How to Change the Bottom Buttons on Xiaomi: Full Touch Bar and Physical Keysets

The bottom panel of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones is not just a set of buttons for navigation, but a flexible tool that can be adapted to your needs. Many users do not even suspect that the standard Back, Home and Recent can not only be moved, but also completely replaced with gestures, turn off vibrations or assign new functions to them – from calling the voice assistant to quickly start the camera. In this article, we will analyze all the available ways to customize the bottom panel, including hidden settings for advanced users.

Xiaomi devices have both touch buttons (on the screen) and physical buttons (on some models like the Redmi Note 8 Pro or POCO F1), and the methods of setting them are radically different: for touch, you use the system menu, and for physical ones you may need to edit configuration files or even install custom firmware. We will consider both options, and also tell you how to return the standard settings if something goes wrong.

Types of lower buttons on Xiaomi: touch vs physical

Before you start setting up, it is important to determine what type of buttons are used in your device, which will affect the options available and how to change them.

Touch buttons (onscreen) are virtual keys displayed on the screen, and they are present on most modern models (Xiaomi 13, Redmi Note 12, POCO X5). Their main advantage is the flexibility of the setting: you can change the order, replace with gestures or hide altogether.

Physical buttons are hardware keys under the screen (or sideways, as on the POCO F1), found on older or budget models (Redmi 7A, Mi A2), and are limited to settings: you can usually only turn off the backlight or reassign a long press. Deep customization requires root rights.

• 📱 Touch buttons: configured through Settings → Display, support gestures, you can change the order and appearance.
• 🔧 Physical buttons: limited settings in the standard menu, advanced features required ADB root.
• ⚡ Hybrid solutions: some models (e.g, POCO X3 Pro) allows you to choose between touch buttons and gestures.

How to change the order of touch buttons on Xiaomi

The simplest setting is to change the virtual keys. Xiaomi uses the default "Back Home Recent" order, but you can change it to "Recent Home Back" (as on Samsung) or remove the "Recent" button altogether.

The instructions are valid for MIUI 12/13/14 devices (including HyperOS):

1. Open the Settings → Display.
2. Select Full-screen Display → Full-screen Display Style.
3. Slip the navigation buttons (if gestures are active, switch to the buttons first).
4. In the button order section, select the desired option: Standard (Back – Home – Recent) Reverse (Recent – Home – Back) Only Home (Hides side buttons)

Some models (e.g. Redmi Note 11) have an optional Floating button mode, which displays on top of the interface and can move around the screen. To activate it, select Floating Navigation Bar from the Full Screen Style menu.

Replacing touch buttons with gestures: pros and cons

With the release of MIUI 10, Xiaomi has added gesture navigation support that completely replaces the bottom bar. Instead of pressing buttons, you use swipes from the edge of the screen, which saves space on the display and speeds up interaction, but requires addiction.

To enable gestures:

1. Go to Settings → Display → Full-screen display.
2. Select MIUI Gestures or Android Gestures (depending on the firmware version).
3. Check out the management tips: Swipe up to home. Swipe up and hold are recent apps. Swipe left or right back.

The main drawback of gestures is that some apps (especially games) can conflict with swipes around the edges of the screen, in which case you can turn off gestures for specific programs:

1. In the gesture menu, tap the exceptions.
2. Add apps where swipes should work as usual (like PUBG Mobile or Genshin Impact).

Setting up vibration and highlighting buttons

Touch buttons on Xiaomi are vibrating by default when pressed, and on some models (Redmi K40, POCO F3) are illuminated in the dark, these parameters can be adjusted or completely turned off.

To change the vibration:

1. Open the Settings. → Sound and vibration.
2. Go to Vibration when pressed.
3. Turn off the slider next to the Navigation buttons or select a different vibration style (e.g., Short instead of Standard).

To adjust the lighting:

1. Go to Settings → Display → Button highlighting (on some models, the path may differ).
2. Select mode: Always on, buttons glow all the time. Only in the dark, activated by the light sensor. Disabled, backlights not working.

⚠️ Attention: On devices with AMOLED-With screens (such as the Xiaomi 12 Pro), constant button lighting can cause pixels to burn out. It is recommended to use only in the dark or completely turn off the backlight.

Reassign physical buttons (for advanced users)

If your Xiaomi is equipped with physical buttons (for example, Redmi 5 Plus or POCO F1), their functions can only be changed with special tools. Standard MIUI settings allow you to only assign a long-press action (for example, launching a voice assistant).

• 🔓 Root rights – to edit system keylayout files.
• 🖥️ ADB — to send commands without root (limited options).
• 📱 Apps like Button Mapper or xposed framework for older versions of Android).

An example of reassigning the back button to start the camera through ADB:

adb shell settings put secure sysui_key_113 132

Where 113 is the Back key and 132 is the Camera Launch action code, and the full list of codes can be found in the Android documentation (KeyEvent).

⚠️ Warning: Incorrectly reassigning physical buttons may result in the inability to unlock the screen or access settings.Before experimenting, back up through Settings → System system → Backup.

Hidden functions of the lower panel: what else can be done

In addition to the standard settings, MIUI has several hidden options for working with the bottom panel, and their activation requires knowledge of special commands or the use of third-party utilities.

1. Changes in button transparency

On devices with MIUI 12+, you can make buttons translucent so that they don't distract from the content.

1. Activate Developer Mode (7 times tap the MIUI version in Settings → About Phone).
2. Back to Settings → Additionally. → For developers.
3. Find the navigation bar transparency option and adjust the slider.

2. Adding additional buttons

Using the NavBar Apps app (root required), you can add new keys to the panel, for example:

• 🔍 Quick Search Launch.
• 📁 Opening of the file manager.
• 🔋 Switching energy-saving regimes.

3. Press animation

Some firmware (e.g. Xiaomi.eu) have alternative animations for buttons available. To enable them, use the command:

adb shell settings put global animation_button_style 1

Where 1 is the animation style (values from 0 to 3 are available).

💡

If the bottom bar starts to glitches after the changes (buttons do not respond or disappear), reset the settings through Settings → System → Resetting → Reset interface settings. This will return the standard view without losing data.

Restore standard button settings

If you've been experimenting with the settings, the bottom panel has stopped working properly, there are a number of ways to get things back to normal, depending on what kind of changes you've made.

1. Reset via MIUI settings

The easiest way is to reset the interface settings:

1. Open the Settings. → The phone.
2. Slip the MIUI version 7 times to activate the Developer Mode.
3. Back to Settings → Additionally. → For developers.
4. Find Reset interface settings and confirm the action.

2.Recovery through ADB

If you changed the button settings through ADB, return the standard values with the command:

adb shell settings delete secure sysui_nav_bar

3. Flashing through Fastboot

In extreme cases (for example, if the phone does not respond to the presses after editing the keylayout), you may need to reflash the device.

1. Download the official firmware for your model from the MIUI Download website.
2. Connect your phone to your PC in Fastboot mode (clip Volume Down + Power when the device is off).
3. Run the firmware script (flash_all.bat Windows).

💡

Before resetting your settings or firmware, be sure to back up your data through Settings → System → Backup or Mi Cloud.

FAQ: Frequent questions about setting buttons on Xiaomi