How to improve the performance of the Xiaomi phone: the complete guide

Owners of Xiaomi’s smartphones, which run the MIUI shell or the new HyperOS, often experience a slowdown over time, a natural process involving the accumulation of system debris, memory fragmentation, and updates to applications that are becoming more resource-intensive.

There are many hidden and explicit features that allow you to optimize the operation of the operating system without the need to obtain superuser rights. In this article, we will discuss the most effective methods that will help your gadget work faster, you will learn which services to disable, how to manage applications correctly, and why standard accelerators are not always effective.

⚠️ Note: Before making major changes to system settings or removing preinstalled components, it is strongly recommended to create a full backup of data via the Mi Cloud cloud service or locally on your computer.

Analysis and release of RAM

The first step to improving performance is to free up resources that are wasted.RAM (RAM) in Xiaomi smartphones is often overflowing with background processes that the user hasn't even run.The Android system by its very nature tends to keep as many apps in memory for quick launch, but on budget models with 4 or 6GB of RAM, this leads to brakes.

You need to check the list of running processes regularly. To do this, press the menu button or swipe from the bottom up (depending on the type of navigation) and click the clean button. However, simply closing tabs does not always help, since many services restart automatically. A deeper analysis can be done through the developer menu.

To activate advanced features, go to Settings → About Phone and quickly click on the MIUI build number seven times. After that, the “Developers” option will appear in the “Additional” menu. You can find the function of limiting background processes, but you should use it with caution so as not to disrupt the work of messengers.

• 🚀 Clean your memory regularly through the built-in Security app».
• 📱 Turn off auto-run for rarely used programs in battery settings.
• 🔋 Use energy saving mode for background heavy gaming activity.
• 🧹 Remove the cache of applications that take up more than 500 MB of disk space.

Also worth paying attention to desktop widgets: Live wallpaper, constantly updated weather widgets or news feeds consume a significant amount of CPU and GPU. Replacing them with static images or removing unnecessary interface elements will instantly affect the smoothness of the scrolling.

Storage optimization and garbage disposal

A filled internal storage is one of the main reasons why Xiaomi’s phone starts to run slowly: When the free space runs out, the system lacks space to create temporary files and swaps, leading to interface lags, and filling more than 85% of the memory capacity is considered a critical threshold.

First of all, you should analyze the DCIM and Downloads folder. Often there are hundreds of unnecessary screenshots, duplicate photos and APK installation files. The built-in storage analyzer in the Security application will help you find the largest files.

Pay special attention to messengers. Telegram and WhatsApp have a habit of saving all received media files. In the settings of these applications, you can turn off auto-save to the gallery and set up automatic cache cleaning, which will free up gigabytes of space without deleting the correspondence itself.

Remember to check the Android/obb and Android/data folder. After deleting games, there may be heavy files with textures and sounds that take up space but are not useful, and can be safely removed manually through the file manager.

Customization of animations and visual effects

The visuals of the MIUI shell are beautiful, but they can also create the illusion of a slow device, and animations of window transitions, opening applications, and folding tasks take time to render, and on mid- and low-end processors, this can lead to noticeable delays.

To speed up the interface response, you can change the animation speed. Go to the Developer Menu (how to activate it, described above) and find three parameters: Window Animation Scale, Transition Animation Scale, and Animator Duration Scale, change their value from standard 1x to 0.5x or completely disable them.

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Changing the scale of animation does not increase the actual power of the processor, but it does make the interface subjectively more responsive and faster.

Also worth considering is a minimalist theme: Heavy themes with lots of live elements, modified high-resolution icons and complex blur effects load the graphics accelerator. Standard theme Classic or Lite often work more stable.

⚠️ Warning: Disabling animations completely can make navigation less intuitive, as the visual connection between opening and closing windows will disappear.

Another important aspect is the screen refresh rate. If your Xiaomi supports 90Hz or 120Hz, make sure the screen settings (Settings → Screen → Update Frequency) have a default or maximum value, which will make scrolling lists smoother, although it can increase battery consumption slightly.

Managing Autoboot and Background Processes

Many apps in the Android ecosystem tend to start right after the phone is turned on and stay active in the background, not just for instant messengers, but also for stores, social networks and even calculators, which consumes battery power and CPU time.

Xiaomi smartphones have a built-in tool to monitor autoruns. Go to the Security app → Permissions → Autostart. You only need to leave the programs that are critical to you (e.g. Telegram, WhatsApp, alarm clock) on.

Additionally, you should set up an energy saving strategy for each application individually. Go to Settings → Apps → All applications, select the desired application, click on “Energy Saving” and select “No Limits” only for important messengers. For the rest, it is better to set “Energy Saving” or “Strict Limitation” that will prevent their background operation.

Special attention should be paid to the Memory Extension feature, which has appeared in newer versions of MIUI and HyperOS. It uses part of the internal memory as virtual RAM. If you have little free internal memory, this feature is better to turn off, since the internal storage speed is lower than the speed of real RAM, which can cause slowdowns.

Network settings and parameter reset

Sometimes the reason for the “slow” operation of the phone is not the resources of the device, but problems with the network connection. Constant attempts to reconnect to a weak Wi-Fi signal or unstable 4G can load the modem and processor, causing heat and friezes of the interface.

Try resetting your network settings. This won't delete your personal data, but will return your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and mobile settings to factory values. Path to function: Settings → Connection and Sharing → Reset Wi-Fi, cellular and Bluetooth.

It is also recommended to disable the Wi-Fi Assistant feature, which constantly monitors available networks and can switch between them in the background. This is in the advanced Wi-Fi settings. Disabling this feature will reduce the number of background requests to the communication module.

If the phone is slow only in certain applications, the problem may be in the DNS cache. In the Wi-Fi settings, you can prescribe a static DNS, for example, from Google (8.8.8.8) or Cloudflare (1.1.1.1), which sometimes speeds up the response of web pages and services.

Radical measures: resetting and reflashing

If the software methods don't work, the last and most effective way is to completely reset to factory settings, which removes all user data, applications and accumulated registry errors over the years, and makes the phone as fast as the day you bought it.

Before the procedure, be sure to save important photos and contacts. Reset is done through the Settings menu → About Phone → Resetting → Erase all data. The process will take 10-15 minutes, after which the device will restart in a clean state.

⚠️ Warning: Don't restore all applications from Google backup once you reset. Install them gradually as you watch the system work. Often, the brakes are caused by one particular, poorly optimized application.

For advanced users, there is the possibility of installing custom firmware (for example, Xiaomi.eu), which is devoid of advertising and unnecessary Chinese software. However, this requires unlocking the bootloader, which cancels the warranty and carries risks if instructions are not followed correctly.

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Hard Reset is the most effective way to return the phone to factory speed if software optimizations have not worked.

Regular maintenance of the device, including memory cleaning and autoboot control, will avoid the need for frequent resets. MIUI Often include performance optimizations.