How to quickly remove black and white mode on Xiaomi Redmi

The sudden disappearance of colors on the screen of a Xiaomi or Redmi smartphone often causes panic among users.It seems that the device has failed or there has been a critical failure of the system. However, in most cases it is not a matrix breakdown, but an accidental activation function designed to save energy or protect the eyes.

Black and white, also known as e-ink mode or Grayscale, turns the entire interface into a monochrome gamut. It's a useful tool to reduce digital dependency, but when it turns on itself, it becomes extremely inconvenient to use the phone. You can get back bright colors in a few seconds, if you know where to look for the switch.

There are several reasons why the screen turns black and white, such as activating the "Electronic Ink" mode in advanced settings, enabling the "Texture Improvements" function to save charge, or even a specific mode for people with visual impairments, and understanding the source of the problem is the first step to solving it.

Checking the electronic ink mode in extended settings

The most common reason for modern MIUI and HyperOS shells is in the feature section, which is often randomly activated by users trying to change the font size or adjust one-handed control, and this is where the master switch lurks, turning the image into a newspaper-like image.

To find this setting, you need to go to the Settings menu and select Advanced Settings. In the list that opens, look for Special Opportunities. Inside this menu, you should look at the Vision tab. That's where the E-ink switch is located. If it's active, the screen will be devoid of colors.

Sometimes this item can be called differently depending on the firmware version, such as "Read Mode" or "Monochrome Mode." Once the switch is turned off, the colors should return instantly. If this does not happen, perhaps the system needs to reboot to apply the changes.

It's worth noting that in some versions of the software, access to these settings can be hidden deeper, and if you don't find the item right away, try searching by settings by typing "ink" or "monochrome" in order to save time and allow you to quickly locate the option you want.

Disabling the mode of saving traffic and energy

The second most popular reason for changing color rendering is aggressive energy saving: Xiaomi’s Android system can force the screen to grayscale when the battery is low or the traffic saving mode is on, so that the user wants to use the phone less and saves resources.

Check the status of the power saving mode. If the battery is less than 20% charged, the system could automatically turn on "Ultra mode." In this state, not only is the background activity of the applications limited, but the color scheme of the interface changes. Turn off this mode in the notification curtain or in the battery settings.

There's also a separate feature called Texture Enhancement, which often works in conjunction with savings, which reduces color saturation to reduce GPU load, and you can find it by Settings → Screen → Texture Improvement. Make sure that slider is off.

⚠️ Attention: Browser traffic saving mode or system data limiter can also make pages pale.Check the settings of Chrome or the built-in browser MIUI, Disable the "Light" or "Saving Traffic" mode".

Remember that third-party SEO apps downloaded from Play Market can take control of the screen. If you have recently installed such programs, try removing them and checking if the problem has gone away.

Setting up special features and accessibility

The MIUI shell has a wide range of features for people with disabilities, including color correction modes for colorblind people or full color inversion. Accidental keyboard pressing or activation through Google Assistant can enable these features.

In Settings → Advanced Settings → Special Options → Vision, you can find Color Correction and Color Inversion. If you activate a correction, the screen may look faded or have a strange hue, and inversion makes white black and black white, which is often confused with monochrome.

Also check for activated mode "High-content text." It changes the design of the interface, making it black and white with bold bezels around the elements. This can be perceived as a display error, although in fact it is just a different style of design.

To completely reset all availability settings, you can use a Settings search. Type in the word "availability" and look at all active items. Disabling the extra will help return the normal color reproduction of the screen.

Use of engineering menu and debugging

If standard methods didn't work, the problem could be in the system flags of the developer or the engineering menu, which is true for advanced users who have experimented with the system settings, and in debugging mode, you can accidentally turn on a monochrome simulation.

To check this, go to Settings → About Phone and click on the MIUI version several times to open the developer menu. Then to Advanced Settings → For developers, find the Hardware Rendering Acceleration section. It should not include forced use of 2D GPUs or color scheme simulations.

In the engineering menu (accessible by code ##64663## in the call app), you can run a display test. Select "Display" or "Color Test." If the color displays normally in the test, then the problem is purely software, not hardware.

Be careful when changing the settings in the developer menu. Incorrect values can lead to unstable interfaces. If you are not sure about your actions, you better reset the settings of this menu to the factory.

Third-party annexes and design themes

Often, the culprits of color changes are set themes from GetThemes. Some authors create monochrome themes that change not only icons but also system colors. If the problem arises after the theme change, return the standard design.

Eye protection applications, such as third-party Read Mode, may have their own screen permissions, they put a filter over the entire interface, check the list of installed apps, and remove suspicious utilities.

Also worth paying attention to is launcher apps, if you use a third-party shell instead of a standard one, it may have its own color scheme settings. Try temporarily switching to a standard MIUI launcher to rule out its impact.

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Before installing any theme from the Xiaomi store, look carefully at the preview. If the theme is black and white, this will be indicated in the description or seen in the screenshots of the interface.

In some cases, even weather or watch widgets can have a monochrome style that visually creates the entire phone turned black and white.Removing the widgets from the desktop will help diagnose this visual illusion.

Hardware problems and resetting settings

If none of the software methods worked, there is a possibility of hardware failure, the display plume may have left after a fall, or the matrix itself failed, in which case the black and white image may be accompanied by stripes, flickering or broken parts of the screen.

Try resetting to factory settings. Make sure to back up the data before doing so. Path to reset: Settings → Phone → Settings → Reset → Erase all data. This will delete all applications and files, but return the system to its original state.

If even after a complete reset and flashing (if you know how to do it safely) the screen remains black and white, then with a probability of 99% you need repair in the service center.

⚠️ Warning: If the phone fell or fell into the water before the problem occurred, do not try to charge it intensively.

Sometimes it helps to lightly press on the top of the screen (in the area of the plume) with the phone turned off, but this is a temporary measure and requires extreme caution.

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In 90% of cases, the problem is solved by disabling the function "Electronic ink" in the special features section or resetting the theme of the design.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)