How to completely disable advertising in the Xiaomi Gallery on MIUI 12: all working methods

Ads in the standard Xiaomi Gallery on MIUI 12 have become one of the most annoying features of the firmware for many users: banners with service offers, advertising blocks in the album "Recommendations" and pop-up notifications about "popular topics" are not just distracting — they slow down the application and consume traffic in the background, especially in the budget models of Redmi and POCO, where every megabyte of memory is on the bill.

The problem is that Xiaomi doesn't provide a direct "Disable Ads" option in the Gallery settings, and all the official methods are to turn off personalized recommendations, which only reduces the number of impressions, but doesn't eliminate them completely. MIUI beforehand ADB-In this article, we will discuss all the current methods, including those that work on models from 2020 to 2026 without root rights.

It is important to understand that some methods require technical skills (for example, working with ADB), and some can cause firmware failures. We will describe in detail the risks and alternatives for each option so that you can choose the best approach.

Why Xiaomi Gallery has Advertising and Can It Be Removed Forever?

The ad units in the MIUI Gallery are part of Xiaomi’s monetization strategy, which allows the company to offer smartphones at lower prices. In MIUI 12, advertising is integrated at the system application level and its display is regulated by msa (Miui System Ads) and analytics services. Here are the key sources of advertising in the Gallery:

🔹 Album "Recommendations": automatically created by the system and filled with banners with suggestions of themes, cloud storage Mi Cloud and partner services.

🔹 Pop-up notifications: appear when you scroll through photos (e.g., "Try a new filter!").

🔹 Advertising tags on thumbnails: small icons in the lower right corner of the photo leading to the promotional pages.

Can we take down ads forever? Yes, but with reservations:

Important: Xiaomi models for the European and global market (with MIUI EU or MIUI Global firmware) have significantly less advertising than the Chinese version (MIUI China). If your smartphone is originally purchased in China, consider reflashing to the global version.

Method 1: Disabling personalized advertising in MIUI settings

The easiest and safest way to do this is to deactivate personalized recommendations through the settings menu, which will not remove ads completely, but will reduce the amount of ads.

📌 Step-by-step instruction:

1. Open Settings → Xiaomi account.
2. Go to Mi Account → Account settings → Personalization and advertising.
3. Turn off the sliders: 🔘 Personalized recommendations 🔘 Promotional notices 🔘 Usage analysis

Settings → Applications → Application Management

gallery

Showing over other windows

⚠️

Note: After this action, the ads in the Recommendations album will disappear, but the banners at the bottom of the screen may remain when viewing photos. Xiaomi periodically resets these settings after updates - check them every 1-2 months.

Method 2: Removing albums with advertisements manually

MIUI 12 automatically creates albums with promotional content, such as "Recommendations" or "Popular Topics," which can be hidden or manually removed, but can reappear after the device is restarted.

🔧 How to Remove Unnecessary Albums:

1. Open the Gallery and go to the Album tab.
2. Find albums with titles: 📁 Recommendations 📁 Popular themes 📁 Mi Cloud (if not used)

Hide.

Delete

Settings → Storage → Files → Albums

.recommendations

.miui_gallery_cloud

💡 If albums come back, create an empty folder with the same name (e.g.,.recommendations) through a file manager (e.g., Solid Explorer.

Method 3: Disabling Advertising through ADB (no root rights)

The ADB (Android Debug Bridge) method allows you to jam MIUI advertising services without obtaining root rights. This is a semi-official way that does not violate the warranty, but requires connecting the smartphone to a PC.

⚙️ What's the matter:

• 🖥️ A computer with installed Xiaomi drivers and ADB (Download Platform Tools).
• 📱 Included debugging by USB on a smartphone (Settings) → The phone. → Version. MIUI → 7 times press to unlock Developer Settings, then enable Debugging by USB).
• 🔌 USB-cable (preferably original).

📝 Step-by-step instruction:

1. Connect the smartphone to the PC and confirm the debugging permission.


2. Open the command prompt (Windows) or terminal (macOS/Linux) in the folder with ADB.




3. Enter a command to check the connection:




adb devices




(The serial number of the device must appear).




