Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and Poco devices often face a situation where the once-fast smartphone suddenly starts to work slowly.The interface of MIUI or HyperOS hangs down, applications open with a delay, and animations become intermittent.This is a common problem that does not always indicate a break in the iron, but requires immediate intervention to restore comfortable use of the gadget.
The reasons for the performance decline can be software-based: crowded cache, background processes, unoptimized system updates or conflicting applications. The most common cause of lags in 80% of cases is a memory overflow or a system failure after a major firmware update. Understanding the root cause allows you to choose the right algorithm of actions and avoid radical measures such as resetting to factory settings.
In this article, we’ll look at all the effective ways to speed up your device, look at both the built-in cleaning tools and the hidden settings available through the developer menu, and follow the instructions to help extend the life of your smartphone without having to buy a new model.
Primary diagnosis and memory cleaning
The first thing you need to do when Xiaomi is slowing down is to analyze the state of the built-in drive. The Android operating system is designed so that when you fill up memory by more than 85-90%, the speed of writing and reading data critically drops, which causes those friezes and delays when you start programs.
First, check how much space is left. Go to Settings → Memory. If less than 5GB is available, the system needs to be unloaded urgently. Delete unnecessary videos, duplicate photos and heavy files from the Download folder.
Use Xiaomi’s built-in Security app, which has a powerful Cleanup tool that deletes temporary files, remnants of deleted applications and system cache, but don’t rely on automatic cleanup alone.
Manually check the messenger cache. Telegram and WhatsApp tend to accumulate gigabytes of media files that are not always deleted by standard means. Go to the settings of each messenger, find the item "Memory Use" and clear the cache.
- 🧹 Remove files from the Download folder if they are no longer needed.
- 🗑️ Clear the cache of heavy apps: YouTube, Instagram, TikTok.
- 📸 Transfer photos and videos to your computer or cloud storage.
- 📲 Remove apps you haven’t used in the last 3 months.
Once the space is free, restart the device, allowing the system to redistribute resources and index the file system correctly.
Managing Autoboot and Background Processes
Many users are unaware that even after closing, applications continue to run in the background, consuming RAM and CPU resources. In the MIUI shell, this process can be especially aggressive due to the features of optimization.
To prevent unnecessary programs from running with the system, go to Settings → Applications → Auto Run. Here you will see a list of programs that start immediately after you turn on the phone. Leave only the essentials: messengers (if you need notifications) and antivirus. The rest – turn off.
⚠️ Warning: Do not disable system services and drivers in the boot menu unless you are sure of their purpose.This can lead to network or Bluetooth malfunction.
Also, limit background activity for specific applications. From Settings menu → Apps → All apps, select heavy program, click Battery, and select No Limits mode only if you need real-time notifications. For the rest, choose Battery Savings.
You can actually turn off background processes more deeply through the developer menu, and we'll talk about that in the next section, but manually limiting background activity can already give you a performance boost in the interface.
- 🚫 Turn off autoplay for games and media services.
- 🔋 Set background activity limits for rarely used applications.
- 🛑 Close “heavy” apps through the menu of recent tasks after use.
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Use Memory Extension only if you have little RAM (4GB or less) and on fast storage, virtual memory can even slow down because of the speed difference.
Secret Developer Settings to Accelerate
Android has a hidden menu that allows you to directly influence the visual responsiveness of the system, which does not add power to the processor, but creates the illusion of faster work by reducing animation time.
To log into the developer menu, you need to quickly click on the MIUI version or OS version 7 times in the About Phone section. After the “You became a developer” notification appears, go to Advanced Settings → For developers.
Find the section "Drawing" (or "Animation"). You are interested in three parameters: "Window animation", "Engineering animation" and "Duration of animation." By default, they are 1x. Change them to 0.5x or completely disable them.
What to do if the developer menu is missing?
Also on the developer menu, you can find the item "Background processes": set the limit "No more than 2-3 processes", which will free up RAM for active applications, but can increase the reboot of background programs.
| Parameter | Recommended value | The effect |
|---|---|---|
| Window animation | 0.5x | Acceleration of opening/closing applications |
| Animation of transitions | 0.5x | Quick switching between screens |
| Background processes | No more than 3 | Freeing RAM |
| Logger format | Off | Reducing CPU load (for advanced) |
Problems after updating and working with MIUI
Often, the situation when Xiaomi started to slow down occurs immediately after the system update, which is due to the fact that in the first 2-3 days after installing a new version of Android or MIUI, the system conducts file indexing and application optimization in the background.
During this period, the phone may heat up and run slower than usual. If the upgrade happened yesterday, just wait a couple of days, actively using the device, and plug it into charging for the night.
However, if the problem persists for longer than a week, the update may have been installed with errors, in which case cleaning the update cache helps, you need to enter Recovery mode (clutching the volume button up when the phone is turned off) and select Wipe Cache (not to be confused with Wipe Data!).
⚠️ Note: Wipe Data deletes all your personal data completely. Use only Wipe Cache if you want to save photos and contacts.
It’s also worth checking for tails from old firmware. If you’ve switched from one major version of Android to another (like Android 11 to 13), experts recommend doing a full Hard Reset before installing the update, but this is a last resort.
☑️ Checklist after update
The impact of widgets and live wallpaper on productivity
The MIUI shell is famous for its visual beauty, but it costs resources. Live Wallpapers and numerous widgets on the home screen are constantly polling sensors, using the Internet and loading the graphics accelerator.
If your smartphone is not flagship-level (Xiaomi 13/14 series or Poco F5/F6), it is better to abandon live animation on the desktop.
Weather, news and currency widgets also require constant network connectivity and data updates, removing unnecessary items from the home screen, leaving only the watch and essential shortcuts, and reducing the load on RAM when unlocked.
Check out the theme. Third-party themes from MIUI Themes may be poorly optimized and contain code errors that cause interface lags. Try going back to the standard theme of Classic and see the results.
- 🎨 Replace the wallpaper with a static photo.
- 📉 Remove news and weather widgets from the home screen.
- 🎭 Reset the theme to standard.
- 📵 Turn off the widget "Ribbon widget" (swipe left) if you do not use.
Radical measures: Resetting and reflashing
If none of the above methods worked, and Xiaomi continues to slow down even in safe mode, the last option remains - a complete reset to factory settings.
Before the procedure, be sure to back up the data to the Mi Cloud cloud or to your computer. After the reset, the phone will be as new from the store.
To reset, go to Settings → About Phone → Settings Reset → Erase all data. It takes about 10-15 minutes. Once turned on, take your time to restore all applications at once. Check the system to "clean" state.
In rare cases, you need to flash the device through your computer using the Mi Flash Tool, a complex procedure that requires unlocking the bootloader, which can take anywhere from 7 to 168 hours of waiting, and you should only run to it if the reset did not help.
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Hard Reset eliminates 99% of the software causes of the brakes, but takes time to reset the phone.