How to return old wallpaper on Xiaomi phone: from standard to remote

Have you accidentally deleted your favorite wallpaper from your lock screen or desktop on Xiaomi and it's not in the gallery? Or did you lose factory themes that came out of the box after the MIUI update? This problem is familiar to many owners of Redmi, POCO or Mi smartphones - especially after resetting or cleaning up memory. Fortunately, you can return old wallpaper even without root rights, and we'll show you how to do this as quickly as possible.

In this article, you will find 5 proven ways, from simple (restore through theme settings) to advanced (manual copying of system files), we will also discuss why wallpaper disappears after MIUI 14/15 updates and how to prevent their loss in the future. If you are looking for a specific instruction for your model, use the table of contents below.

⚠️ Important: Some methods require connecting your phone to a PC or using it ADB. If you’ve never worked with these tools, start with the first three ways – they’re safe and don’t require technical skills.

1. Recovery through “Themes” (the easiest way)

If the wallpaper is gone after changing the theme or resetting, first check the built-in MIUI library. Many factory wallpapers are stored in the Themes system application and can be reused without further manipulation.

How to do this:

• 📱 Open the Topics app (brush icon on desktop).
• 🔍 Go to the Wallpaper tab. → My wallpaper.
• 🔄 Scroll down to System or Factory – here you can save the standard wallpaper of your model.
• 🖼️ Click on the picture you like and select Apply (for the lock screen or desktop).

If this section is empty, try resetting the Topics app cache:

1. Go to Settings → Applications → Application Management.
2. Find themes and select Warehouse.
3. Click Clear the cache and restart the application.

⚠️ Attention: After update MIUI 14+ Some system wallpapers may disappear from this section. If you don't find the right background, move on to the next way.

2. Search in the MIUI/wallpaper folder (for power users)

All default wallpapers are stored in a hidden system folder. If you haven't manually deleted them, they can be found through a root or ADB file manager. This method is suitable for Xiaomi 11/12/13, Redmi Note 10/11/12 and others on MIUI 12-15.

Instructions:

1. Connect your phone to your PC and enable USB Debugging (Settings → About Phone → MIUI Version → 7 times click on the build number → return to Additional → For Developers).
2. Download ADB Tools and unpack it on your computer.
3. Open the command line in the adb folder and type:

adb shell


su




ls /data/system/users/0/wallpaper

If the folder exists, copy its contents to the PC:

adb pull /data/system/users/0/wallpaper C:\Xiaomi_Wallpapers

Wallpaper files will be in.jpg or.png format with names like wallpaper_lock (for the lock screen) and wallpaper_home (Transfer them back to the phone gallery and install them through Settings. → Wallpaper.

3. Restore from MIUI backup

If you've ever backed up through Settings → Additional → Backup, you could have saved wallpaper in your archive, which works even after you reset your phone to factory settings.

How to restore:

• 📁 Connect your phone to your PC and find a folder. MIUI/backup/AllBackup internal.
• 🔍 Open the latest archive (.mbk format) through the program MIUI Backup Extractor.
• 🖼️ In the archive, find the folder wallpaper - here you can find all the wallpaper, including the deleted ones.
• 📲 Copy files back to your phone and install through the gallery.

If you don’t have a backup, check out the Mi Cloud:

1. Sign in to i.mi.com.
2. Go to Devices → [your phone] → Backups.
3. Download the latest copy and retrieve the wallpaper through the same MIUI Backup Extractor.

⚠️ Note: Backups in Mi Cloud are only stored for 30 days. If more time has passed, the data may have been deleted.

4. Download the original wallpaper for your model

If the wallpaper has been removed permanently, it can be found in open databases, and many enthusiasts post factory backgrounds for popular Xiaomi models on forums and Telegram channels.

Example: for Xiaomi 12T Pro, wallpaper can be found here. Download the archive, unpack and install through the Gallery → Install as wallpaper.

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If you can’t find wallpaper for your model, try searching by device code (e.g. Redmi Note 11 Pro 5G has veux code).

5. Manual addition of wallpaper via ADB (for advanced)

If you're ready to work with ADB, you can manually upload wallpaper to the system folder, which is suitable if you have wallpaper files (for example, downloaded from the forum), but they do not appear in the phone's settings.

Step-by-step:

USB debugging enabled

Installed ADB drivers on PC

Downloaded wallpaper in.jpg/.png format (resolution of at least 1080x2400)

Phone connected to PC via cable-->

1. Put the wallpaper files in the folder C:\Xiaomi_Wallpapers on PCs, for example, wallpaper_lock.jpg and wallpaper_home.jpg).
2. Open the command line in the adb folder and type:

adb push C:\Xiaomi_Wallpapers/wallpaper_lock.jpg /data/system/users/0/wallpaper/wallpaper_lock


adb push C:\Xiaomi_Wallpapers/wallpaper_home.jpg /data/system/users/0/wallpaper/wallpaper_home

1. Set file rights:

adb shell chmod 644 /data/system/users/0/wallpaper/wallpaper_lock


adb shell chmod 644 /data/system/users/0/wallpaper/wallpaper_home

1. Reset the phone. Wallpaper will appear in the Wallpaper settings.

If /data/system/users/0/wallpaper does not exist, create it manually using ADB: adb shell mkdir -p /data/system/users/0/wallpaper.

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This method only works on phones with unlocked bootloader or root rights. Some models (such as the POCO X5) may require disabling MIUI Optimization in the developer settings.

Why does the wallpaper disappear after the MIUI update?

Many Xiaomi users are faced with missing wallpaper after installing a new version of MIUI. This happens for three reasons:

• 🧹 Cleaning the cache of system applications - when updating, the settings of Themes and Gallery are reset.
• 🔄 Changes in folder structure - in MIUI 14+ The path to the wallpaper may have changed (for example, with the /data/data/... on /product/wallpaper/...).
• 🚫 Delete “extra” files – the system can automatically clean unused wallpaper to save space.

To avoid losing the wallpaper in the future:

• 📁 Regularly copy your favorite backgrounds to the cloud (Google Photos or Mi Cloud).
• 🔧 Turn off automatic cleaning in Settings → Warehouse → Cleanup.
• 📦 Before the update MIUI Create a backup copy through Settings → Additionally. → Backup.

FAQ: Frequent questions about wallpaper restoration