Xiaomi and Redmi smartphone owners often encounter an intrusive but functional service that automatically changes the background image on the lock screen.This feature, known as wallpaper carousel, emerged as an alternative to standard static images, offering users a daily stream of high-quality content. In the shell of MIUI 12, developers have significantly reworked image selection algorithms, adding new categories and improving the logic of the system.
Many users perceive this option as an advertising tool, but when properly configured, it becomes a convenient source of inspiration. You can choose your own topics, frame rate and even download sources. Understanding the intricacies of the System Launcher will allow you to take control of the visual style of the device in your own hands.
In this article, we will discuss the process of activating, configuring and, if necessary, completely disabling the service. We will look at hidden settings that are not always obvious at first glance, and help make the lock screen exactly the way you want it to be.
What is a wallpaper carousel and how does it work
The wallpaper carousel is an integrated system service that uploads images from the company's cloud storage and displays them every time you turn on your smartphone screen. Unlike conventional live wallpaper, this mechanism does not consume significant amounts of power, because it uses static, optimized files. It is based on a component miui.systemui.plugin, which is integrated deep into the system.
The key thing is that images can be interactive, and if you click on certain areas of the image, you can open weather widgets, news, or shortcuts of applications, and this turns the lock screen from a simple security to an information hub, but it requires a stable Internet connection at least periodically to work properly.
It is worth noting that in different regions of the firmware (Global, China, EEA), the set of available categories may differ. Chinese versions of MIUI often receive content updates faster, but may contain elements that are not adapted for an international user.
⚠️ Note: The service requires permission to access geolocation to display localized content (such as photos of your city’s landmarks). If you value privacy, it’s better to deactivate this feature in the carousel settings.
The update mechanism works in the background, it analyzes when you last connected to Wi-Fi, and it uploads a packet of new images in advance, and it's done to save the user's mobile traffic.
Step-by-step instruction for inclusion of the function
Activating the service in MIUI 12 does not require complex manipulation, but the path to settings may not be obvious to beginners. All management is concentrated in the standard Themes application. You do not need to download third-party software, since all the necessary modules are already built into the system.
To start, open the Themes app on the home screen or in the Tools folder. Then go to the Profile tab (the person icon in the lower right corner), and there's the Wallpaper Carousel button, which runs the module you want, and if you only see subscription ads there, maybe your region in your phone settings is different from Russia or Ukraine.
When you log into the merry-go-round menu, you'll see a switch in the upper right-hand corner, and activating it will start the process of downloading the first packet of images. Don't worry if nothing changes immediately - you may need to lock and unlock the device to take effect.
☑️ Activation checklist
It is important to understand the difference between turning on a service and applying it to the lock screen. Sometimes, after switching on, you need to select a specific set of images to start showing them, the system can offer you "Recommended" sets that you can opt out of in favor of manual selection.
Configure categories and image sources
The most important part of personalization is choosing what you want to see. MIUI 12 offers content to be divided into several logical groups: nature, architecture, art, abstractions and local landscapes. Each category has its own ID on the system and is updated independently.
To set up a list, click on the gear icon or the Settings button inside the carousel interface. Here you will see a list of subscriptions available. You can deselect from categories that you are not interested in. For example, if you are annoyed by photos of cities, just turn off the corresponding item.
The Local Images feature, which allows you to use your own gallery photos as a source for the carousel, is a unique way to create slideshows from personal moments right on the lock screen without using third-party widgets.
| Type of content | Frequency of update | Requires a network | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Recommended | Every day. | Yes. | Compilation of Xiaomi editors |
| Local. | Orderly. | No. | Photo from your gallery |
| Landscapes. | Weekly | Yes. | Nature and the world's cities |
| Abstraction | Rarely. | Yes. | Graphic patterns |
You can also find the "Get recommendations" option in the settings, which if you turn it off, the carousel will only show the categories you select, ignoring the algorithmic suggestions of the system, which are often advertising in nature.
⚠️ Note: When selecting Local, make sure the Themes app has permission to access the storage. Without this right, the carousel will show a black screen or a standard stub.
