How to turn off the Home button on Xiaomi: Disable navigation

Many Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphone owners are faced with the desire to change the standard control interface. Often users are annoyed by the presence of a bottom navigation bar with three buttons, which takes up useful screen space. The question of how to turn off the Home button on Xiaomi is especially relevant for those who want to move to more modern gesture management or need maximum immersion in content without unnecessary elements.

With the latest versions of the MIUI shell and the new HyperOS, the company’s engineers have developed flexible customization tools, so you can not just hide the indicator, but completely redesign the logic of interaction with the device, which makes smartphone use more ergonomic, especially on models with large diagonals, where reaching the bottom edge of the screen is uncomfortable with one hand.

In this article, we will discuss all the available ways to disable classic navigation, we will look at standard methods that do not require superuser rights, and also touch the nuances of working with touch buttons on older models, you will learn how to adjust gestures so that they work as convenient as possible for you.

Differences between hardware and touch button

Before you start setting up, you need to be clear about what type of home button you’re dealing with. There are many Xiaomi models on the market, and the approach to modifying them varies dramatically depending on the hardware implementation. Misunderstanding this difference can lead you to look for software settings where they physically can’t be.

If you have a hardware button that is mechanically embedded in the body (often pre-2017-2018 models like the Redmi Note 4 or Mi 5), it is software-free to disable its functionality completely. This button is part of the hardware and will always send a signal to the system when pressed, but you can change its behavior or hide its backlight if supported by the firmware.

So it's a very different situation with touch buttons or a virtual navigation bar, in which case the button is just a software interface that's displayed on the screen, and that's where the user gets full control, so you can switch to gesture control by removing the bottom panel completely, or adjust the sensitivity and location of the elements. For most of today's tasks, turning off the button is what gestures are.

⚠️ Note: On physical-button devices, attempts to “reprogram” its assignment through third-party applications can lead to unstable system operation or driver-level conflicts.

It's very easy to determine the type of button you have. Look at the screen that's off: if you see the clear outlines of the buttons that stand out from or are recessed into the body, you have a hardware solution. If you turn off the screen, the bottom of the smartphone looks like a single glass without any markings, you have touch control, or no physical element.

Transition to gesture management in MIUI and HyperOS

The most effective way to turn off the Home button is to activate gesture control mode, which completely removes the three-button bottom bar, freeing up precious screen space and making the interface more modern. In the latest versions of Xiaomi shells, this process is as simple as possible and takes only a few seconds.

To switch, you need to go to the appropriate settings menu. The path may vary slightly depending on the Android and MIUI version, but the logic remains the same. First open the Settings app, then find the section responsible for the screen and system navigation.

Inside the menu, you'll see two basic options: Buttons and Full-screen gestures. When you choose the second option, you actually turn off the Home button and the rest of the navigation bar, and the system will offer you a brief tutorial showing you how to swipe back, go to the desktop and open recent apps.

Once gestures are activated, the bottom bar may remain as a thin indicator, and many users want to remove it to achieve complete clarity of the picture. This is possible, but requires additional action, which we will discuss in the next sections. In the meantime, it is important to get used to the new logic: a swipe from the edge of the screen to the left or right replaces the back button, and a swipe from the bottom edge up replaces the home button.

How to hide the gesture indicator strip

Even after switching to full-screen gestures, many users notice a thin horizontal bar at the bottom of the screen, which is a gesture indicator that tells them where to swipe from. Although it's very thin, in some applications or when watching videos, it can be distracting, and you want to turn it off completely.

Xiaomi's regular system can't remove this strip completely, because it's a system interface element. But there's a proven method through the hidden menus available through ADB (Android Debug Bridge) or using special launcher apps that block system navigation, but there's an easier way for those who don't want to mess with the code.

Some of the design themes for MIUI have the option of hiding this indicator, so go to the Topics app, look for Profile or My Pages, and try using a theme called No Navbar or Hidden Gestures, which is a software crutch, but it works without having to get root permissions.

It's worth noting that the complete absence of visual cues can be disorienting in the early days of use, and the brain gets used to having at least a minimal marker, and if you choose to leave the indicator, it disappears automatically when you run a full-screen video or in games, because the system understands that content requires maximum space.

