Redmi 4 series smartphones (including Prime, Pro and Standard versions) have been a hit with metal body and autonomy. However, after years of operation, owners often face a noticeable drop in performance: the interface begins to slow down, applications open longer, and animations work in snags. It is a natural process for devices with 2-3 GB of RAM and Snapdragon 435 or 625 processors in today’s heavy applications.
It is possible to restore the former agility of the device without replacing iron. Optimizing the system based on the MIUI shell allows you to squeeze the maximum from available resources. In this article, we will discuss not only standard cleaning methods, but also hidden engineering menus that will help to significantly reduce the load on the processor.
Before we go to radical measures like flashing, we should try software acceleration methods, which are safe and require only careful adjustment of parameters, and let's look at the main reasons why your gadget is slowing down.
Analysis of the causes of braking and diagnosis
The first step to speeding up the Xiaomi Redmi 4 is to understand what is eating resources, most often in a crowded system partition or background process. MIUI shell is known for its aggressive memory work, but over time it accumulates digital debris that slows down the response of the touchscreen.
The number of applications installed should be given special attention, and even if you don't use them, they can be hanging in the boot, and the wear and tear of internal memory like eMMC affects the speed of work, the more it is filled, the slower it is to write and read data.
For initial diagnosis, use the built-in security tool. Go to the Security → Cleanup application. The system will analyze the cache status and run a speed test. If the test result is below 70%, manual intervention is required.
⚠️ Warning: Don’t use third-party accelerators (Clean Master and analogues) from the Play Market. On older versions of Android, they often put more CPU load than good by constantly hanging in the background.
Basic System Cleanup and Waste Removal
Optimization starts with removing the accumulated garbage. Unlike iOS, Android allows temporary files to take up gigabytes of space. Xiaomi’s standard utility works quite efficiently, but requires periodic manual launch.
Go to Settings → Memory. Here you will see detailed statistics on storage usage. If the Other partition takes up more than 10 GB, it is a signal to action. Often it stores the remnants of remote applications and messenger cache.
For deep cleaning, follow the following steps:
- 🗑️ Open the Security app and click "Clean up" then "Clean up garbage".
- 📱 Go to Settings. → Annexes → All apps, find heavy social networks (Telegram, WhatsApp) and clear their cache (not data!).
- 📂 Delete files from the Download folder and DCIM/.thumbnails, if there's a lot of miniatures.
Once cleaned, be sure to restart the device, which will reset temporary clipboards and start system services anew, often giving instant performance gains.
☑️ Checklist for quick cleaning
Hidden MIUI settings to boost FPS
Android and MIUI have special menus for developers that allow you to turn off visuals that create the illusion of smoothness, but load the Redmi 4 GPU. Turning off animations is the most effective way to make the interface “volatile.”
To activate the developer menu, go to Settings → About Phone. Find the MIUI version bar and quickly click on it 7-10 times in a row until the notification “You became a developer” appears.
Now a new menu will open. Go to Settings → Advanced Settings → Developer. Find the Drawing section and change three settings:
- 📉 The scale of window animation: set the value "0.5x" or "Disengineered".
- ⏱️ The scale of transition animation: also put "0.5x".
- 🎞️ Duration of animation: choose "0.5x".
Also, in this menu, find Background Processes, which should be limited to 2 or 3, so that the system can not keep in memory unnecessary applications, freeing up resources for the current task.
What is the limitation of background processes?
⚠️ Attention: The developer menu also has a "CPU boot" option. Do not turn it on constantly, as it creates a constant load on the processor by showing the graph in the corner of the screen.
Optimizing the operation of applications and autoloading
Many applications in MIUI are authorized to auto-start and run in the background, which causes the phone to brake again after 10 minutes, even after restarting, and you have to control that.
Go to Settings → Apps → Permissions → Autorun. Leave only messengers (WhatsApp, Telegram) and alarms on. Everything else, including stores, games and news feeds, should be turned off.
Next, set up battery savings for heavy applications. Go to Settings → Battery and Performance → Application selection. Find resource-intensive programs and set them to "No Limits" only if you need notifications, or "Energy Saving" for background work. For games, it's better to put "No Limits" so that the system doesn't stifle the process.
Comparison of application modes in MIUI:
| Mode of work | Impact on the battery | Impact on speed | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|---|
| No restrictions. | High-end spending | Maximum speed | For navigation and games |
| Saving energy | Average expenditure | Normal work. | For messengers. |
| Strong constraint | Minimum expenditure | Sleep appendix. | For rarely used programs |
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If you rarely use a particular application (such as a taxi service or a food delivery service), you’d better uninstall it and reinstall it as needed, freeing up valuable megabytes of permanent memory.
Disabling Advertising and System Services
Advertising in MIUI is not only an annoyance, but also a strain on the Internet channel and processor. MSA (MIUI System Ads) advertising modules consume resources that could go to speed up the interface.
To disable personalized advertising, go to Settings → Passwords & Security → Privacy → Advertising Services and turn off the “Receive Personalized Advertising” option.
Then you turn off the MSA service. Go to Settings → Applications → All applications. Find msa (green android icon) in the list. Click on it and select "Disable." If the button is inactive, turn off the Internet first.
It is also worth checking the settings of system applications:
- 📂 Conductor: Settings → About the annex → Advertising services (turn off).
- 🎵 Music: Settings → Advanced settings → Show advertisements (turn off).
- 🌤️ Weather: Settings → Additionally. → Receive recommendations (turn off).
After these actions, the phone will not only be cleaner visually, but also more responsive, since it will cease to constantly poll advertising servers in the background.
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Disabling the MSA service and ad modules in system applications is a critical step for Redmi 4, as older Snapdragon 4-series processors struggle to cope with the background load of advertising content.
Radical measures: Resetting and reflashing
If software optimization fails to produce the desired result, the last and most effective method is a complete factory reset, which allows you to remove all accumulated registry errors and file conflicts over the years.
Before starting the procedure, make sure to back up your data. Go to Settings → Advanced Settings → Restore and Reset → Reset. Make sure your battery is over 50%.
An alternative to resetting is custom firmware (like LineageOS or Pixel Experience) on Redmi 4 (codename: markw/begonia), which runs much faster than stock MIUI because it lacks heavy Chinese services, but requires unlocking the bootloader and having a computer.
The discharge process looks like this:
- Turn off the phone completely.
- Press the Volume Up + Power button before the Mi logo appears.
- From the Recovery menu, select English/Chinese → Wipe Data → Wipe All Data.
- Confirm the action and wait until it's done. The phone will reboot as new.
⚠️ Warning: After a reset, don't restore the app backup immediately. Install only the essentials. Often, older versions of apps recovered from the backup contain errors that cause the brakes.