by swiping up the center of the screen or pressing a special square button in the dock bar. Find the desired application in the list, pinch your finger on its icon and hold until the vibration appears. After that, without releasing your finger, drag the object to any free area of the desktop.

If drag and drop doesn't work, you may have Desktop Change Lock enabled. Check Launcher settings: go to Settings → Desktop and make sure that the "Block layout" option is disabled. It's also worth remembering that some desktop pages may just not have enough space for a new item.

For users who prefer minimalism, there is the ability to create folders. Just drag and drop one shortcut on top of another, and the system automatically creates a container. This allows you to keep dozens of applications on the first screen without cluttering the space.

Creating shortcuts for websites through the browser

Modern smartphones allow you to turn any web page you visit into a native app, which is especially useful for services that do not have official apps on Google Play, or for news portals that you visit daily. MI Browser.

The Google Chrome algorithm is as follows: Open the site you want to add. Click on three dots in the top right corner of the interface. In the drop-down menu, select Add to the main screen (or Create a shortcut), and the system will prompt you to rename the shortcut so that it takes up less space, then confirm the action.

In a standard browser from Xiaomi, the procedure is slightly different. Click on the menu (three bars or dots), find the Tools section or immediately add to the desktop button. Once you create such an icon, it will lead directly to the page, bypassing the browser start screen, which creates a feeling of a full application.

⚠️ Note: When you remove such a shortcut from the desktop, the history of visits in the browser is not cleared. However, if you clear the browser cache, the site may require re-authorization when you launch through the shortcut.

Web labels are particularly useful for:

• 🛒 Online stores where there is no official application.
• 📰 Newsfeeds and portals.
• 🎵 Web versions of streaming services.

Customization of widgets and fast shortcuts

MIUI 12/13/14 and HyperOS have put a lot of emphasis on widgets, and they're not only informative, they're often functional, and you can add a widget by plucking two fingers on your desktop (finger mixing) or by tapping a long tap around the empty space, and you can select "Widgets" from the menu that appears.

Here you'll find system widgets and widgets from installed applications. For example, the Music widget will allow you to control playback without opening the player, and the Notes widget will show you a to-do list. You can change the size of the widget by pulling over the edge after adding it to the screen, adjusting it to the design of your theme.

Special attention should be paid to the “capsules” or quick shortcuts in the style of iOS, which appeared in recent updates, which allow you to put on the screen lock or desktop dynamic elements that respond to user actions, and their activation often requires the installation of third-party themes or the use of the application “Themes”.

Don't overuse the number of active widgets. Each widget consumes RAM and charges the processor with data updates. If you notice that the smartphone has started to discharge or slow down faster, try removing heavy widgets with live wallpaper.

Using the “Themes” application for customization

The official Themes store is a powerful tool that is often underrated, and it allows you to change not only the wallpaper, but also the style of the labels, fonts and sounds of the system, and to change the appearance of all the icons at once, you just need to download and apply a new theme.

However, if you want to change only a specific shortcut, the themes can be limited. In some cases, you can download a separate icon package. Go to the Themes → Profile → Icons app. You can download icon packs that will replace standard images with more beautiful or minimalist ones.

Using third-party themes can lead to some new apps icons remaining standard, as the package simply does not have their images, in which case the system will automatically substitute the standard Android icon.

💡

Use the "Shack" feature in the settings to randomly change the order of the icons if you're tired of the standard grid, which will bring variety to the interface without installing new files.

Creating Action and Settings Shortcuts

Android has a hidden but very useful mechanism for creating shortcuts for specific actions within apps or system settings, such as creating a shortcut that immediately turns on “Flight Mode” or opens a specific dialogue on Telegram.

Third-party utilities are often used for this, since the standard Xiaomi interface does not always allow you to bring deep settings to the desktop. A popular solution is the Shortcut Maker application or using the built-in functionality of some launchers. When searching for phone settings, type in the name of the function, click on the gear next to the item found and select “Desktop”.

You can also use the Google Assistant or XiAI. By setting up the script (Routine), you can get a shortcut to perform a whole chain of actions: turn on the alarm clock, start news and set the brightness of the screen with a single touch.

⚠️ Note: System settings shortcuts created through third-party applications may stop working after a major firmware update, as internal paths to features may change by developers.

Examples of useful action labels:

• 🔦 Instant flashlight activation.
• 📶 Modem mode switching.
• 🧹 Cleaning the cache with one tap.

Display problems and the disappearance of labels

Xiaomi users often complain that app shortcuts disappear from the desktop on their own. It's not a bug, but a feature of aggressive memory and launcher optimization. If you delete an app but the shortcut remains, it will lead nowhere. But if the shortcut to the running app is missing, the reasons may be as follows.

The first was a launcher cache failure, and the system might not have correctly saved the changes in the desktop configuration, and the second was the enabled Hide Empty Pages feature, or the automatic sorting function, which could have moved the icon to a folder or other location, and the third, more rare, cause was the conflict of topics.

If you have safe mode, you can use safe mode to diagnose, and if you have tags in place, it means that the problem is in the third-party launcher or theme, and in most cases, it helps to simply reboot or clear the cache of the Desktop application through the settings menu.