Switching sensitivity and swipe area

Once you’ve managed to turn off the home button and switch to gestures, you may find yourself in a situation where swipes aren’t done the first time or are too often by accident. Xiaomi has a fine-tuning of the screen edges to address this problem.

The gesture settings menu often includes the option “Swipe Area” or “Edge Sensitivity,” where you can choose how far from the edge of the screen your finger needs to start for the system to recognize the gesture, especially for smartphone owners with curved screens, where casual touching is common.

• 📱 Narrow area: The gesture only works when you touch the edge itself. Suitable for those who often hold the phone by the edges and want to avoid false positives.
• 📱 Standard Area: Balanced variant suitable for most use cases and cases.
• 📱 Wide area: The gesture is recognized even if the finger is a few millimeters above the edge, convenient for large screens, but increases the risk of errors.

You can also adjust the speed of transition animations in this section, and although this doesn't directly affect the functionality of the button, the visual responsiveness of the interface is higher, which gives you a sense of faster operation of the device. Experiment with these settings to find the perfect balance between convenience and error protection.

💡

If you wear a phone in a tight, high-sided case, select Wide swipe area, which compensates for the physical restriction of access to the very edge of the screen.

Remember, once you update your firmware, the sensitivity settings can reset to factory values, and then you'll have to repeat the setup procedure, which is normal behavior, compatibility of new functions with existing configurations.

Alternative methods and third-party applications

If standard MIUI doesn’t suit you, or if you want more advanced navigation control, third-party solutions come to the rescue. The Android app market offers a variety of tools to customize the Home button or replace it completely.

One popular method is to install alternative launchers like Nova Launcher or Microsoft Launcher, which hide system navigation and implement their own controls that can be more convenient or visually pleasing, but it’s worth remembering that third-party launchers can consume more battery life.

For users who need to reassign button functions (like double-clicking the Home button to start the camera), there are specialized utilities like Button Mapper, which require certain permissions, sometimes even access via ADB, but offer almost unlimited possibilities.

Using third-party software always carries certain risks. Apps may have access to your on-screen activities, so only download them from trusted sources such as Google Play. Also, after Android updates, such apps may stop working correctly until developers release a patch.

Frequent problems and their solution

When you turn off the home button and switch to gestures, users may face a number of common problems, understanding the causes of these problems will help quickly restore the comfort of using a smartphone, most often problems are associated with software failures or application conflicts.

One common problem is that gestures get stuck or fail to work completely, which can occur if an application is running in the background that intercepts screen control (such as screen recording or blue filter).

Another common case is the accidental exit of apps when you try to scroll through your social media feed, which is due to too high sensitivity or the wrong swipe angle, in which case a temporary return to button navigation to “reboot” the touchscreen driver, and then re-enacting the gestures.

⚠️ Warning: If after switching to gestures, the screen reacts to latency or “phantom” touches, try resetting the sensor settings in the engineering menu or calibrating the screen.

Also worth mentioning is the problem with games. Some games do not work properly with full-screen mode and can fly to the desktop when trying to swipe. In the game settings or in the Game Turbo menu on Xiaomi, you can add the game to the exception list or block gestures during the game session.

Comparison of navigation modes

To determine whether to turn off the Home button, let’s compare two main approaches: each has its own advantages and disadvantages, which can be critical for different categories of users.

Classic button navigation is common to most users who come from older smartphones, providing tactile or visual clarity: you can always see where the exit button is, and it reduces cognitive load, because you don't have to remember complex swipe combinations.

On the other hand, gesture control gives you the feeling of an “infinite” screen, which is especially important for devices with a cut-out-drop cutout or “bangs”, where the bottom panel would visually weight the interface, and gestures allow you to perform multitasking operations faster, such as quickly switching between the latest applications.

In the end, the choice is yours: Xiaomi's ecosystem allows you to change these settings at any time without losing data. Try living a week with gestures, and you probably won't want to go back to the buttons.

💡

Disabling the Home button through gesture activation is not just an aesthetic improvement, but a way to increase the ergonomics of using a smartphone with one hand and increase the usable screen area.