Where Xiaomi Stores Deleted Photos: All Hidden Places and Recovery Ways

You accidentally deleted important photos from your Xiaomi and now you don’t know where to look for them? Even after cleaning the gallery, files often remain in hidden areas of the system, cloud services or temporary folders. In this article, we will analyze all possible storage locations for deleted photos on Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones – from the standard shopping cart to technical caches, which most users do not even know.

It’s important to understand that the chances of recovery depend on how files were deleted (via gallery, file manager or formatting) and how long it has been since they were deleted. The faster you start searching, the more likely you are to return lost images. We’ll also tell you what tools will help scan the device’s memory at a low level – this is true if the photos are not found in standard storage.

1.The basket in the standard Xiaomi Gallery

The first place that deleted photos get is the built-in shopping cart in the Gallery app, which works on Xiaomi smartphones on a “soft delete” principle: files are not erased immediately, but moved to temporary storage, where they can lie for 15 to 30 days (depending on the model and version of MIUI).

To check the basket:

• 📱 Open the Gallery app (icon with multi-colored squares).
• 🗑️ Slip on three dots in the upper right corner → pick the basket.
• 🔍 View the content: there can be both photos and videos.
• 🔄 To recover, select the files → press Restore.

Note: the Recycle Bin in MIUI has a volume limit of 500 MB. If the limit is exceeded, the old files are automatically deleted irrevocably. Also, the Recycle Bin does not work when deleted through file managers (for example, Files or ES Explorer) - in this case, the photos are erased immediately.

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If the shopping cart is empty but you are sure you have deleted the photo recently, check the.trash folder through the file manager with the hidden files displayed enabled.

2. Cloud services: Mi Cloud and Google Photos

Xiaomi smartphones sync photos with two cloud services by default: its own Mi Cloud and Google Photos. Even if you deleted the pictures from the device, copies of them could be saved in the cloud – especially if autosynchronization was enabled.

How to check:

An important nuance: Mi Cloud only syncs photos taken by the smartphone camera by default. Screenshots downloaded from instant messengers or downloaded from the Internet often do not get to the cloud. Google Photos is the reverse situation - all images are synchronized there, unless the option Backup is disabled.

3. Cache and temporary application files

Many apps (social networks, messengers, photo editors) create temporary copies of images in their cache folders. These files can remain on the device even after the originals are deleted. For example, WhatsApp stores thumbnails of chats in the /storage/emulated/0/Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media folder, and Telegram stores thumbnails of chats in /Telegram/Telegram Images.

Where to look:

To access these folders, you’ll need a root file manager (like Solid Explorer or FX File Explorer) or a smartphone connection to a PC. Normal Files from Xiaomi won’t show the contents of /Android/data/ folders without additional settings.

⚠️ Note: Do not confuse the app cache with the folder DCIM/.thumbnails — It only stores thumbnails for quick downloads, and there are no photos in the folder, but you can tell from the thumbnails what files were on the device.

4. System folders: DCIM, Pictures and Download

Even after deleting, photos can remain in hidden system folders, especially if they have been moved or duplicated.

• 📁 /DCIM/Camera — Here are the original photos from the camera.
• 📁 /Pictures/Screenshots — Screenshots (sometimes duplicated in the /DCIM/Screenshots).
• 📁 /Download — web-loaded images.
• 📁 /MIUI/Extra — backups of media files (if optional in settings is enabled).
• 📁 /Android/data/com.miui.gallery/cache — Gallery cache (may contain miniatures).

To see the hidden folders:

1. Open Files → Click on three points → Settings.
2. Activate the option to show hidden files.
3. Hand-scroll through DCIM, Pictures and MIUI folders.

On Xiaomi smartphones with MIUI 14+ firmware, the /MIUI/Extra folder can contain backup photos created by the system before major updates. These files are not displayed in the gallery, but are accessible through a file manager.

5 Recovery through specialized programs

If photos are not found in standard storage, the last chance is deep memory scanning programs, which work at the file system level and can recover data even if it was deleted months ago (provided that their disk space has not been overwritten).

Top.-3 utility for Xiaomi:

• 🛠️ DiskDigger – scans internal memory and microSD card, supports root-free recovery (but with limitations).
• 🔧 Recuva – works by connecting a smartphone to a PC in mode MTP.
• 📱 Dumpster - analogue of the basket, but with advanced functions (you need to install in advance).

Instructions for DiskDigger:

1. Download the app from Google Play (or APK from the official website).
2. Start a full scan (it will take 10–30 minutes).
3. Mark the photos you find (shown as.jpg or.png).
4. Click Restore and Save to a memory card or cloud.

⚠️ Note: Do not save recovered files to the internal memory of the smartphone - this can overwrite the remaining "snippets" of deleted data.

Disable Wi-Fi and Mobile Data|Charge your phone at least 50 times%|Not installing new applications|Do not take new photos/videos|Scan as soon as possible after removal-->

6 Physical Memory: What to Do When Nothing Works

If all of the above methods fail, the last option is to access the device's physical memory.

• The photos were removed more than 30 days ago.
• There was a formatting or resetting of settings.
• The internal memory was damaged (for example, after the phone fell).

In such cases, it will help:

• 🔌 Connecting to a PC in Fastboot mode and using utilities like ADB or DD memory-image.
• 🛒 Contacting the service center – specialists can extract the memory chip and read it on the programmer (expensive, but effective).
• 💾 Checking the microSD card (if the photos were stored on it) through the card reader on the PC.

To create a memory image by yourself through ADB:

adb shell


su




dd if=/dev/block/mmcblk0 of=/sdcard/mmcblk0.img

This image can then be scanned on a PC using PhotoRec or TestDisk. Careful: Incorrect commands can lead to data loss!

7. How to prevent future photo loss

To avoid the problem of lost photos, follow these rules:

• ☁️ Enable autosynchronization with Mi Cloud or Google Photos (settings) → account → backup).
• 📁 Regularly copy your photo to a PC or external drive (for example, once a month).
• 🔄 Use the Recycle Bin: Do not delete files through the file manager – only through the Gallery.
• 📱 Install a shopping cart application (like Dumpster) that will intercept removals.
• 🔋 Watch for memory health: If your smartphone overheats or brakes frequently, it may indicate damage to the drive.

It’s also useful to know that Xiaomi has a hidden local backup feature to enable:

1. Go to Settings. → The phone.
2. Tap 7 times on the MIUI version to activate Developer Mode.
3. Return to Settings → Additional → Backup and Reset.
4. Enable Local Backup and specify a folder to save (such as a microSD card).

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Even if you’re not using the cloud, local backup to a memory card will save your photos when your phone is reset or your internal drive breaks.

FAQ: Frequent questions about photo recovery on Xiaomi