How to remove the theme from the Xiaomi phone: step-by-step instructions

Xiaomi smartphone users often face the urge to personalize their gadget by installing third-party themes from the GetApps store or Mi Community. However, the visuals quickly get boring, and sometimes a new theme can work incorrectly, causing interface glitches or "gotten" icons. The question of how to remove a theme from a Xiaomi phone becomes especially relevant when the standard delete button does not work or is missing from the menu.

The process of returning to the factory is not always obvious, because MIUI and the new HyperOS have their own personalization management features. In some cases, it is enough to simply switch the style, in others, you need to manually clean the system files through the file manager. It is important to understand the difference between actively applying the theme and completely removing it from the device memory.

In this article, we will take a closer look at all existing reset methods, learn how to safely return standard wallpaper and icons, how to get rid of junk files to those that take up space, and what to do if the phone went into a cyclical reboot due to an incompatible design file.

Standard Reset Method through the Topics App

The easiest and safest way to get back to factory is to use an embedded app that is pre-installed on all of the brand’s smartphones and allows you to manage your visual style. To begin, open the Themes app (an icon with a brush) on your desktop or in the Tools folder.

Go to the user profile by clicking on the little man icon at the bottom right of the screen, and here is the My Themes section, which stores the history of all the designs installed, and find a theme on the list called Classic, Standard, or Untitled (often an icon with a robot or MIUI logo).

After selecting a standard theme, click the Apply button, which automatically replaces all interface elements such as wallpaper, application icons, lock screen and system sounds with factory settings, and does not delete the files of the old theme from memory, but deactivates its effect on the system.

⚠️ Note: If the icons remain changed after applying the standard theme, a separate icon package may be used. In the Themes app, go to the Icons section and select Default».

Importantly, newer firmware versions may have different algorithms, sometimes requiring a device reboot to fully apply the changes. If visual artifacts are retained, try clearing the theme app cache through your smartphone settings.

Delete theme files through the file manager

If your goal is not just to change the design, but to completely free up the memory space occupied by heavy theme files, you will need a manual approach, the files of the themes are stored in hidden system directories, accessed through a standard Explorer.

Open File Manager. At the top of the screen, click on the folder icon or go to the display settings to enable the hidden files to be displayed. You need to find the MIUI directory at the root of the internal memory, and then navigate the theme path.

Inside the theme folder, you'll see a lot of files with the.mtz extension or folders with obscure names, and that's where the data of the downloaded themes is stored, and it's safe for the system to delete those files if the standard theme is active.

• 🗑️ Find the folder. MIUI/theme internal storage.
• 📂 Open the content folder or files with the.mtz extension.
• ✅ Select unnecessary files and click “Delete».
• 🔄 Reboot your smartphone to update the cache of thumbnails.

There's also a folder. MIUI/theme_cache, This will help to get rid of temporary files that may have been left after deleting the theme through the application, but be careful: do not delete the structure of the folders, only their contents.

Reset theme settings to factory

Sometimes just using a standard theme doesn't solve the problem if the system has accumulated configuration errors, so it's more efficient to reset the personalization settings completely, and that will bring all the design parameters back to the "out of the box" state.

To do this, go to Smartphone Settings. Find About Phone and quickly click on MIUI or HyperOS version several times to open the extended menu (if available) or just go to Advanced Settings.

Find Reset and Reset. You can select Reset. Importantly, don't confuse this with a full Factory Reset that will delete all your data. We just need to reset the system or theme.

After resetting, the phone may reboot. When you first turn on, the system will apply a basic design. If you used third-party launchers, their settings may also be reset, so make sure you understand the consequences of this action.

Resolving Problems with “Broken” Topics

When a theme is installed, the screen goes out, a black screen appears, or the phone starts to reboot randomly, called a bootloop or software interface failure, this often happens with themes created for other versions of Android or MIUI.

If the phone is responsive to touch, but you can't see the menu, try the blind method. Unlock the phone (enter a password to the touch or use a fingerprint), then swipe quickly from top to bottom to open the notification curtain. Click on the settings icon (cog) and try to find the Themes app.

A more reliable way is to enter Safe Mode. To do this, press the power button, and when the turn off menu appears, keep your finger on the "Switch off" (or "Switch off power" depending on the OS version) for a long time.

⚠️ Warning: Third-party themes don't work in Safe Mode. If the phone stabilizes in this mode, it means the file is the problem. Delete the last installed theme through the file manager while you're in this mode.

If no methods help and the phone is constantly hanging on the logo, you will need to flash it through your computer using the Mi Flash Tool utility or restore it through Recovery mode (volume + power buttons).

Features of removing themes in HyperOS

With the release of the HyperOS operating system, the customization menu structure changed, Xiaomi combined theme, wallpaper and Always-On Display settings into a single center, the deletion process became more intuitive, but new restrictions appeared.

In HyperOS, temas can be part of a subscription or have a limited expiration date. If you try to remove such a theme, the system may suggest renewing your subscription. To get around this, simply apply a standard theme, and then delete the files through the Explorer as described above.

The new system also has an improved compatibility checker, so if the theme doesn’t fit your model, the system will alert you before installing it, but removing heavy themes with 4K animations is now faster thanks to an optimized rendering engine.

Users note that in HyperOS, icon conflicts are less common after removing themes.The system better caches graphic elements and quickly restores the original look when a crash occurs.

Table: Comparison of removal methods

For ease of choice of the method of solving the problem, consider the main methods in a comparative table, each of them has its advantages depending on the current situation with your device.

As you can see from the table, the first method is enough for a normal change of design, and if the phone is unstable, you will have to resort to more complex options.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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Check the Themes section regularly for updates. Developers often release patches that fix compatibility bugs with newer versions of Android.

To sum up, removing a theme from a Xiaomi phone is easy enough if you know the right algorithm. Standard tools can solve 95% of the design problems, but knowing how to work with the file system will be a useful skill in the event of serious failures.

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The most reliable way to get rid of problems with the theme is to use the standard design of “Classic” followed by cleaning the app cache through the smartphone settings.