Blurred miniatures in Xiaomi Redmi 7A: 7 reasons and 5 ways to solve

You open a gallery on your Xiaomi Redmi 7A, and instead of clear sketches, you see blurry squares? This problem is familiar to many owners of Xiaomi's budget smartphone, released in 2019. Blurring thumbnails is not a critical breakdown, but it seriously spoils the user experience: it is difficult to find the right photo, videos look unkempt, and sometimes sketches do not load at all.

In this article, we will look at why this is happening, whether it is due to the hardware limitations of the Redmi 7A (after all, it only has 2/16 GB of memory in the basic version), or the software is to blame, and most importantly, we will give practical solutions that will help to restore clarity to thumbnails without going to the service center.

What is the blurring of miniatures and how it manifests itself

Miniatures (or sketches) are reduced copies of photos and videos that the gallery shows for quick viewing. In Xiaomi Redmi 7A, their generation is responsible for the system application com.miui.gallery, which optimizes images for screen resolution (720×1440 pixels).

The blurring manifests itself in different ways:

• 📷 The pictures look fuzzy, as if with low resolution.
• 🎥 Video miniatures are shown with artifacts or a grey background
• 🔄 When scrolling through the gallery, sketches load slowly or disappear.
• 🖼️ In some folders, thumbnails are displayed normally, while in others they are not.

It is important to distinguish blur from screen problems: if the full-size photo opens with a clear picture, then it is the sketches. If the photo itself is blurry, it may be damaged camera matrix or optical lenses (relevant to Redmi 7A after falls).

7 Reasons to Blurr Miniatures on Redmi 7A

The problem is rarely caused by a single cause, usually a combination of factors, and we analyzed user feedback on 4PDA, Mi Community, and service centers, and identified the main triggers:

The most common reason is the limited resources of the smartphone. Redmi 7A is equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 processor and only 2 GB of RAM in the basic version. When the system starts to save memory, it first sacrifices the quality of sketches, because they require additional processing power.

⚠️ Attention: If the blur occurs after a phone drop or moisture hits, the problem may be hardware - damage to the plume of the display or memory controller.

How to check if there is a software or hardware problem

Before you start fixing, you need to rule out hardware malfunctions. Do this with three simple tests:

1. Test 1: Full-size photo check: Open any blurry image in the gallery to a full screen. If it's clear, the sketches are a problem. If it's blurry and full-size, the camera or display may be damaged.
2. Test 2: Alternative Gallery Install a third-party app (like Google Photos or Simple Gallery) and check the thumbnail display on it. If the sketches are clear, the MIUI system gallery is to blame.
3. Test 3: Safe Mode Press the power button, hold the power button until a request for Safe Mode appears. Safe Mode disables all third-party applications. If thumbnails become clear, the conflict is caused by one of the installed applications.

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If the problem is still in Safe Mode, but Google Photos has clear sketches, this is a sign of corrupted.thumbnail system files in the DCIM folder.

5 working ways to fix the blur of thumbnails

Start with the simplest and safest methods, and gradually move to the more radical ones. Follow the instructions in order, often the problem is solved in step 1-2.

1.Cleaning gallery and media storage cache

The fastest way, which works 60 percent of the time, is that the cache of the gallery gets clogged with damaged sketches over time, and the system can't render them correctly.

Instructions:

1. Go to Settings → Applications → Application Management.
2. Find the Gallery (or Miui Gallery) and select it.
3. Press Warehouse. → Clear the cache.
4. Go back and find the Media Storage app (com.android.providers.media), clear its cache similarly.
5. Reboot the phone.

Once the reboot is complete, the gallery will start to regenerate the thumbnails, which can take a few minutes -- don't worry if the sketches don't show up right away.

2. manually delete.thumbnail files

If cleaning the cache didn't work, you'll have to delete hidden folders with sketches, which are stored in the root directory of memory and can be damaged.