4. Perform the commands in turn:





adb shell pm hide com.miui.systemAdSolution




adb shell pm hide com.xiaomi.midrop




adb shell pm hide com.miui.analytics




adb shell settings put global hidden_api_policy 1




5. Reboot the smartphone.

⚠️

Note: pm hide commands temporarily disable system packages, but do not delete them. After updating MIUI, the effect may reset, and this may cause some functions to fail (for example, Mi Drop for file transfer).

Method 4: Use of third-party galleries (a standard alternative)

If all previous methods have failed or seem too complicated, the most reliable solution is to switch to a third-party gallery, which will eliminate MIUI advertising altogether, but will require getting used to the new interface.

📂 Best Alternatives to Xiaomi Gallery:

🔄 How to transfer data from a standard gallery:

1. Install the selected application from Play Market or F-Droid.
2. Open it and give access to the files (Permissions → Storage).
3. In the new gallery settings, find the Import or Scan device option.
4. Wait until the app indexes all the photos (it can take 5-15 minutes).
5. Disable notifications from the standard Gallery (Settings → Applications → Gallery → Notifications → Disable).

⚠️

Note: Some third-party galleries (e.g. Google Photos) continue to run in the background and may be using up battery power. To avoid this, limit background activity in battery settings (Settings → Battery → Battery Optimization).

💡

If you choose Google Photos, turn off automatic downloading from mobile data to avoid unexpected traffic waste. Go to Google Photo Settings → Backup and Sync → Settings → Mobile Network Transfer and select Only via Wi-Fi.

Method 5: Radical methods (for advanced users)

If you're willing to take risks and have firmware experience, you can completely remove ads from the Gallery by getting root rights or reflashing your smartphone on custom firmware, which yields 100% results but is not warranty and can lead to unstable device operation.

🔥 Option 1: Remove system packages via Magisk (root required)

• 📌 Install Magisk Manager and get root rights.
• 📌 Use the module. MIUI Debloater or manually remove packages through ADB: adb shell su pm uninstall --user 0 com.miui.systemAdSolution pm uninstall --user 0 com.xiaomi.midrop pm uninstall --user 0 com.miui.analytics pm uninstall --user 0 com.miui.gallery
• 📌 Reset the device.

🔥 Option 2: Flashing to custom firmware (e.g. LineageOS or Pixel Experience)

• 📌 Unlock the bootloader through the Mi Unlock Tool (requires a wait of 7-14 days for new accounts).
• 📌 Install. TWRP Recovery and sew custom firmware without services MIUI.
• 📌 Use an alternative gallery (for example, AOSP Gallery).

⚠️

Attention: Removing system packages may result in loss of functionality (e.g., Mi Cloud or Quick Share will stop working).Before experimenting, back up via Settings → Additional → Backup and Reset. Also note that unlocking the bootloader resets all data on the device!

💡

Before using radical methods, check to see if you lose important features (such as wireless file transfer or synchronization with a Mi Account).It is often easier to switch to a third-party gallery than to risk system stability.

Frequent Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

When trying to disable ads in the Xiaomi Gallery, users often face typical problems, including the most common ones and ways to solve them:

🚨 Problem 1: Advertising returns after update MIUI

🔹 Reason: Firmware updates reset settings ADB And they return the packets that are disconnected.

🔹 Solution: Repeat commands ADB After each update or turn off automatic update (Settings) → The phone. → Updating the system → Three points. → Settings → Turn off automatic loading).

🚨 Problem 2: Some Gallery features fail after adverts are turned off

🔹 Reason: Teams ADB Root methods could disable critical system services.

🔹 Solution: Restore disabled packets through the command:

adb shell cmd package install-existing com.miui.gallery

🚨 Problem 3: Away from the gallery doesn't see all the photos

🔹 Reason: Photos can be stored in hidden folders MIUI (for example,.thumbnails or MIUI/Camera).

🔹 Solution: Enable the display of hidden files in the file manager and manually add folders in the gallery settings.

🚨 Problem 4: After the albums are deleted, they reappear

🔹 Reason: System MIUI Restores service folders when rebooting.

🔹 Solution: Create empty files with folder names (e.g.,.recommendations) through Total Commander or FX File Explorer with root rights.

FAQ: Answers to Frequent Questions