Smartphones are no longer just call devices, but a powerful tool for personalization and visual identification. When you get a call from a loved one or an important business partner, it’s much more enjoyable to see their face on the screen, not just a set of numbers or a standard grey icon. Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO devices often encounter nuances of the MIUI operating system or the new HyperOS, which are different from pure Android, which raises questions in the basic setting.
While the process of installing an image may seem trivial, there are several levels of synchronization in the Chinese manufacturer’s ecosystem that affect whether only the owner of the phone or the caller sees the image. Incorrectly configuring cloud services often leads to the fact that after a reset or change of device, the entire visual phone book disappears, which is why it is important to understand the mechanisms of the contact book and understand the difference between local storage and cloud services.
In this article, we will take a closer look at all the ways you can add avatars, from standard tools to advanced synchronization methods through Google and Mi Account accounts. You will learn how to avoid duplication of records and why a photo may not be displayed even if you have installed it.
Image Preparation and Format Requirements
Before you go to the technical actions in the menu of the smartphone, you need to prepare the image file. Android operating system, which is built on the shell MIUI, is quite democratic to file formats, but for the correct display in the call circle, it is better to use certain parameters. The ideal option is a square image with a resolution of at least 500x500 pixels, which will ensure the clarity of the picture on screens with high PPI.
The system automatically crops up the uploaded photo, cutting the edges to fit into a circular area. If you upload a horizontal landscape shot, the person's face may be out of sight. It is recommended that you edit the photo in any graphics editor in advance, focusing on the central part where the face is located, and this will eliminate the need to repeatedly move the selection frame inside the phone interface.
⚠️ Warning: Avoid using extremely high-resolution files (e.g., 50MP professional cameras) and the system can process this image for a long time when an incoming call is made, which will delay the display of the photo or even freeze the lock screen for a short time.
As for formats, the most versatile and lightweight is JPG or JPEG. The PNG format is also supported and allows for a transparent background that can look stylish in a dark interface theme. However, it's worth remembering that transparency files can weigh more, and some older versions of the phone book can render them with artifacts. The optimal balance between quality and performance is a compressed medium-sized image.
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Use photo compression apps before downloading if your gallery is crowded. Reducing the file size to 200-300 KB won’t affect the visual quality of the avatar in contacts, but it will save space in the cloud.
Installation of an avatar through the standard Contacts app
The fastest and most obvious way to add or change a photo is to use an embedded app, usually called Contacts or Phone, which is deeply integrated into the system on Xiaomi smartphones, but has its own interface features. To start, open the app and find the right subscriber on the list. If the contact hasn't been created, click the add a new record button, usually located in the lower right corner or as a floating button with a plus sign.
Once you open the subscriber card, you'll see a circular area for the avatar, often with a camera icon or a human silhouette. Clicking on that area will trigger the system menu to select the image source. You'll be prompted to take a picture right now, select a file from the gallery or download from the cloud. Choosing the Gallery option will open up access to all the albums on the device, where you can find the pre-prepared photo.
- 📸 Click on the camera icon in your contact profile to call the action menu.
- 🖼️ Select the source of the image: built-in memory, SD-map.
- ✂️ Adjust the framing area by moving and scaling the image with your fingers.
- 💾 Click the “Save” button or the tick in the corner of the screen to fix changes.
The important thing is to choose where to save the contact when it is created: SIM-Map, Google account, Mi Account or local phone storage. SIM-The card has a very limited amount of memory and often does not support storing photos at all, or allows you to download only one standard image to all contacts at once.
☑️ Pre-conservation checks
Sync with Google and Mi Account
To ensure that installed photos are not lost when you lose your phone, flash or buy a new device, it is critical to use cloud synchronization. Xiaomi’s ecosystem has two main services: its own Mi Cloud and standard Google Contacts. Google’s services are more important and reliable in the long run, since they are universal for any Android platform and do not depend on regional restrictions that sometimes arise from Chinese manufacturers.
When you keep in touch with a photo in a Google account, the image is uploaded to the company's servers and tied to your phone number and email address, which means that if someone else saves your number to their phone and they also have Google sync, they automatically see your photo, even if you didn't send them the file manually, which creates a single global database of avatars that is updated in real time.
