Xiaomi, Redmi and Poco smartphone owners often face a situation where the installed theme is beautifully designed, but you want to leave only its wallpaper with standard icons and fonts. The standard functionality of the MIUI or HyperOS shell does not allow you to simply “pull” a picture from the already used design with a single click. This restriction often annoys users who appreciate aesthetics, but are not ready to change the entire visualization system for the sake of a single image.
However, there are several proven ways to do this without getting root rights. You can use the built-in file manager, third-party applications for working with archives of a particular computer, or even a computer. In this article, we will discuss the most effective methods that will help you keep high-quality wallpaper in the gallery of the device.
Before you start manipulating files, it’s important to understand that the themes for Xiaomi are specific archives with the.mtz extension. They contain all the graphic elements inside them: icons, widgets, system sounds and, of course, images for the lock screen and desktop, and our task is to find this archive or its unpacked version in the phone’s memory and extract the necessary files.
Search for theme files in system folders
The first and most logical step is to try to find the source theme file or its cache directly in the memory of the smartphone. The MIUI shell stores theme data in hidden or secure directories, access to which can be restricted by access rights. However, using the standard File Manager Explorer, you can try to locate the desired data.
Open the Explorer app and go to the root folder of internal memory, and you need to find the MIUI directory, and inside it is the theme folder, and that's where the current and previously installed designs are stored, and inside you can find folders with names consisting of a set of numbers and letters, which are the identifiers of the themes installed.
If you've recently installed a theme, its files may be in the data folder, or have the.mtz extension at the root of the storage if you downloaded it manually. Search by date of change. If you find a suspicious large folder, go to it and look for image subfolders, lockscreen or desktop.
⚠️ Note: When working with system folders MIUI/theme Be very careful. Deleting or renaming system files may result in the theme being reset to a standard or incorrect display of interface elements. Do not delete files that you are not sure of the purpose of.
In some firmware versions, access to the Android/data/com.android.thememanager folder is closed to ordinary file managers for Android security reasons, in which case direct access to the cache through a standard Explorer may not be possible without connecting to a PC or using special permissions.
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If a standard Explorer doesn’t see the Android/data folder, try using a third-party file manager, such as Total Commander or Solid Explorer, which can request special permissions to access system files.
Use of the “Themes” app for preview
The easiest way to do this, although not always with the original file format, is to use the regular Themes app, and even if the theme is already installed, you can find it in the directory, go into preview mode and take a screenshot, which won't give you the original permission, but for some users, it's a quick way out.
But there's a more ingenious method inside the app itself: If the theme is free, you can click the Download button (even if it's already there), and the preview process often loads up original, high-quality images. Preview mode sometimes activates the gallery to save the image.
To do this, perform the following actions:
- 📱 Open the Topics app and find the desired design in the My Pages section or through search.
- 👁️ Click on the theme preview to open the screen of detailed description and preview.
- 🖼️ In preview mode, try to call the menu (share) or take a screenshot at the moment when the wallpaper is shown in full size.
This method is not always effective for retrieving the wallpaper.jpg file in its original quality, since the system can compress the image for previews. However, for screens with high PPI, this may not be noticeable. If it is critical for you to keep the original resolution and color reproduction without compression artifacts, you better use the method of unpacking the the theme archive.
Unpacking theme archive.mtz
The most reliable way to get original wallpaper is to find a theme file with the.mtz extension and unpack it. Theme files are renamed. ZIP-If you downloaded a topic from a third-party source (e.g. miui.com or themeforest), the file could be saved in the Downloads pack. If the theme was taken from a store, the file could remain in the cache.
To work with these files, you'll need an archiver like ZArchiver or RAR. These applications allow you to open archives and retrieve content from them. Once you install the archiver, find the theme file. If you don't have a.mtz file, you can sometimes find it in the MIUI/ThemeStore folder or download it from your download history in your Mi Account profile.
