How to Change the App Icon on Xiaomi: The Complete Guide

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones often face the desire to personalize their device’s interface. The standard appearance of a MIUI or HyperOS shell can seem boring, and the monotony of standard icons quickly tires. Fortunately, Android provides flexible tools to change the visual style, allowing you to turn the lock screen into a unique work of digital art. Changing icons is the easiest and safest way to customize, without requiring deep technical knowledge.

There are several proven methods to replace standard graphics with new ones, such as using a built-in theme store, installing a third-party launcher, or using special widgets to create unique shortcuts, each with its own features, advantages, and limitations, which we will discuss in detail in this article, and the specific method you choose depends on your version of the firmware and your personal design preferences.

It's important to understand that deep customization can affect the performance of a device if you use too heavy graphic elements. However, correctly replacing static icons has little impact on battery autonomy or processor speed. Personalization of the interface makes interaction with a smartphone more enjoyable and convenient, allowing you to distinguish frequently used programs among many others.

Using the built-in Themes Store to Change Icons

The most obvious and integrated way to change the look is to use the official Theme app. In Xiaomi shells, this tool has the widest functionality, allowing you to change not only wallpaper, but also the styles of system icons, notification curtain and lock screen. To start, you need to launch an application that usually has an icon with a brush on a white background.

Inside the store, there's a huge catalog of free and paid designs. Navigation allows you to sort themes by popularity, novelty or rating. If you're only interested in graphic elements of apps, go to the bottom menu and select the Profile tab or search for "Icons." Here you can find sets that replace standard squares and circles with unique drawings that suit your taste.

• 🎨 Open the Topics app and go to Profiles to search for icon sets.
• 🔍 Use the search bar by entering keywords like “Minimal”, “Neon” or “iOS style” to quickly find a style.
• ⬇️ After selecting your favorite theme, click Download and then Apply.
• 🔄 If the theme is paid, the system will offer to watch an advertisement or buy a package of coins to unlock.

It is worth noting that using a third-party theme can change not only icons, but also the appearance of the settings menu or control panel. Flexibility allows you to apply them selectively: you can set the design only for icons, leaving the wallpaper and font as standard. To do this, after loading the theme in the preview window, click on the name of the item (for example, "Wallpaper" or "Bads") and uncheck the components that you do not plan to change.

⚠️ Note: Some themes from third-party regions may contain advertisements or incorrectly appear on global firmware versions.

After the changes are applied, the system will automatically redraw the desktop, and if you notice that the icons haven’t changed for some applications, it means that the theme writer hasn’t rendered the graphics for those specific programs, in which case they will remain in the standard MIUI style, which can create a visual imbalance on the screen.

Installation of third-party launchers for full customization

If the store’s built-in capabilities seem limited to you, a third-party launcher is a great solution. Launcher is a program that completely replaces the standard desktop and app menu. The most popular solutions in the Android ecosystem are Nova Launcher, Lawnchair and Smart Launcher. These applications provide unprecedented control over every pixel on the screen.

Once you install the launcher from Google Play and assign it to the default, you'll have access to advanced look settings. Unlike the standard shell, you can change the size of the grid, the indentations between icons, the animation of opening folders and, of course, the shortcut images themselves. You can assign a customized picture for each individual application, even if it's not part of the overall theme package.

To change the icon of a particular application in most launchers, you need to pinch your finger on the icon and select Change or Edit. A gallery will open where you can select any image from your phone's memory or use the built-in character library, which allows you to create a truly unique interface, where, for example, messengers will look like retro phone buttons and browsers - like space gateways.

However, using third-party desktops on Xiaomi devices can have its nuances: MIUI battery optimization sometimes aggressively closes the background processes, which can lead to a launcher reset to a standard one after rebooting. To avoid this, you need to manually configure the permissions for the installed launcher, preventing the system from saving it.

