Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and Poco smartphones often face the desire to change the appearance of the MIUI or HyperOS operating system. Design experiments are an exciting process that allows you to make the device unique. However, not all downloaded themes are successful: some may contain bugs, hide important icons or simply stop liking after a while.
You can bring your theme back to Xiaomi in a number of ways, from simple menu settings to deeper system actions. It's important to understand that the standard interface is not just a picture, but a complex setup of fonts, icons, lock screen and system sounds. Incorrect theme work can lead to you not seeing time in the status bar or not being able to read the name of the caller.
In this article, we will take a look at all the current methods of returning the factory registration, we will look at the standard means of personalization, methods of forced reset via the About menu and how to solve problems if standard methods do not work, you will learn how to completely clear the cache of the themes and return the system to its original appearance without losing personal data.
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Resetting the theme to factory settings doesn’t delete your photos, contacts, or apps, it only changes the visual shell of the system.
A regular way to return a theme through the personalization menu
The most obvious and safe method that every user should know is to use the built-in Themes app, which is where the visual style of the shell is controlled. To start the process, look for an icon on your desktop called Themes or Themes. If you deleted it earlier, try recovering it through the GetApps store.
When you open the app, look at the bottom navigation bar, and there's the Profile tab, which is often indicated by the little man icon, and you click on it, and you'll be taken to the menu to manage your downloads and current design, and you'll find the Topics at the top of the screen.
In the list that opens, you'll see all the themes that have ever been installed on your device. The native theme is usually at the top of the list and is called "Classic," "Default," or "Untitled" with the corresponding Xiaomi logo. Click on it and then select "Apply" button.
- 📱 Open the “Themes” app on the main screen.
- 👤 Go to the Profile tab (the icon of the person at the bottom).
- 🎨 Select the “Subjects” section at the top of the profile screen.
- ✅ Click on the standard theme and confirm the action with the button "Apply».
Once applied, the system can blink for a few seconds with the screen, which is normal behavior, indicating that the interface is redrawn, and if after that action, the icons fall into place and the fonts become readable, then the procedure was successful, but sometimes the system can "suck" and the changes are not fully applied.
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If after applying the standard theme icons remained changed, try to go to the theme settings separately and reset only the icons or font to the standard values.
Reset via the About Phone menu and forced update
There are situations where the Themes app doesn't work properly or the application button doesn't respond to clicks, and in such cases, the hidden reset feature available through the About Phone menu comes to the rescue, which is especially effective if the theme was installed from a third-party source and causes conflicts.
To do this, you'll need to go to the basic settings of your smartphone. Find the About Phone (or Device) section. Here you're interested in the operating system version. You need to quickly and repeatedly (about 10 times) press the MIUI or HyperOS version number.
Settings → About Phone → MIUI version (click 10 times)After a series of clicks, you'll see a system notification that you've become a developer, or you'll immediately open the firmware file selection menu. In some versions of the shell, after this action, a three-dot menu will appear in the upper right corner of the screen. When you click on them, you'll see the option "Select a theme" or "Reset a theme." Select a standard theme from the list, and the system will force the interface to be updated.
⚠️ Warning: Don't confuse this method with complete flashing of the device. You don't select a file from a computer, you only tell the system to use a standard design package already in memory.
The good thing about this is that it ignores the possible cache errors of the Themes app and goes directly to system resources, and if this method hasn't worked, it may be that the problem lies deeper in the accumulated errors of the system cache.
☑️ Check before resetting the topic
Cleaning up data and app cache Topics
If the visual bugs persist even after trying a standard theme, it is likely that the application has accumulated corrupted files in its memory, in which case it is necessary to perform a complete data cleanup of the theme service application, which will return it to a “store-like” state.
To do this, go to your smartphone settings and find the Apps section. Select All Apps and find the Themes system app (may be called Themes) in the list. Go inside, select Memory or Storage.
The screen will open two buttons: Clear cache and Clear everything (or Delete data) and the recommended first click on Clear everything, which will remove all the themes you downloaded from the app's memory, but will not delete their files from the phone's storage completely, and then the phone may suggest rebooting, agree.
- 🔍 Go to "Settings» → «Annexes» → «All applications».
- 📂 Find the "Subjects" app in the list».
- 🗑️ Press "Clear» → «Clear all data (Clear all data).
- 🔄 Reboot your smartphone to apply changes.
After the reboot, the system will have to re-index theme, at which point it will automatically pull up the default theme, and if you had a broken theme before, the interface should be clean and standard.
What if the “Subjects” app is not on the list?
Comparison of Return Methods
Different situations require different approaches. Simply applying a profile theme is good for changing style every day, whereas clearing the data is essential for critical errors. Understanding the differences will help you choose the right algorithm for actions and not waste time.
Here's a table that will help you quickly navigate which method to use in your case, and we've compared three main ways of doing it in terms of their effectiveness, complexity, and impact on user data.
| Method | Difficulty | Impact on data | When to use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Through the Topics app | Low. | Safe. | Planned change of style |
| Through About Phone (10 clicks) | Medium | Safe. | If the topic does not apply |
| Cleaning the application data | Tall. | Resetting theme settings | With bugs and hovers. |
As you can see from the table, the most radical, but also the most effective, method is to clean up the data, but you should always start with the least invasive way, which is to simply apply a classic theme, and only if that doesn't work, move on to the more complex.
Problems with the global and Chinese versions of firmware
One of the common reasons why it is impossible to put or return a native theme is the conflict of firmware versions. Global ROM users often try to install themes designed for China ROM (Chinese version), and vice versa, which leads to the interface elements “floating”, and the text becomes unreadable.
If you upgraded from Chinese to global (or through a flashing), you may have tails from the old theme, in which case the standard theme may not look the way the manufacturer intended it to, such as missing widgets or changing the transparency of the notification curtain.
To solve this problem, you need to make sure you use a theme marked as compatible with your region.There is a division in the Xiaomi theme store: The themes for China often don't have a description in English or Russian.Look for themes marked "Global" or use only the standard theme that comes bundled with your version of Android.
⚠️ Warning: Installing themes from the Chinese version of firmware on the global version can lead to the appearance of “junk” characters in the menu and calendar, which cannot be removed without a complete reset.
Also, the new versions of HyperOS have changed the way they work, and some deep interface changes now require certain rights or only work within widgets, not systemically, so the native theme on the new system may be different from the one you were used to on the old MIUI 12 or 13.
What to do if the standard theme is not restored
In rare cases, the system can be so damaged by third-party intervention that simple methods don’t work, often after unsuccessful experiments with topics not sourced from an official store, or after using third-party launchers that are embedded in the system.
If nothing works, the last software method is to reset the phone, which is a last resort, and make sure to back up all the important data to the Mi Cloud cloud service or to your computer before you use it, and reset it back to the state it was in when you bought it, including the factory theme.
To perform the reset, go to Settings → Advanced Settings → Recover and Reset. Select Erase all data. Once you reboot, the phone will be as new and the question of how to put your native theme will disappear by itself – it will be set by default.
- 📂 Create a complete backup of the data.
- 🔋 Make sure the battery is above 50%.
- ⚙️ Go to the Recovery and Reset menu».
- 💣 Select “Resetting” and confirm the action.
After this procedure, the phone will work steadily, and if even after a complete reset you see a strange topic (for example, Chinese characters instead of Russian on the global version), this may indicate a hardware memory swap or a deep system failure that requires flashing through the computer.
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Hard Reset is a guaranteed way to return to factory status, but it takes time to reconfigure all services and applications.