How to completely remove hidden advertising on Xiaomi smartphones: 7 working ways

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones often face the same problem: hidden ads penetrate the system at the MIUI firmware level. It can appear in the settings menu, on the lock screen, in the notification center and even in standard applications like the Browser or Music. The manufacturer calls these “recommendations”, but in fact these are intrusive banners that slow down the phone and eat up traffic.

Many users mistakenly think that it is enough to disable personalized advertising in the settings of the Mi Account. In practice, this helps only partially - the main advertising mechanisms continue to work in the background. MIUI 12/13/14 And we'll show you how to turn them off once and for all. 12 Pro+, Xiaomi 13 Ultra, POCO F5 and other relevant devices 2023–2026 year-end.

⚠️ Warning: Some methods require superuser rights (root) or custom firmware installation.This can lead to loss of warranty and unstable phone operation!

1. disable advertising in MIUI settings (without root)

So let's start with the simplest of them all, the standard tools that are available to every user, and even without a deep technical knowledge, you can reduce the number of ads you see.

First, check the settings of personalized advertising:

1. Open Settings → Google → Advertising and deactivate the option Personalized Advertising.
2. Go to Settings → Accounts and Sync → Mi Account → Advertising and disable Personalized Recommendations and Interest-Based Advertising.

Next, you need to disable advertising in system applications:

• 📱 Lock screen: Settings → Lock screen → Additionally. → Recommendations → Turn off all switches.
• 🔔 Notification Center: Settings → Notifications → Additional settings → Recommendations → turn off the show.
• 🌐 Mi Browser: Open the browser, go to Settings → Confidentiality → Personalized recommendations and deactivate all options.

Important: Even after these actions, ads can continue to appear in the Topics, Music and Video apps, which will have to be disabled separately (see next section).

2. Removal of embedded advertising applications

MIUI firmware contains a number of pre-installed apps that not only take up space, but also actively display ads, and fortunately most of them can be removed or at least disabled.

List of the most "advertising" applications:

• 🎵 Mi Music: Shows banners in playlists and on the home screen.
• 🎬 Mi Video (Video): Insert commercials before watching.
• 🎨 Topics: Impose paid themes and wallpaper through notifications.
• 📖 GetApps (Mi Market): Advertises games and apps in the background.
• 🔍 Mi Browser: Replaces the start page with an advertising page.

To remove these applications:

1. Install ADB on your computer (instruction below).
2. Connect your phone in USB Debugging mode (Settings → About Phone → MIUI version → 7 times press to activate the developer mode).
3. Execute the command to delete (example for Mi Music): adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.miui.player

Complete list of commands to remove:

⚠️ Note: Deleting system applications can lead to errors in the phone. For example, without GetApps, some Xiaomi branded services may stop updating. Before deleting, check if you are using these programs.

Install ADB on PC| Enable USB debugging on phone | Make backup of data | Check the list of deleted packets | Connect the phone to your computer-->

3. Blocking advertising servers through hosts file

One of the most effective ways to combat ads is to block the domains from which they are downloaded, and you need to edit the hosts file in the system.

List of the main advertising domains Xiaomi:

• 🔗 ad.mi.com – the main advertising server
• 🔗 tracker.miui.com – statistics collection
• 🔗 api.ad.xiaomi.com – personalized ads
• 🔗 sdkconfig.ad.xiaomi.com – Advertising configuration
• 🔗 data.mistat.xiaomi.com – analytics

To block them:

1. Download the hosts file for MIUI (or create your own).
2. Use it. ADB Replacement of the system file: Adb push miui_ad_hosts.txt /sdcard/hosts adb shell su -c "mount -o rw,remount /system" adb shell su -c "cp /sdcard/hosts /system/etc/hosts" adb shell su -c "chmod 644 /system/etc/hosts"
3. Reboot the phone.

If you don’t have root, you can use apps like AdAway (Magisk requires) or Blokada (which works without root, but is less efficient).

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Before editing the hosts file, back it up with the adb pull command. /system/etc/hosts hosts_backup.txt. This will help you recover the original file if you make errors.

