How to remove icons in the upper left corner of the Xiaomi smartphone: the complete guide

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones often face a situation where the interface is full of various indicators, especially in the upper left corner of the screen, where by default many characters can be displayed distracting from the content. Visual noise not only interferes with the perception of information, but also reduces the aesthetic appeal of the device. Understanding how to remove icons in the upper left corner of Xiaomi, is necessary for any user who wants to customize his gadget to himself.

MIUI and its successor HyperOS offer a lot of status bar management, but the settings are scattered across menus. Some characters disappear immediately after the function is disabled, others require a deeper immersion into system settings. In this article, we will take a look at each type of indicator, explain their purpose, and give clear instructions on how to hide them. You will learn to distinguish between system notifications and intrusive interface elements that can be safely disabled.

What do the symbols in the status bar MIUI and HyperOS mean?

Before you start deleting, you need to clearly identify what is displayed on your screen. In the upper left corner, you usually have indicators related to the network, notifications and system modes. Status bar is a dynamic area that responds to user actions and system state in real time. Misunderstanding the character function can lead to the accidental shutdown of an important option, such as energy saving mode.

Most people want to remove the "N" icon, the "Do Not Disturb" notification, or the Internet speed indicators, but there may be more specific characters indicating that a VPN is activated, that you are connecting to Bluetooth devices, or that Hotspot is working. Each of them has its own display priority. The system automatically determines the importance of the event and displays the corresponding symbol.

⚠️ Note: Some icons, such as the missing symbol SIM-A card or a critical system error, you can't just delete it through the interface settings, and it disappears only after the root cause of the problem is eliminated.

The differences between the firmware versions can be significant. In older versions of MIUI 12, some elements were hidden, while MIUI 14 and HyperOS introduced separate switches for each type of indicator. It is important to consider the model of your device, since on the budget Redmi series, some functions can be reduced compared to the flagship Xiaomi.

How to disable the display of Internet speed and the icon “N”

One of the most common requests is to remove the current data rate display, which shows how many kilobytes per second your device is downloading or unloading. While it's a useful monitoring tool for some, it's annoying for many with its constant numerical flashing, and it doesn't need root rights or complex manipulations to get rid of it.

To start, go to the basic settings of the system. You need to find the section responsible for Notifications and status bar. The path may vary slightly depending on the version of the shell, but the logic remains the same. In the list of parameters, look for the item "Display Internet speed" or similar. The switch should be converted to an inactive state.

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If you can not find an item in the general menu, use the search by settings, entering the phrase “Internet speed” – the system will open the desired menu.

The "N" sign indicates the activation of NFC technology. This is a short-range contactless module used to pay with a smartphone or transfer files. If you don't use these features all the time, the module can be turned off completely, which also saves battery power. However, if you need NFC periodically, it's easier to simply hide its indicator from the status bar.

• 📱 Open Settings and go to Notifications and Status Bar.
• 📉 Find the switch to Display Internet speed and turn it off.
• 📡 For the badge NFC Go to Connections and Sharing and turn off the switchboard NFC Or hide it in the status bar settings.
• 🔄 Restart the device to make sure the changes are applied correctly.

Remove the indicators of the mode “Do not disturb” and “Silent mode”

The crescent or crossed-out speaker icon in the left corner often appears unexpectedly, indicating that Do Not Disturb or Silent Mode is activated. Unlike Internet speed, these settings are often switched on by accident when you unlock the screen or through the control panel, and you can remove them in two ways: quickly through the notification curtain or deep through the settings.

The fastest way is to lower the notification curtain with a double swipe from top to bottom. Find a tile with a crescent or speaker. If it's illuminated with an active color, click on it to deactivate. If the icon reappears after a reboot or at a certain time, you may have an automatic turn-on schedule set up.

Check the schedule in the Sound and Vibration settings section, where you can set a timer that puts your phone in quiet mode at night or during meetings, and look for the In-Pack feature, which sometimes mistakenly activates notification lock if the proximity sensor is contaminated.

