How to go to the wallpaper carousel on Xiaomi: setting Glance

Many owners of Redmi and POCO smartphones face a situation where when they unlock the screen, instead of the usual static picture, automatically changing images with news blocks appear. This is not a virus or a failure, but a system feature known as Wallpaper Carousel or Glance. It is designed to personalize the device, but often raises questions from users who want to understand how to control it or completely disable it.

You can access the settings of this service in several ways, depending on the version of the MIUI shell or HyperOS. In some cases, it is a separate application, in others it is a hidden item in the lock menu. Understanding the structure of the system will allow you to effectively control what you see on the lock screen, while saving battery power and traffic.

What is Glance and how does it work?

The feature that users often search for as a “carousel” is officially called Glance (formerly known as Mi Wallpaper Carousel), a system application that runs in the background and downloads content from the manufacturer’s servers when connecting to the network. The main purpose of the service is to show high-quality photos, news, weather widgets and promotional offers directly on a locked screen.

It works by updating the cache of images periodically, so when you pick up your phone, it checks for new data packets, if the Internet is active, a new image can be loaded, algorithms analyze your preferences if you like images, and try to offer relevant content, but working in the background can consume CPU resources.

⚠️ Note: The service requires a constant internet connection to update content.If you have tariff-charged traffic, it is recommended to limit background data transfers for this application to avoid unforeseen costs.

It is important to distinguish between a standard gallery and a carousel. The usual wallpaper is static and stored in the device’s memory, whereas Glance is a dynamic data stream. Users often confuse these concepts by trying to delete pictures through the file manager, which does not work, since the source of the images is on a remote server, not in the DCIM folder.

Where to find carousel settings in MIUI and HyperOS

Access to carousel management can be implemented in different ways depending on the firmware region (Global, Chinese, Indian) and the operating system version. In most modern Xiaomi shells, the path to settings is standardized, but sometimes the app shortcut can be hidden in the Tools or Services folder.

The fastest way to get to the menu is to search by settings, open the main Settings menu and use the search bar at the top of the screen, type in "Carousel" or "Glance," and automatically pop up the appropriate item, which will open the full service management menu.

If the search doesn't work, you can go through the customization menu in a classic way, which works on 95 percent of devices and checks if the service is currently active, and the sequence of actions should be as follows:

• 📱 Open the Settings app on the main screen.
• 🎨 Go to Always on Screen and Lock (or simply Lock Screen»).
• 🔄 Find the wallpaper carousel item and click on it to enter the submenu.
• ✅ Switch Turn on the wallpaper carousel will allow you to activate or deactivate the function.

In some firmware versions, especially in Chinese builds, this section may be called Lock Screen Magazine. The operating principle remains the same. If you don't find this item, you may have a stripped-down version of the shell installed on your device, where functionality is blocked by the operator or region.

Content management and notification setting

Once you've entered the carousel settings, you have a wide range of customization options, and you can choose the categories of images that you're interested in: nature, architecture, cars, or abstraction, and ignoring those settings leads to chaotic displays, which often annoys users.

The notification block deserves special attention. By default, Glance can display news, weather and even banner ads on top of the block picture. To turn the carousel into a clean gallery without unnecessary noise, you need to manually turn off unnecessary options in the submenu "Carousel settings".

Also worth paying attention to is the Get References feature: If it is active, the system will more often offer content marked as popular among other Xiaomi users. For a more personalized experience, it's better to rely on manual selection of categories.

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If you want to use your photos in a carousel, create a separate album in the gallery and select it as a source in the Glance settings if the firmware version supports this feature.

How to completely disable the wallpaper carousel

Many users come up with the question of "how to get into the carousel" precisely for the purpose of removing it. Despite the built-in nature of the service, it can be completely deactivated by returning a standard static image, which also helps to eliminate the periodic twitching of the screen when the device wakes up.

To completely shut down, it's not enough to just change the wallpaper in the gallery. You have to force the lock image source to switch, go to the carousel menu as described above, and find the switch to turn on the wallpaper carousel. Turn it to the "Off" position.

The system will prompt you to select a static image from the gallery or standard sets. Once you confirm the selection, dynamic loading will stop. However, if you want to be sure that the process will not start again after you update the system, follow the additional steps:

• 🛑 Go to Settings. → Annexes → All applications.
• 🔍 In search, find Glance or Wallpaper Carousel.
• 🧹 Press Clear Clear. → Clear all data.
• 🚫 Click the Disable button (if available) or limit background activity.

⚠️ Note: On some global firmware versions, the “Disable” button may not be available for system applications, in which case limiting background activity and banning data use is the only legal way to stop the service without obtaining Root rights.

Once you do this, the phone will only use the image you set up through the standard personalization menu, and no external servers will affect the lock screen anymore.

Problems with loading and lack of pictures

There are times when a user wants to use a carousel, but it stops updating or shows a network error. Most often the problem lies in the energy saving settings. Aggressive MIUI algorithms can kill the carousel process to save charge, considering it inactive.

To fix this, add the app to exceptions. Go to Settings → Battery → Settings (cogs) → Autostart. Find the Wallpaper Carousel in the list and allow it to autorun. Also, select No Limits mode from the Application Management Menu for Glance.

Another common cause is crowded cache. Over time, accumulated thumbnails can take up hundreds of megabytes, causing crashes. Cleaning the cache through the app menu (described in the previous section) often solves the problem of hanging on a single image.

Frequent Questions and Answers (FAQ)

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Wallpaper carousel is a customizable tool that can be turned from an advertising source to a beautiful gallery if you properly configure categories and traffic restrictions.