4. Disabling advertising through the developer settings

MIUI has hidden settings that allow you to disable some of the ad mechanisms, and you need to activate the developer mode to access them.

How to turn on the developer mode:

1. Go to Settings → About Phone → MIUI version.
2. Click on the line with the version 7 times in a row.
3. Return to the main settings menu – a new item for developers will appear.

Now turn off the following options:

• 🔧 Debugging by USB → Turn it on (to be used) ADB)
• 🚫 Limit background activity → Include (reduce traffic consumption by advertising)
• 📡 Turn off automatic synchronization → Include (prevents the updating of advertising databases)
• 🔄 Don't keep up → Enable (reset data for targeted advertising)

Also in the developer mode, you can limit the rights for system applications:

1. Go to Settings → Applications → Application Management.
2. Find Msa (com.miui.msa.global) is the primary service responsible for displaying ads.
3. Disable your Internet rights, Notifications and AutoRun.

5.Use of Magisk and modules to block ads

If you are willing to take more drastic measures, installing Magisk and custom modules will remove ads at the core level of the system.

The most effective modules for Xiaomi:

• 🛡️ Xiaomi Debloater: Remove unnecessary system applications and disable advertising services.
• 🚫 Disabler for Xiaomi: Blocks Msa, Analytics and other trackers.
• 🔒 Universal Ad-Blocker: Filtering Advertising at the Level DNS.
• 📱 MIUI Optimizer: Fine firmware customization, including removing ads.

How to install modules:

1. Install Magisk Manager on your phone.
2. Download the module you want (e.g. Xiaomi Debloater).
3. Go to Magisk → Modules → Install from storage.
4. Select the downloaded file and confirm the installation.
5. Reboot the phone.

⚠️ Note: Installing Magisk requires unlocking the bootloader, which resets the phone to factory settings and removes warranty. On some models (e.g. Xiaomi) 13T Pro) unlocking may take up to 7 days due to manufacturer's policy.

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Modules for Magisk are the most reliable way to get rid of advertising, but only for advanced users, and beginners are encouraged to start with a less risky method (ADB, hosts file).

6.Alternative firmware: transition to custom MIUI or AOSP

If none of the above methods worked, the last option is custom firmware, a radical solution that completely removes all Xiaomi advertising mechanisms, but requires technical skills.

Popular firmware without advertising:

• 📱 LineageOS: Clean AOSP no-nonsense.
• 🔧 Pixel Experience: Firmware with Google Pixel interface, without ads.
• 🌐 MIUI EU: European version MIUI without Chinese services or advertising.
• 🚀 ArrowOS: Light firmware with minimalist design.

How to install custom firmware:

1. Unlock bootloader (instructions on the official Xiaomi website).
2. Install TWRP Recovery or OrangeFox.
3. Download firmware (e.g. MIUI EU) and GApps (if you need Google services).
4. Load into Recovery, do Wipe (data cleanup) and flash the firmware.

Important: Custom firmware may contain bugs, especially on newer models. Before installing, check your device’s user reviews on the XDA Developers or 4PDA forums.

7. Additional tips: how to avoid ad returns

Even after all the manipulations, the ads can return after the MIUI update. To prevent this from happening, follow these recommendations:

• 🔄 Turn off automatic system updates: Go to Settings → The phone. → Updating the system → ⚙️ → Auto Update and Choose Never.
• 📥 Install updates manually: Check reviews on forums before updating – sometimes new versions MIUI return.
• 🔍 Use it. DNS-Filtering: Configure DNS-over-HTTPS in Settings → Connections → Private DNS. Recommended servers: dns.adguard.com or 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare).
• 🛡️ Regularly check app rights: After updates, Xiaomi sometimes resets restrictions on Msa and other services.

If the ad does reappear, repeat the steps in Section 3 (hosts blocking) or check if new ad domains have appeared in AdAway logs.

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To monitor network activity, use the NetGuard or PCAPdroid app, which will show which apps connect to ad servers, even if the ads are not displayed explicitly.

FAQ: Frequent questions about advertising on Xiaomi