Newer versions of HyperOS offer the ability to fine-tune what system sounds and notifications will be ignored in this mode, which gives flexibility but makes it harder to find the cause of the icon. If a standard shutdown doesn't help, check the installed third-party call management apps, they can have priority.

Hiding alarm clock icons, Bluetooth and VPN

These three are functional indicators: An alarm sign reminds you of a planned event, Bluetooth indicates the connection of a headset or watch, and a VPN reports a secure connection.

With the alarm clock, it's simple: the icon disappears immediately after the bell or if you turn off all the alarm clocks in the Clock app. However, if the alarm is set for a recurring event, the symbol will hang constantly. In some MIUI builds, there is a hidden option to turn off the display of the alarm icon, but most often it is rigidly tied to the application.

Bluetooth and VPN It's different. These technologies work in the background. To remove their icons, it's not enough to just hide them -- you have to break the connection or turn off the module. For example, if you're listening to music through wireless headphones, the Bluetooth icon will always burn. VPN-Customers often have a “Constant Connection” or “Security in the background” setting, which keeps the icon active.

It’s important to understand the difference between turning off a feature and hiding its indicator. In the case of a VPN, the icon is a security indicator. If you force it to be hidden (through modified themes or system edits), you may forget that your traffic is coming through a third-party server, which is potentially unsafe when using public Wi-Fi networks.

Configure the display of notifications from applications

The top left corner is often filled with instant messenger, social media and gaming icons, not system icons, but app notifications, which can run into tens, turning a status bar into a pile of symbols, and you can control this chaos through the notification management menu.

Go to the settings and find the Notifications and Status Bar section, and you'll see a list of all the apps you've installed, and if you go through each, you can stop the icon from showing in the status bar, leaving push messages to the notification center (curtain), which is the perfect trade-off: you don't miss messages, but the screen stays clean.

Pay special attention to Xiaomi system applications such as Security, Downloads or Explorer, which often display their icons when scanning or downloading a file is completed. In the settings of these applications, you can also find the Show in Status Bar switch.

⚠️ Note: By disabling the messenger icons (WhatsApp, Telegram), you can stop seeing the number of unread messages directly on the lock screen, if this function depends on the status bar in your firmware version.

Using themes and third-party launchers to clean the screen

If standard MIUI settings aren't enough, design themes come to the rescue. There are themes at Themes that completely change the design of the status bar. Some of them hide unnecessary elements or make them transparent. But beware: low-quality themes can cause interface bugs or the disappearance of important indicators such as battery power.

A more radical method is to install a third-party launcher, like a Nova Launcher or a Microsoft Launcher. They take over desktop management and often have their own status bar settings. The launcher can override Xiaomi's standard bar with its own, more minimalist one. This gives maximum customization freedom, but requires getting used to the new logic of the job.

For advanced users, there is a method of hiding icons through ADB (Android Debug Bridge), by connecting the phone to a computer, you can type a command that hides specific system icons at the shell level, which is the most effective, but also the most risky way, requiring accuracy.

adb shell settings put global icon_blacklist battery,bt,sync,volume

Using this command will remove the specified icons from the status bar. To return everything as it was, you need to execute the command with the null parameter. Remember that interfering with system settings through ADB can lead to unstable operation of the device if you are not sure of your actions.

Frequent problems and their solution

Sometimes people are faced with a situation where the icon "goes up" — for example, you turned off Bluetooth, and the icon remained hanging, or the network icon disappeared, although the Internet works, this is a software glitch of SystemUI, the process responsible for the interface.

The first step in such a crash is to reboot the device, which clears the cache of the processes and restarts SystemUI. If the problem recurs regularly, try clearing the Settings and System Interface app cache through the Apps menu. In extreme cases, resetting to factory settings helps, but this is a last resort.

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If the icon doesn’t disappear after all the manipulations, it’s likely a software bug of the SystemUI process that is treated by rebooting or clearing the cache.

It’s also worth checking for system updates. Xiaomi engineers regularly release patches that fix interface display errors. If you have a MIUI beta installed, the probability of bugs is much higher than on a stable build.

FAQ: Answers to popular questions