Sync settings in MIUI require attention to detail. Go to your phone's settings, search for Accounts and Sync, and select Google. Make sure the switch opposite Contacts is active. Similar steps need to be done for your Mi Account if you plan to use the Xiaomi cloud. However, be careful: synchronizing two clouds at the same time can lead to duplicate records when the same person is displayed twice.
| Parameter | Google Contacts | Mi Cloud | Phone memory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photo preservation | Yes (high quality) | Yes. | Yes. |
| Access from other devices | Everywhere (Android, iOS, Web) | Only Xiaomi/Web | No (just this phone) |
| Risk of data loss | Minimum | Medium. | High (on discharge) |
| Visibility to others | High (global base) | Low (Xiaomi only) | Absent. |
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Using a Google account to store your photos is an industry standard that ensures that your data is as compatible and secure as possible when you change your smartphone.
Configure the display and sorting of contacts
Sometimes a photo is uploaded and synced, but a blank silhouette is displayed on the call screen or in the contact list. This may be due to the display settings in the phone book app itself. MIUI has a filtering feature that can hide contacts without numbers or contacts from certain sources. Check the display settings by clicking on three dots or a gear in the Contacts app.
In the settings menu, look for Contact Display or Contact Filter. Make sure you tick All Contacts or select the exact accounts (Google, Mi, Phone) where your photos are stored. If you select Contact Numbers Only, that's fine, but if you select a particular account that doesn't have a photo, the system won't pull it from another source, even if the numbers match.
Another common problem is image caching. The system can store smaller copies of avatars to quickly load the list. If you updated a person's photo and you have an old version on your list, try clearing the cache of the Contacts app. To do this, go to Settings → Apps → All Apps → Memory → Contacts and click Clear Cache. It is important not to confuse this with clearing the data, so as not to delete the numbers themselves.
Why can the photo be blurry?
Solving Duplicate Recording Problems
One of the most annoying problems when setting up a phone book on Xiaomi is the appearance of takeovers. You can see the same person twice: once with a photo, another without, or with different numbers. This is because the phone automatically tries to combine contacts from different sources (SIM, Google, Telegram, WhatsApp, Mi Cloud), but the algorithm sometimes fails.
To solve this problem, the Contacts app has a built-in unification tool, which is usually available through the settings menu or when editing a contact (an icon with a chain or a association symbol), and the system will ask you to find similar entries and combine them into one card, as a result, all the numbers and photos will be collected in one profile, and visual debris will disappear.
If auto-unification doesn't work, you'll have to manually. Open a duplicate contact, select the deletion option, and confirm the action. Make sure you delete the duplicate, not the main entry. Once the list is cleared, it's recommended that you force your Google account to sync so that the changes apply across all devices.
- 🔍 Open the Contacts app and go to the Control menu.
- 🔗 Select the “Contacts Unite” or “Contact Management” function».
- ✅ Confirm the merger of the system's proposed pairs of records.
- 🗑️ Manually remove the remaining duplicates if the automation missed them.
⚠️ Note: Before mass deletion or contact combinations, we strongly advise you to back up your contacts.Export your contacts to a.vcf file through your application settings and save it to your computer or cloud file storage.
Personalization for callers and visible profiles
Many users ask, “How do I get my picture seen by others when I call them?” Installing a picture in a phone book on your Xiaomi changes the image just for you. In order for your photo to be displayed to other people, you need to upload it to your Google Account profile.
To do this, open your phone settings, click on your avatar at the top of the menu (or go to Google Account Management), where you can upload a new profile photo. Once you do that, it syncs with Google servers. People who have your number on their contacts and synced with Google will see your new photo automatically. This works in the opposite direction: you will see photos of those who also uploaded them to their Google profile.
It's worth noting the difference between a photo of a contact and a photo in messengers: WhatsApp, Telegram or Viber photos are uploaded from their own databases, ignoring the system phone book, but if the caller does not have a messenger installed or calls through a regular phone. GSM-The network, the system will address the local contact database or Google profile, so having a current photo on Google is the basic standard of digital identity.