How to take a full-screen contact photo on Xiaomi: a step-by-step guide

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones often face an annoying problem: when a call is in, a picture of a subscriber either does not appear at all or appears as a small, barely noticeable circle. This is especially true for users who want to personalize their interface and instantly recognize the caller. Standard settings MIUI and the new shell HyperOS sometimes hide the desired options or work incorrectly due to aggressive battery optimization.

There are several ways to do this, from simple contact synchronization to third-party caller apps. Caller ID is not just an aesthetic whim, but also an important security feature to avoid picking up the phone from unwanted numbers. In this article, we will look at all the nuances of the settings.

Before you start to do complex manipulations, it's worth checking the basic settings of the gallery and the phone book, and often the problem is that the image just wasn't tied to a specific number in the device's memory, not the system bug. Let's figure out how to fix this.

Basic image setting in the phone book

The very first and obvious step is to make sure that the photo is added to the contact card at all and saved in the correct format. Android requires that the image be square or can be trimmed to square without losing important details. If you upload a vertical photo, the phone will automatically crop it up, which can lead to an undesirable result.

To add a photo, open the standard Contacts or Phone app. Find the right subscriber in the list and click on the edit button (usually a pencil or three dots). In the menu that opens, select the option to add an image. Here, it is important to select a file from the gallery, not take a picture with a camera on the fly, since in the gallery you have the option to pre-fraud the photo.

Once you pick a photo, the system will suggest that you cut it, make sure that the person's face is in the center of the frame. The square trimming is the key, and if you ignore that step, the photo may stretch or shift to the side when you call.

⚠️ Note: If you sync contacts through Google, the photo may not show up immediately. Try going to Google account settings and force you to update your contacts sync.

Some users prefer to use third-party contact managers that have more flexible display settings. However, standard Xiaomi tools usually cope with this task if you adjust the permissions correctly. Check if the Phone application has access to the device memory, otherwise it will simply not be able to “see” the image you uploaded.

Using the Themes app to configure Caller ID

There's a powerful customization tool in the MIUI and HyperOS shell, the Themes app, which is where you can change the way you display your incoming call on a global scale. The standard call interface may not support the default full-screen photo, but third-party themes often add this feature.

Go to the Themes app and search for "Full screen caller" or "Caller ID." You'll see hundreds of design options. You want themes that change the incoming call screen, not just desktop icons. When choosing a theme, look at the screenshots in the description, which should show how the photo is displayed.

After you install the theme, go to the user profile (the person icon in the lower right corner) and select the Customize the theme section, where you can configure in detail which interface elements will be changed, and make sure that the switch opposite to the Incoming Call item is activated.

It's important to understand that using a theme changes the visual style of the entire system. If you like your current design but don't like the call screen, try to find a theme that changes only that element. The themes often say "Lockscreen," "Icons," "Dialer." You want Dialer or Incoming Call.

If the photo is still small after applying the theme, try clearing the theme app cache. Go to Settings → Apps → All Apps → Themes → Clean. This action will reset possible caching errors that prevent the graphics from being displayed correctly.

Configure with Google Contacts and Synchronization

Often, the problem of displaying photos to the full screen is solved by switching to using Google Contacts instead of the local phone book Xiaomi. Google services are better optimized for multimedia content and have fewer bugs when displaying high-resolution images.

To navigate, open the Contacts app, click three points in the corner and select Settings. Find "Default Contacts to Create New" and select your Google account. All new contacts will be saved in the cloud, and old ones can be moved through the Import/Export function.

Google Contacts allows you to upload higher quality images, and they automatically pull up photos from social networks and Gmail profiles if they are installed there, eliminating the need to manually search and upload pictures for each number.

However, there is a caveat: if a subscriber has multiple numbers written in different formats (for example, +7 and 8), Google may not recognize them as one contact and show the photos. In this case, you need to manually combine duplicates. Open the contact, click the menu and choose Unite with another.

⚠️ Note: When switching to Google Contacts, old local records may disappear from view if sync is not performed. Always back up before migrating data.

Using cloud storage ensures that if you lose or replace your phone, all your settings and contact photos will be saved. Local storage on Xiaomi is at risk of data loss when you reset or flash your device.

Third-party applications for full-screen photo

If Xiaomi’s regular tools don’t meet your needs, the market offers a lot of specialized applications that completely replace the standard call screen, providing advanced functionality: recording conversations, blocking spam and, of course, beautiful full-screen photos.

One of the most popular solutions is the Truecaller app or Should I Answer, which not only defines numbers, but also has its own avatar databases, but for maximum control, it is better to use specialized "callers" such as "Full Screen Caller ID" or "Drupe".

Once you install this application, the system will request a number of critical permissions, you will need to give access to your phone, contacts, microphone and, most importantly, allow the display over other windows, without the last item, the application will not be able to intercept the incoming call and show its design.

When using third-party calls, you should consider resource consumption. Some of them can run in the background all the time, which increases battery consumption. If you want autonomy, choose the lightest options without unnecessary animations.

Solving Permits and Access Issues

The most common reason why photos don’t show up on the full screen is because the Phone or Contacts app doesn’t have the necessary permissions. MIUI is known for its aggressive security policy, which blocks many background processes by default.

Go to Settings → Applications → All apps. Find the Phone app (or the one you use to make calls) and Go to App Permissions, where you should activate access to Contacts, Memory (or Files and Media) and Phone.

Pay special attention to Autostart. If it is turned off, the system may not start the process of displaying photos at the right time, and also in the Battery menu for this application, you should select the No Limits mode.

Another important parameter is storage access. Without it, the app can't physically read the image file. In newer versions of Android, it's called Photo and Video or Music and Audio. Make sure all switches are green.

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If you still can’t see the photo after all the permissions are issued, try to delete and re-install updates for the Phone system application through the Google Play Store.

Sometimes it helps to reset the settings of the call app itself. In the app menu, find the Clean button and select Clear Everything. This will return the call settings to the factory settings, but it will not delete your contacts. After that, you will need to reset the permissions you need.

Specifics of work in the mode of video calls

Video calls are worth mentioning separately: If you use WhatsApp, Telegram, Viber or FaceTime (on your iPhone), the settings of the Xiaomi system gallery do not affect them. In instant messengers, a photo is taken from the user profile inside the application itself.

To make a picture appear beautifully in messengers, you need to upload the avatar directly to the contact profile inside this messenger, for example, on WhatsApp you need to open a chat with a person, click on the name and select "Change".

The system phone book and messengers work in isolation, and the integration between them is limited, so if you set up a photo in your phone's contacts, don't be surprised that it didn't automatically appear on WhatsApp.

For video calls through SIM-ViLTE is the same as for regular voice calls, and it's a system photo from the phone book, and if the operator has video calling enabled, you'll see the photo that you've asked in your Xiaomi contacts when you call in.

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The settings of displaying photos in system contacts are not automatically synchronized with messengers like WhatsApp and Telegram.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)