How to turn off pop-up pictures on Xiaomi phone

Xiaomi smartphone owners often encounter intrusive content that appears at the most inopportune moment.Pop-up images can overlap the desktop, occur when unlocking a device or appear after cleaning memory. This is not only annoying, but also significantly reduces the speed of the gadget, consuming processor resources and Internet traffic.

The solution lies in deep system settings, which are often activated by the manufacturer by default, and you have to go through several steps to completely deactivate the advertising modules.

Below is a detailed guide covering system settings, application management, and specific features of the MIUI or HyperOS shell. Following the steps, you will return the cleanliness of the interface to your device.

The Nature of Advertising Slides and Images

The main source of unwanted content is the built-in MSA (MIUI System Ads) advertising system, which is responsible for collecting analytics and displaying promotional materials in standard applications, and it generates the very images that pop up on top of other windows.

There's also the Wallpaper Carousel feature, which replaces the static image of the lock with the ever-changing slides of news and offers, which users often confuse with a virus, even though it's a regular, albeit aggressive, shell feature.

• 📱 System widgets: “Security”, “Conductor”, “Music” and “Themes” contain built-in advertising blocks.
• 🌐 Browser Notifications: Third-Party Sites May Request Permission to Show Notifications, Turning Into a Source of Pop-Up Windows.
• 📲 Third-party apps: Cheap games and utilities often use system windows to display ads off their interface.

It is important to distinguish between system advertising Xiaomi and virus software. If images appear randomly and lead to suspicious sites, it is possible that the phone got a malicious application, in which case you need to check with antivirus.

Disabling MSA and system advertising

The first and most important step is to disable the main ad module, and without that, the rest of the settings may not have a full effect, and you'll need access to a list of all the apps you've installed.

Go to Settings and find the Apps section. Select All Apps. In the upper right corner, click three dots and select Show System Processes. This is a critical step, because MSA is hidden by default.

In the list that opens, find an application called msa (MIUI System Ads). Click on it and select the option to Disable. The system will warn you of the consequences, you will have to wait 10 seconds, then you need to click Disable again. If the first time failed, repeat the procedure 2-3 times.

⚠️ Attention: After disconnection MSA Some features, such as recommendations in folders or themes, may stop updating, but this is a necessary compromise for a clean system.

Next, you need to disable ads in each system application separately. Go to Settings → Passwords and Security → Access to personal data. Find the msa list and turn off the slider. It is also worth checking the settings in the Security, Downloads and Explorer applications by finding the Receive recommendations switch there and deaktiviroving it.

Managing the wallpaper carousel function

If the pop-ups appear on the lock screen when you pick up your phone, the Wallpaper Carousel feature is to blame, which was introduced to monetize the device and often turns on after updating the firmware automatically.

To turn it off, go to Settings → Always on screen and lock screen (or just lock screen). Find Wallpaper carousel. Inside the menu, turn off the switch Turn on Wallpaper carousels.

Sometimes just turning off isn't enough. If the images keep coming up, go inside the merry-go-round menu, click three dots in the corner, and select Settings. You need to turn off the option to Automatically update and clear the function cache.

Once you do this, the lock screen will return to the standard static image you chose in the gallery, which will also have a positive impact on the device’s autonomy, as the background image loading will stop.

Set up notifications in the browser and applications

Users often allow websites to display notifications, which are then transformed into pop-up ads, especially for the built-in Mi Browser and Chrome browsers.

To fix the situation in Mi Browser, open the app, click on the three menu bars and select Settings. Go to Notifications → Notifications from sites. Here you will see a list of all the resources that have been authorized. Ruthlessly delete or block any suspicious domains.

You need to do the same thing in Google Chrome. Go to Settings → Site Settings → Notifications. Make sure there is nothing extra on the list of permitted sites. If you don't remember giving such permissions, they were probably fraudulently obtained when you visited them.

• 🚫 Blocking pop-ups: In the settings of any browser, the pop-up blocking function should be active.
• 🧹 Clearing data: periodically clear browser cache and cookies to reset temporary permissions.
• 🔒 Secure Search: Include protection against dangerous sites in your browser settings to prevent redirection to advertising pages.

Don’t ignore this step, as ad networks often use push notifications to return a user to their pages even without a browser running.

💡

Use DNS with ad blocking, such as dns.adguard.com, in connection settings (Private DNS) to filter traffic at the system level.

Removing Third-Party Sources of Pop-up Advertising

If system methods have failed, it means that the phone has a third-party application that abuses the rights of Display over other apps, often "memory cleaners", "lightlights", "QR scanners" or cheap games.

To identify the culprit, go to Settings → Privacy Protection → Special Features (or Special Features) This list shows apps that have the right to draw over the interface.

If you see an application that you don't recognize, or it has a suspicious name (like a character set or just "Service"), immediately disable it and uninstall it. Often these programs disguise themselves as system processes, but they can be calculated by the absence of an icon or strange behavior.

⚠️ Warning: Some viruses may hide their icon in the launcher, and look for them through the application settings menu or task manager, not on the desktop.

Also check the Applications → All Apps section and sort them by installation time. If the adverts are recent, remove all apps installed during that period.

💡

The main sign of malware is the appearance of advertising immediately after unlocking your phone or at the moment when you are on your desktop without running applications.

Resetting the advertising identifier and additional measures

To consolidate the result, it is recommended to reset the advertising ID. This will not remove the ad completely, but will reset the accumulated interest profile, making the targeted advertising less accurate and possibly less intrusive.

Go to Settings → Passwords & Security → Privacy → Ads. Click Reset Ad ID. You can also turn off ad personalization if the switch is available in your version of MIUI.

Another measure is to disable autoplay video in apps. In the settings of Xiaomi's Video and Music app, find the Online Content section and disable autorun. This will remove video ads that often pop up when you open those apps.

If none of these methods work, the radical but effective step is to completely reset to factory settings, and before that, be sure to save important data.

Settings → About the phone → Reset settings → Erase all data

After reset, do not restore the backup of applications immediately, but install them manually so as not to return advertising modules with the data.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)