How to Reduce Screen Size on Xiaomi: A Complete Guide

Owners of modern Xiaomi smartphones often face a dilemma: magnificent AMOLED-High-resolution displays offer incredible detail, but a standard interface can look too large or, conversely, small, which tires the eyes. UI scaling is not just a cosmetic procedure, but an important ergonomic adjustment of the device. Correctly selected size of elements allows you to cover more useful area with your thumb, without losing the readability of the text.

The Android operating system, which runs MIUI or HyperOS, provides powerful tools to customize visual space. You can change not only the size of the fonts, but also the global scale of all elements, including buttons, app icons and status bars, especially for people with low vision or, conversely, for those who are accustomed to seeing the maximum amount of information on the screen.

In this article, we will take a look at all the available ways to scale down the screen, from simple menu settings to advanced DPI manipulations through the engineering menu, and learn how to safely modify system settings to adapt your Xiaomi to your individual needs without losing warranty and stability.

Basic setting of font size and elements

The safest and easiest way to change how content is displayed on the display is to use the standard system tools. Xiaomi has provided flexible settings in the standard menu that allow you to adjust the size of text and the scale of elements independently of each other. First, go to Settings → Screen → Text Size and Scale. Here you will see two sliders, managing which gives instant visual results.

The top slider is solely responsible for the size of the font. By moving it to the left, you reduce the letters in all applications, messages and system menus. The bottom slider regulates the scale of interface elements. Change it affects the size of buttons, indentations between lines, icons and other graphical objects. It's important to understand the difference: by reducing only the font, you may find that the text will become readable, but the buttons will remain giant, occupying half a screen.

⚠️ Note: With a strong reduction in the scale of elements, some applications may not be displayed correctly, since their developers did not provide adaptation to too small interfaces.

The perfect setup is achieved by trial and error. It's recommended that you set a minimum comfortable font size first, and then gradually scale down the elements until the interface is dense but convenient. MIUI applies real-time changes, so you see the result immediately. If the text is too small to read, return the font slider to the right, saving the scale of the elements to save space.

Change DPI through the Developer Menu

For users who don't have enough standard sliders, there's a more powerful tool, the Dots Per Inch (DPI) change, which tells the system how many dots should be displayed per inch of the physical area of the screen. Decreasing the DPI makes the system think the screen is lower resolution, making all the interface elements smaller, freeing up significant space.

To access this feature, you need to activate the hidden menu. Go to Settings → About Phone and start quickly clicking on the MIUI Version (or OS Version) bar before the notification “You’ve become a developer” appears. Then a new option will appear in the settings menu Additional Settings → For Developers. Inside this section, you need to find the Minimum Width (or “Least Width”) option.

• 📱 Standard value DPI On most smartphones, Xiaomi is 360 or 392 units, depending on the model.
• 📉 Reduce the value by 20-40 The unit has a noticeable but safe scale reduction effect.
• ⚠️ A sharp decline DPI (For example, up to 100) may render the interface unusable because the elements become microscopic.
• 🔄 Changes take effect immediately after confirmation, without the need to restart the device.

Be careful when experimenting with this parameter, and if you set it too low and the interface becomes unreadable, it's hard to get it back, and then resetting it through Recovery or using it helps. ADB-The best way to reduce the number of commands is to reduce the number of commands. DPI on 10-15% This allows you to place more widgets on your desktop and see more lines in your browser, while maintaining the ease of navigation.

Use of Full Screen Mode and Gestures

The big screen experience is often created not only by the size of the elements, but also by having a navigation bar at the bottom that takes away usable space. Moving to gesture control is one of the most effective ways to visually increase the workspace and make the screen “smaller” in perception, since the content occupies the entire matrix available. To do this, go to Settings → Main Screen → System Navigation and select Full Screen.

In this mode, three buttons disappear from the bottom, and navigation is done by swipes. This not only frees up space for content in apps and games, but also changes the ergonomics of interaction. The screen seems more compact and manageable with one hand, since you do not need to reach for the lower corners to go back. In addition, many applications in full-screen mode automatically rebuilt the interface, using the freed space to display additional tools.

It’s worth noting that in gesture mode, you get an extra bar at the bottom of the screen that you can hide in the settings for individual apps or games. This is done through the Settings menu → Additional settings → Full-screen mode. By disabling compatibility for specific programs, you allow them to stretch over the entire display area, which is especially true for video players and modern games, where every pixel is important.

Settings of the theme and size of icons

Visual perception of screen size depends on how app icons look on the desktop. The standard launcher in MIUI allows you to adjust the size of the grid, which directly affects the size of the shortcuts. To change this, pinch with two fingers on the home screen or pinch the empty area, then select Settings. Here you will find the Grid option, where you can choose a configuration, for example, 5x6 or even 6x7 for large displays.

Increasing the number of cells in the grid automatically reduces the size of each icon, making them more compact. This is a classic way to "smaller" the screen by placing more apps on it. However, it is worth considering that too small icons can become uncomfortable to click. In this case, third-party themes come to the rescue from the Theme Store. Many authors create interfaces with minimalistic, small icons that take up less space than the standard ones.

There's also a larger icon option in the home screen settings. Make sure it's turned off if your goal is compact. Turning on this feature, on the contrary, makes shortcuts bigger by ignoring the grid, which is useful for older people, but contraindicated if you want to save space. The combination of small grid and standard themes gives the best result for those who want to see the most content.

One-hand mode and floating window

Physically reducing the screen workspace may be necessary not only for aesthetics, but also for the convenience of managing large smartphones with one hand. Xiaomi has a feature called One-Hand Mode. You can activate it through Settings → Additional settings → One-Hand Mode. When you turn on this feature, triple pressing the Home button (or swiping the bottom strip depending on the OS version) reduces the active area of the display to the size of a small phone, moving the image into a corner.

This changes the way you see the dimensions of the device, and the screen actually gets smaller, and all the elements are compressed and grouped into one corner, which is easy to reach with your thumb, and it's a temporary measure that's ideal for typing or responding quickly to a message on the go, and unlike changing the DPI, it doesn't affect the layout of the applications, it just scales the output image.

Another tool is floating windows. If you use an app in a floating window, you can manually resize it to make it significantly smaller than the full screen. This allows you to work with a smaller copy of the program on top of other content. To activate this, open the menu of running apps, click on the icon above the window and select the floating window mode, then pull the corner to reduce it.

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Use the sidebar (Side menu) to quickly turn any applications into small floating windows, which is convenient for instant messengers on top of games or videos.

Frequent problems and their solution

When you have a deep customization of the screen, you can encounter a number of artifacts, and the most common problem is the overlap of elements, and when the DPI is set too low, the text in the applications can be superimposed on buttons, or the input fields can be cut, because the application layout is fixed and does not have time to adapt to the non-standard pixel density.

Another common situation is that the keyboard or part of it disappears, and if it zooms down a lot, the virtual keyboard can become too small or move out of the visible area, and the solution is to go back to the standard DPI values or use an alternative keyboard (like Gboard or SwiftKey) that has its own height and scale settings, independent of the system.

⚠️ Note: Some banking and anti-cheat apps may refuse to run if they detect altered system settings. DPI, Seeing this as an attempt to modify the software.

If the screen is black or unreadable after the experiments and you can't change anything, try pressing the power button 5 times to call SOS (if it's on), or using the voice assistant, if it's active, the "Open Settings" command, in extreme cases, a full reset via Recovery Mode will help, but this will delete all the data. So remember the original DPI value before any changes, so you always have a return point.

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The main rule of modification DPI — And we can do it gradually. 10-20 The units allow you to find a balance between compactness and readability without the risk of breaking the interface.