Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphone owners often experience intrusive content that appears immediately after the screen is turned on. Instead of a clean interface, the user sees news feeds, videos or articles offered by the system. This is not just visual noise, but the result of built-in services such as Glance by Mi or GetApps, which are activated by default on many devices.
The annoyance is that these elements can interfere with fast camera access or unlocking the device. Moreover, they consume Internet traffic and battery power in the background. MIUI and the new HyperOS provide tools to manage this content, but the settings are often scattered across different menus, making it difficult to find the right switch.
In this article, we will discuss how to completely clear the lock screen of advertising cards and articles, learn to distinguish between system widgets and third-party services, and also be able to regain control of your interface. Importantly, a complete shutdown requires changing the settings in several settings sections, not just in one menu.
The nature of recommendations on a locked screen
The appearance of articles and cards on the lock screen is due to aggressive monetization by the manufacturer. Xiaomi, selling devices with a minimum margin on iron, compensates for the costs by advertising and promoting its own services. Wallpaper Carousel is the main tool that delivers content to your screen.
Often users inadvertently activate these features themselves when they initially configure the smartphone, accepting the terms of the user agreement without carefully reading. The system can offer personalized content based on your geolocation and search history. This creates the illusion of usefulness, but in practice turns the smartphone into an advertising platform.
It's worth noting that the algorithms for Glance and similar services are constantly updated, and what was relevant for MIUI 12 may be different from the logic of HyperOS 1.0. So it's important to understand the way it works: content is loaded dynamically over the Internet, and disabling sync or removing the aggregator application solves the problem.
Disconnecting Glance by Mi and analogues
The most common source of junk is Glance, which is often pre-installed on global firmware, and to get rid of it, you have to find the app in the installed list, usually called Glance by Mi or Lock Screen Magazine.
The deactivation process may vary depending on the shell version, in some cases it is enough to simply disable the switch inside the application, in others it will be necessary to completely remove or disable the application through system settings, since standard deletion may not be available without root rights.
⚠️ Warning: When removing system components, be careful to disable only those services that are responsible for content (news, video) and not for the basic functionality of the screen lock, otherwise the phone may stop responding to swipes.
If you can't find a separate app, try the following way: go to Settings → Lock screen. Here you should look for the item associated with "Wallpaper Carousel" or "Recommendations." Disabling this item often stops articles from loading.
☑️ Checking out the Glance shutdown
The Wallpaper Carousel (Wallpaper Carousel)
Wallpaper carousel is a feature Xiaomi has that automatically changes the background image and shows the cards with information, which most often broadcasts recommended articles, to set it up, you need to go to Settings → Lock screen and select the wallpaper carousel.
Inside the merry-go-round menu is the key switch "Enable wallpaper carousel." Deactivating it will return a static image that you set yourself. However, if you want to leave the wallpaper change but remove the articles, you need to go to the additional settings of the merry-go-round (usually the gear icon or three dots in the corner).
You should turn off the "Receive recommendations" and "Show news" options here, and you should also turn off auto-update content over the mobile network to save traffic, and after you apply the settings, the lock screen will become cleaner, retaining only the function of changing the background.
| Parameter | Standard value | Recommended value | Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wallpaper carousel | Included. | Off. | Remove all dynamic content |
| Recommendations | Included. | Off. | Stops showing articles |
| Auto-update | Wi-Fi and data | Only Wi-Fi. | Saving mobile traffic |
| Notifications | Permitted. | Forbidden. | Reduces the number of pop-up windows |
What to do if the settings are reset?
Control widgets and tape left
Beyond the lock screen, recommendations often appear when swiping to the left of the home screen, which is called the Widget Ribbon, or Google Discover. Although it's not exactly a lock screen, many users confuse these areas. To clear this area, you need to pinch the empty space on the desktop and select Settings.
In the menu that opens, find "Ribbon left" or "Google." The switch will completely hide this panel. If you need widgets but no news, choose "Widgets" instead of "Ribbon." This will leave functional elements (calendar, steps), but remove the endless tape of articles.
We also have widgets on the lock screen, new versions of HyperOS and MIUI 14+ have the ability to add widgets directly to the locked screen, check if the news widget or browser is activated, remove it with a long tap to clear the space.
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If you use a third-party launcher, the system tape settings to the left may not apply, in which case, check the launcher settings under Desktop or Google Integration.
Disabling Advertising Personalization in the System
Even after you turn off the visible cards, the system can continue to collect data for targeted advertising. To minimize this, you need to go to the privacy settings. The path usually looks like this: Settings → Passwords and security → Privacy.
This section is called "Advertising Services" (or MSA — MIUI System Ads. Turn off the "Get recommendations" switch. The system will ask you to wait 10 seconds before confirming an action -- this is a standard procedure that you just have to wait out.
It is also recommended to disable the PAI (Personalized Advertising ID) function, which will prevent your unique identifier from being used to select advertising content in system applications such as Explorer, Music and Security.
Resetting settings and additional methods
In the rare cases where standard methods don't help remove intrusive articles, a more radical approach may be needed.One effective method is to clean up the system application's Security and GetApps data. Go to Settings → Apps → All Apps, find the right one and click Clear → Clear all data.
This action will reset the built-in service settings to factory settings, which often knocks out activated ad modules. Then re-examine the recommendation disabling procedure described above, in some cases, temporary Internet shutdowns when you first turn on your phone after a reset help.
For advanced users, there is a method of disabling components via ADB (Android Debug Bridge), connecting the phone to a PC, you can execute a command to freeze the com.miui.misys package or similar, but this requires caution and technical knowledge.
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Comprehensive approach: the most effective result is a combination of disabling the wallpaper carousel, banning advertising in MSA and cleaning the system applications data.