A key advantage of third-party launchers is independence from system updates. Even if Xiaomi changes the theme store policy, third-party apps will continue to work steadily. Using a third-party launcher is the only way to gain full control of the desktop grid and transition animations.

Creating custom shortcuts through widgets

There is another elegant way to change the visual style of applications without touching system files or installing heavy launchers, which is to create special shortcuts using widgets, ideal for those who want to change the appearance of only a few key applications, keeping the rest of the system in factory design.

To implement this method, you will need an app to create widgets, such as Shortcut Maker or X Icon Changer. The principle of operation is simple: the program creates a new shortcut on the desktop that leads to the same application, but has the image and name you choose, the standard icon remains in the application menu, but on the home screen flaunts a new design.

• 📲 Download the app to create shortcuts from the official app store.
• 🖼️ Select the application you want to change the icon for from the list offered.
• 🎨 Download the desired image from the gallery or select the background color for the text.
• 📝 If necessary, change the name of the label to any other.

Once you create that shortcut, it will appear on your desktop, and you can drag and drop it, put it in folders, or delete it like a regular widget, and that gives you a lot of creative freedom: you can create themed folders where all the applications look like the interface elements of a spaceship or like the buttons of an old button phone.

⚠️ Note: When you remove the shortcut creator app, the shortcuts themselves may stop working.

The peculiarity of this method is that notifications on such shortcuts may not appear correctly or at all, since the system perceives them as static widgets, rather than dynamic application shortcuts. Therefore, for instant messengers and social networks, where the counter of unread messages is important, this method may be less convenient.

Configure icon packages in MIUI and HyperOS

MIUI shells and the new HyperOS have a built-in feature that allows you to apply icon packages separately from common themes.This is convenient when you like your current design theme, but want to refresh the desktop view. Access to these settings can vary depending on the system version and region.

To find these settings, go to the Settings menu, then select Wallpaper and Personalization (or simply Themes). In some versions of the firmware, there is a separate Icon item in the main settings of the system, where you can switch between the classic view, round icons (in the style of Android 12+) or previously downloaded sets.

In recent versions of HyperOS, you can fine-tune the shape of icons, so you can adjust the angles to make them more square, or you can turn them into a perfect circle, called adaptive icons, and you can bring the heterogeneous style of applications to a common denominator.

And it's also worth mentioning the Second Space feature, which, if you use this mode to separate work and personal life, the themes and icons can be customized independently, allowing you to have a rigorous, minimalist interface in your work profile and a bright, rich interface in your personal, using the same theme at the system level, but with different application settings.

Solving problems with the use of themes and icons

Customization is not always smooth, and users may find themselves in a situation where, after installing the theme, icons become white squares, disappear altogether, or display artifacts, most often due to a system cache or conflict of versions of the shell components.

The first step in diagnosis should always be to clean the cache, the accumulated temporary files may contain old graphic elements that the system continues to use instead of new ones, and problems can arise when using "cracked" versions of the store of those or themes downloaded from unverified sources.

If standard methods don't work, you can try resetting the theme to factory settings, and in the Themes app, you need to go to the user profile (usually the icon of the person in the corner) and select Reset theme or Classic, which will return all graphic elements to their original state, after which you can try to apply the desired theme again.

• 🗑️ Clear the cache of the “Themes” and “System” application UI» via application settings.
• 🔄 Make sure the store version is relevant and corresponds to the region of the account.
• 🚫 Remove recently installed topics that may conflict with current.
• 📱 Reboot your smartphone to Safe Mode to eliminate the impact of third-party launchers.

In rare cases, the problem is that system font files or icons are damaged after a failed firmware update, which may require more in-depth intervention, including resetting to factory settings, but this is an extreme measure that should be resorted to only after all other options have been exhausted.

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Preserve original themes. Before experimenting with a variety of themes, take a screenshot or write down the names of standard themes for your region to quickly return to the original form.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions about Changing Icons

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It is safest to change icons through the official theme store or create separate shortcuts, as this does not require deep intervention in the system.