How to enable search for numbers by Russian letters on Xiaomi: full instruction

Do you try to find a contact in the Xiaomi phone book by typing in Russian, but the search persists in finding nothing? Or does the system only give results when you type Latin characters? This problem is familiar to many owners of smartphones on MIUI — especially after updating the firmware or resetting the settings. In this article, we will discuss why this happens and how to set up a search for contacts in Russian letters on any Xiaomi device, including Redmi, POCO and Black Shark.

The reason is because of the system and keyboard settings: by default, MIUI can use English localization to search, ignoring the Cyrillic alphabet. In addition, the problem sometimes involves synchronizing contacts through Google or Mi Account, where the encoding of names is not correctly stored, and we will consider all possible solutions from basic settings to manual editing of contacts.

Why Contact Search Doesn't Work in English

Before we move on to fixing, it's important to understand the root of the problem, and in MIUI, contact searches depend on three key factors:

• 📱 System localization: If English is selected as the main language setting, the search can ignore the Cyrillic alphabet.
• 🔍 Keyboard: The built-in Xiaomi or Gboard keyboard can transmit a request in the wrong encoding.
• 📇 Contact source: Contacts synced through Google or Mi Cloud are sometimes saved with Latin transliteration (e.g., "Ivan" instead of "Ivan" or "Ivan»).

Most often, the problem arises after:

• ⚙️ Firmware updates (especially with MIUI 12 on MIUI 14/15).
• 🔄 Resetting settings to factory.
• 📱 Transfer contacts from another device (such as an iPhone or an old Samsung).

In rare cases, the Contacts app itself is to blame — in some versions of MIUI, search only works in Latin, even if all settings are correct, then resetting the application or installing an alternative contact manager will help.

Checking the system's language settings

The first thing to do is to make sure that the system has Russian as its primary language, and even if the interface is displayed in Russian, the search can use an English-language locale.

How to check:

1. Open Settings → Additional → Language and input.
2. Check that in the section "Language" the first is "Russian (Russia)".
3. Click on “Additional Settings” and make sure the region is set as “Russia”.

If the language is already Russian, but the search still doesn't work, try switching to English temporarily and then back again.

Settings → Additional → Language and input → Language → English (USA)


[Wait 10 seconds]




Come back and choose Russian (Russia)

⚠️ Note: After changing the language, some apps (such as Mi Browser or Mi Video) may reset their settings.

Setting up the keyboard for a correct search

If you use a standard Xiaomi (Mi Keyboard) or Gboard keyboard, make sure that:

• 🌍 In the keyboard settings included Russian language.
• 🔠 The input mode is set to the "Russian layout", not the transliterate.
• 🔍 The text prediction function does not interfere with the input (sometimes it automatically replaces the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet).

For Gboard:

1. Open any input field, click on the icon ⚙️ (gear on the keyboard.
2. Select "Languages" and make sure that the Russian language is included.
3. In the section "Text input" disable "Auto-Replacement" and "Auto-correction".

For Mi Keyboard:

1. Go to Settings → Additional → Language and Enter → Current Keyboard.
2. Turn on Russian and turn off "Transliteration" in additional settings.

Make sure that the Russian layout is selected

Disable auto-replacement and transliteration

Restart the Contacts app

Try to enter the request manually (without predictions)

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Manual editing of contacts for search in Cyrillic

If the problem is not the settings, but the contacts themselves, they will have to be edited, and often the names are saved in the transliterate (for example, "Sasha" instead of "Sasha"), and the search in Cyrillic does not work.

How to fix it:

1. Open the Contacts app.
2. Find contact via search in Latin (if any).
3. Press the contact. → «Edit».
4. Make sure the name is written in Cyrillic (e.g., "Ivan Petrov" and not "Ivan Petrov").
5. Save the changes.

If there are many contacts, you can use the export / import:

1. Export contacts to.vcf via Settings → Contact Management → Export.
2. Open the file on your computer and replace all Latin names with Cyrillic (you can use Excel or Notepad++).
3. Import the edited file back.

⚠️ Note: When importing contacts, do not tick “Add only new” – otherwise old records will not be updated.

Resetting the settings of the “Contacts” application

If previous methods didn’t work, try resetting the Contacts app settings.This won’t delete the contacts themselves, but will reset search options and cache.

Instructions:

1. Go to Settings → Applications → Application Management.
2. Find “Contacts” (or “Contacts”) and open it.
3. Press "Storage» → «Clear the cache».
4. Then click on “Reset settings” (or “Delete data”, but this will remove all the settings of the application).
5. Reboot your smartphone.

Once reset, try to search again. If the problem was in the cache or temporary files, it should disappear.

💡

Before resetting the Contacts app, back up your contacts through Settings → Contact Management → Backup. This will prevent accidental data loss.

Installation of an alternative contact manager

If the built-in Contacts app stubbornly refuses to search Cyrillic, you can use third-party solutions, for example:

• 📱 Google Contacts – Google’s official app with reliable search.
• 🔍 Truecaller not only finds contacts by name, but also identifies numbers.
• 📇 Simple Contacts – a lightweight application with a minimalist interface.

How to install and configure:

1. Download the app from Google Play.
2. At the first start, allow access to contacts.
3. In the application settings, select Russian language.
4. Import contacts from the system (usually offered automatically).

The advantage of third-party apps is that they are often updated and do not depend on MIUI bugs. For example, Google Contacts is guaranteed to support Cyrillic search, as it uses server-side query processing.

Additional ways to solve the problem

If none of these methods worked, try these alternatives:

• 🔄 Firmware Update: Check for updates MIUI In Settings → The phone. → System updates: Newer versions often fix search bugs.
• 📱 Reset all settings: The last method is resetting to factory settings (don’t forget to make a backup!).
• 🛠️ Manual editing of the contact database: For advanced users, you can connect to the phone through the phone ADB and fix the encoding of names in the database (requires root rights).

If the problem has occurred after the MIUI update, you can try to roll back to the previous firmware version.

1. Download the old version of MIUI for your model from en.miui.com.
2. Go to Settings → About Phone → MIUI version and tap the MIUI logo 10 times to enable Developer Mode.
3. Return to Settings → Additional → For developers and enable “Debugging by USB”.
4. Connect your phone to your PC and run the old version through the Mi Flash Tool.

⚠️ Attention: Firmware rollbacks can cause data loss and lock the bootloader. Do this only if you are confident in your actions!

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If the search still doesn't work, the problem could be a hardware fault in the memory module or a file system error, in which case only the service center will help.

FAQ: Frequent questions about finding contacts on Xiaomi