Shift intervals and frequency of updates
The flexibility of MIUI 12 allows you to adjust not only the content, but also the frequency of frame changes. By default, the system can update the image with each activation of the screen, which creates the effect of constant variety.
In advanced settings (often hidden in the "About the carousel" submenu or through long clicks on the category), you can find a frequency parameter. You can choose to change the image: each time you unlock, once an hour, once a day or manually. For most users, the best option is to change once a day or at each time you turn on the screen, if you choose many categories.
There's also a caveat to caching, which is that if you notice that images don't change very often, you may have filled the service's cache, and if you clean it up through the Themes app's storage menu, you can force new content to load, which is especially true if you haven't used the feature in a long time.
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Tip: To save battery power, install the carousel update only when connected to Wi-Fi. This will prevent heavy images from loading in the background via the mobile network.
Some users prefer to synchronize the change of wallpaper with the time of day. Although there is no native schedule in MIUI 12 for this, the combination of the carousel with the "Sleep" mode allows you to indirectly control this process, limiting network activity at night.
Using your own photos in the carousel
One of the most popular features is the ability to add your photos to the rotation, which turns the standard lock screen into a personal gallery, and to do this, you need to select the option "Add photos" or "My photos" from the menu of the carousel.
The system will suggest you choose an album or specific shots. It's important to understand that the carousel will create a separate queue for your files. You can set them to show only your photos or mix them with online content. In MIUI 12, mixing is not always stable, so it's better to allocate personal photos to a separate "category" within the service, if this option is available in your version of the firmware.
When adding your own images, the system automatically applies basic color correction and cropping to make the photo look good on the screen with a cutout for the camera. However, horizontal shots may not be cut correctly, so for best results, choose vertical photos or images with a central composite object.
⚠️ Warning: Do not add thousands of photos to the carousel at once.This can cause interface lags when unlocked and over-inflate the cache size of the Themes app, leading to unstable system operation.
If you want to completely replace the standard stream on your photos, just turn off all online categories and keep only the personal image folder active, which ensures that you will only see what you choose.
Solution: Carousel is not working or glitching
Despite its usefulness, the service sometimes doesn't work properly, and the typical problems are that the images don't change, the black screen appears, or the image gets stuck, and most often the reason is because of aggressive battery optimization, which kills the process of updating the carousel.
To solve the problem, go to Settings → Apps → All apps, find “Themes” (or “Wallpaper and carousel”). Go to Battery and select “No Limits” mode. This will prevent the system from unloading the process from memory. Also check if auto-update is enabled in the settings of the carousel module itself.
Another common problem is that there's no Internet connection when you lock it, so if the phone was in sleep mode without the network, the new wallpaper won't load, and the solution is simple: unlock the phone with the Wi-Fi on, wait a few seconds, lock it again. The picture needs to be updated.
Hidden commands for resetting
In rare cases, a complete reinstallation of updates for the Themes app helps. Go to Play Market or GetApps, find the app and click Update. If the button is not active, try removing updates through the app menu and installing the current version again.
How to completely disable the wallpaper carousel
If you don't need it or are annoying, it can be easily deactivated. The easiest way is to go back to the Topic → Profile → Wallpaper Carousel and turn off the master switch. Then the static image you selected in the basic settings will appear again on the lock screen.
However, sometimes the switch can fall off on its own due to system errors, so you can turn off notifications from the service, go to the notification settings of the Themes app and stop showing any alerts, this will not remove the wallpaper, but will stop pop-up messages about new categories.
For advanced users, there's a method of disabling through ADB that removes the component completely. But in MIUI 12, a standard shutdown is usually enough. Remember, once the phone's settings are reset to factory, the carousel can be activated again, as it's part of the stock firmware configuration.
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Completely shutting down the carousel does not affect the operation of the main functions of the phone, but frees up RAM and slightly reduces battery consumption in standby mode.
If you want to replace the carousel with something more functional, consider installing third-party launchers or lock widgets from Google Play that offer more flexible control over content.