Connect your phone to charge (the process may take time)

Make a backup of important photos

Use a file manager with root or Total Commander rights

Do not delete other folders in DCIM-->

How to delete:

1. Open any file manager (such as Total Commander or FX File Explorer).
2. Go to the DCIM folder on the internal drive.
3. Find the.thumbnails folder (it is hidden – turn on the display of hidden files in the manager settings).
4. If you have multiple folders (like.thumbnails-large), delete everything.
5. Reboot the phone.

⚠️ Warning: Don't confuse.thumbnails with Camera or Screenshots! Deleting the wrong files can lead to personal data loss. DCIM computer.

3. Disabling MIUI Optimization

Xiaomi aggressively optimizes background processes to save battery life, sometimes preventing the gallery from generating sketches correctly.

What to do:

• 🔋 Go to Settings. → Battery and productivity → Battery management.
• 📱 Find the Gallery app and select Without Limits.
• 🔄 Back to Battery Management. → Settings (⚙️) → Optimization MIUI and turn it off.

Then restart the gallery, and if the problem was the background optimization, the thumbnails will start to show clearly in 5-10 minutes.

4. Update or rollback of the MIUI version

Some of the firmware versions for the Redmi 7A (especially MIUI 12.5) had sketches that were in the system, and if you've recently upgraded the system, try rolling back.

How to check the MIUI version:

Go to Settings → About Phone → MIUI version. Current for 2026 – MIUI 14 (Android 10).

If you have an older version, upgrade via Settings → System Update. If the problem occurs after the update, try rolling back:

1. Download the old firmware version from the official Xiaomi website (for example, MIUI 12.0.3).
2. Move the.zip file to the phone’s root memory folder.
3. Go to Settings. → The phone. → Updating the system → Three points (⋮) → Select a firmware file.
4. Select the downloaded file and wait for the process to be completed.

5.Use of an alternative gallery

If nothing works, the surest way is to drop the standard gallery. MIUI The best options for Redmi. 7A:

• 📸 Google Photos – automatically creates sketches in the cloud without loading your phone.
• 🖼️ Simple Gallery Pro is a lightweight open source application.
• 🗃️ A+ Gallery – Optimized for weak devices.

After installing an alternative gallery:

1. Open it and wait for the indexing of files (it can take 10-15 minutes).
2. Set up auto-update sketches in the application settings.
3. If you wish, disable the system gallery through Settings → Applications → Disable.

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Alternative galleries not only solve the problem of blurring, but also save battery power, as optimized better system MIUI-gallery.

Prevention: How to avoid blurring miniatures in the future

To prevent the problem from returning, follow these recommendations:

• 🧹 Clean the cache of your gallery and media storage regularly (every 1-2 months).
• 📁 Don’t store thousands of photos in one folder – break them down by album (e.g., by album, «2023_Summer, Documents»).
• 🔄 Update. MIUI, But before that, read the reviews on the forums about the new version.
• 🚫 Do not use memory cleaners (such as Clean Master) – they often damage gallery cache.
• ☁️ Set up auto-reserve in Google Photos or Mi Cloud – this will relieve internal memory.

If you take pictures often, consider buying a microSD card (up to 256GB supports Redmi 7A). Storing your photo on an external medium will reduce the load on system memory and reduce the likelihood of blurring sketches.

Frequent mistakes in solving the problem

Many users make things worse by following questionable advice from the Internet.

• 🔧 Delete system files without backup – this can lead to a phone ‘brick.
• 🔄 Reset settings without first checking other methods.
• 📱 Install custom firmware (e.g. LineageOS) without experience – Redmi 7A It is not intended for such experiments.
• 💾 Formatting internal memory as FAT32 — It will disrupt the Android operation.

Also not worth it:

• 🔋 Turning off battery optimization for all applications – it will reduce battery life.
• 📲 Use killer tasks (e.g. Greenify) – they conflict with MIUI.

⚠️ Warning: If you see tips like "turn off hardware acceleration" or "change screen resolution" - ignore them. 7A These settings are either absent, or their change will lead to unstable operation of the system.

FAQ: Answers to Frequent Questions