The unpacking process is as follows:
- 📂 Open the archiver and find the theme file (extension.mtz or.mtz.t).
- 🔓 Click on the file and select “Unpack” or “Open as an archive».
- 📁 Inside the archive, look for image folders, lockscreen, or files with names desktop_wallpaper, lockscreen_wallpaper.
Once extracted, you'll get image files that can be moved to any gallery folder or set up as wallpaper manually. Often inside the archive, images can be.png or.jpg. If you see files with obscure names, focus on file size - wallpapers usually weigh more than icons.
What to do if the.mtz file is not located?
Use of third-party topic editors
There are specialized tools created by enthusiasts for deep customization of MIUI, one of which is MIUI Theme Editor or similar applications from Google Play, which allow you not only to create your own themes, but also to analyze installed ones.
These programs can scan a catalog of installed themes and display their content in a convenient way. You can open the installed theme, go to the wallpaper tab and export the image, which eliminates the need to manually dig into the file system and guess the file names.
Advantages of using specialized software:
- 🛠️ Automatic definition of the theme structure without manual search.
- 🖼️ Preview of all graphic elements before extraction.
- 💾 Ability to save immediately in the desired format and folder.
It’s worth noting that some editors require root permissions to access system themes unless they’ve been downloaded as separate files. If your smartphone isn’t rooted, the functionality may be limited to only working with.mtz files in the available memory folders.
Removing wallpaper through a PC connection
If your smartphone doesn't have enough space or it's not convenient to work with files, you can connect the device to your computer, and you can use more powerful tools to find and view hidden files, and you can connect your phone to file transfer (MTP) mode.
On your computer, turn on the hidden files and folders in Explorer. Go to Internal Memory/Android/data/com.android.thememanager/files (the path may vary depending on the Android and MIUI version).
Comparison of working methods with files:
| Method | Difficulty | Quality of the result | I need a PC. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Screenshot from preview | Low. | Average (depending on screen) | No. |
| Search in MIUI folder | Medium | High (original) | No. |
| Unpacking.mtz archive | Medium | Maximum (original) | No. |
| Connection to PC | Tall. | High. | Yes. |
Using a computer is especially important if you need to handle multiple topics at once or if the smartphone file system is slow, and on a PC it is easier to rename files and sort them before sending them back to the phone or saving them to the cloud.
☑️ Pre-extraction check
Access rights issues in Android 11-14
With the release of new versions of Android (starting with version 11), Google has tightened its policy of accessing the Android/data folder, which means that standard apps can no longer simply read the contents of folders of other applications, including “Themes,” which can block attempts to find the theme cache through the file manager.
To circumvent this limitation, you can use special features of the system, for example, in some conductors (such as Files by Google or the updated MIUI File Manager), when you go to a secure folder, you will request special permission.
Alternatively, the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is an advanced method that requires USB debugging. The adb pull command allows you to copy files from secure directories to your computer without the interface limitations.
⚠️ Attention: Including debugging by USB use ADB-Errors in working with system files through the ADB This method can cause the system to run in an unstable way. Use it only if you're confident in your actions.
If you don't want to mess with debugging, the easiest way to download the theme is from the store or from the site. When you download, the.mtz file is often saved to the download folder until it's installed, and it can be intercepted by the archiver before the system hides it deep inside the cache.
Frequent questions and answers
Can I save a live wallpaper from the theme on Xiaomi?
Where are the lock screen wallpapers stored?
Why do the wallpapers look blurry after extraction?
How to return the standard wallpaper after experiments?
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The cleanest way to get original wallpaper is to find the.mtz theme file and unpack it with an archiver, avoiding the system cache restrictions.
To sum up, saving wallpaper from the theme on Xiaomi is a solvable task, but one that requires understanding the file structure of MIUI. Whether it’s simple search in folders, using archivers or connecting to a PC, each user can choose the appropriate level of complexity for themselves.