How to return colors: turn off black and white mode on Xiaomi Redmi Note 7

Xiaomi smartphone owners often face a situation where the screen of the device suddenly loses color saturation and becomes like a newspaper page. It is not a matrix breakage or a sign of a gadget failure. Most often, this behavior is caused by the randomly activated function “Read Mode” or “Night Mode.” The Redmi Note 7 model is characterized by a MIUI shell, in which the display settings are placed in a separate menu, but sometimes they are hidden in advanced options.

It only takes a few minutes to get your color back if you know where to click. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at all the possible causes of monochrome image on your Xiaomi. We’ll go from standard brightness settings to hidden engineering menus that can affect image output. Careful follow-up will help you quickly restore visual comfort.

Sometimes users activate these features themselves to save battery power or reduce eye strain, and then forget about it. Other times, a failure may occur after a firmware update. Regardless of the cause, the algorithm for correcting the problem remains similar. The main thing is not to panic and consistently check the menu items described below.

Checking the basic brightness settings and reading mode

The most common reason for fading is the standard display settings menu. The MIUI shell offers multiple color profiles, and one of them can be monochrome. First, you need to unlock your smartphone and go to the main settings menu. Find the section that controls the screen, usually called "Screen."

Within this menu, look at the brightness slider. If it's set to a minimum, the colors may appear pale. However, if it's a software constraint, you need to find Read Mode, which is the one that most often turns the interface into shades of gray. Make sure the switch opposite this function is in the off position.

If the standard reading mode is off but the colors are not back, check the advanced settings. In some versions of the firmware for the Redmi Note 7, there is a separate menu to adjust the color profile, where you can choose the "Standard", "Saturated" or "Classic" mode, choosing the "Standard" or "Saturated" mode is guaranteed to return the full color palette to the screen of your device.

⚠️ Warning: Don't confuse reading mode with regular night lighting.Read mode makes the screen black and white, and night mode just adds a warm yellow filter while retaining colors.

After the settings change, the system may need to be confirmed or blink briefly, which is a normal interface reaction to changing the color profile. If after switching all the tumblers, the image remains gray, move to the next section, where we will look at the deeper settings of the system.

Eliminating Color Inversion and Special Opportunities

If simple display settings didn't work, the problem may be in the feature section, which is designed for visually impaired people, but it's easy to get there by accident, like when cleaning the screen or in your pocket, and it's called Color Inversion, and it completely changes the color scheme of the interface to the opposite, which is often perceived as black and white.

To get to the right place, follow the path: Settings → Advanced settings → Special. features. In the list that opens, look for the “Vision” tab or immediately for the “Color Inversion” item. If the switch is active, the system will display black as white and white as black, or turn everything into shades of gray, depending on the version of MIUI.

Also in this section, you should check the Monochrome Mode settings if you have one, and there was an error on older firmware versions for Redmi Note 7 when the mode activated on its own after resetting.

When you turn off the inversion, the screen can become unreadable for a second and then return to normal, because the video driver is being rebuilt, and if the colors haven't returned after you turn off all the features in the "Special Opportunities" section, it may be that third-party applications or energy saving are the problem.

Power saving and night mode settings

Android and the MIUI have aggressive energy-saving algorithms. In an attempt to extend the battery life, a smartphone can automatically switch to limited color reproduction mode, especially for the Redmi Note 7, which came out a few years ago and whose battery may have lost some capacity over time.

Check the battery settings. Go to Settings → Battery and Performance. Here you can activate Ultra or Energy Saving mode, which force you to change the subject to dark and remove the redundant colors. Try switching the profile to Balanced or Performance to see if the picture changes.

The special attention deserves "Night Mode." Unlike reading mode, it works on a schedule. If you have a set time to turn on, for example, from 22:00 to 07:00, the screen will dim and change colors at this time. Make sure that the display settings "Night Mode" is turned off or its schedule does not coincide with the current time.

Sometimes it helps to restart the device completely. Reboot resets temporary files and stops processes that may have "hang" in saving mode. Press the power button and select "Switch off," wait 10 seconds and turn on the phone again.

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If the power saving mode is activated by itself, check to see if the Ultra-Saving mode is activated in the notification curtain, which is often activated by a random touch when unlocked.

Diagnostics through engineering menu and calibration

For more advanced users, you can check the status of the display through the engineering menu, which is a hidden part of the system, designed for testing equipment, and you can get to Xiaomi through the phone app.

Type in the dial box code ##6484##. The CIT menu will open. Here you need to find a test associated with the display, usually called Display or Color Test. When you run it, you will see colored bars. If at this stage the colors are bright and saturated, then the matrix is good, and the problem is exactly the software failure.

You can calibrate it from the same menu, and if you see one of the colors (e.g., red or blue) not showing correctly even in the test, it can indicate that the crystals of the screen are degrading, but most often the problem is solved by resetting the settings through this menu or simply exiting it with the changes saved.

Be careful when using the engineering menu. Don't change the values you're not sure about, especially those that are about touchscreen calibration or proximity sensors, which can cause the phone to malfunction as a whole.

The impact of third-party applications and design themes

You can't rule out the possibility that black and white is imposed by third-party software, that book-reading apps, night-mode browsers, or launchers can take over the display, and that you might have recently installed new themes or programs to protect your eyes.

Check the "Themes" section in the settings. If you have a third-party theme that's monochrome, it will dictate its terms of display. Go back to the standard Classic or Default theme to rule out this factor. Changing the theme often solves the problem instantly if it was the cause.

Also worth checking are running apps. Some "optimizers" or "memory cleaners" have eye protection features that work on top of all windows. Go to Settings → Applications → Application Management and see which programs have permission on "Above Other Windows." Turn off this permission for suspicious utilities.

If you use e-book reading apps, make sure that their internal settings don’t tick “E-Ink Mode” or “Black and White”—these settings only apply within the app, but can sometimes stick to the entire screen when you switch tasks.

⚠️ Note: When removing suspicious applications, do not remove system components with the name System. UI», «Settings" or «MIUI», Even if they seem strange to you, it will cause the phone to fail.

Resetting settings as a last resort solution

If none of the previous methods worked, the radical but effective method is a complete factory reset, which will delete all your data, contacts and photos, so be sure to back up important files before starting the procedure.

Reset eliminates any software conflicts that may have occurred in the system. Go to Settings → About Phone → Reset. Select “Clear all data.” The phone will restart and start the recovery process, which will take a few minutes.

Once turned on, you'll get a clean system, like the day you bought it. Don't install all the apps at once. Check how the screen works on pure Android/MIUI. If the colors are normal, then the problem was a software failure or application conflict. Start installing the programs gradually to identify the culprit.

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Hard Reset eliminates 99% of the software display errors, but requires prior storage of user data.

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