How to find notes in a Xiaomi phone through a computer: official and hidden methods

Lost important records on a Xiaomi smartphone and don't know how to recover them through a computer? This problem is familiar to many: notes can disappear after resetting settings, updating MIUI or accidentally deleting. Fortunately, Xiaomi has several ways to access notes from a PC - from official tools to technical workarounds.

In this article, we will discuss 5 Proven methods of finding and saving notes from Xiaomi smartphone on your computer: through the Mi Cloud cloud, file manager, ADB-commands, backups, even third-party utilities, and we'll focus on hidden folders where you can find them. MIUI Notes are stored, and we explain why some methods may not work on new models (e.g. Xiaomi). 13/14 or Redmi Note 12).

We warn you that not all methods are universal. For example, access via ADB requires USB debugging enabled, and sync with Mi Cloud only works with a linked account. To save you time, we noted the only method that is guaranteed to work on 90% of devices is a combination of a MIUI backup and manual note file search.

1. Search for notes through Mi Cloud (official way)

The easiest and safest method is to use the Mi Cloud cloud service, which automatically syncs notes if you have this feature on your smartphone.

1. Sign in to i.mi.com with the same account as your phone.
2. Go to the Notes section, if it's not available, then the sync is off.
3. Click on the desired note, then select Export or copy the text manually.

⚠️ Note: If notes are not displayed in Mi Cloud, check on your phone: Settings → Accounts. → Mi Cloud → Synchronization → Notes on new models (Xiaomi) 12T, Redmi Note 11 Pro+) The path may be different: Settings → Memory. → Backup → Cloud.

Mi Cloud stores notes in.json or.db format, but you can't download them directly, just browse through the web interface. If you need original files (for example, for litigation), move on to the next method.

2. Manual extraction of notes through the file manager

Notes in MIUI are stored in hidden system folders, and to find them, connect your phone to your PC in file transfer (MTP) mode and follow the instructions:

Enable the display of hidden files in Windows Explorer (View → Hidden Items)

Open the Internal Storage folder → miui → notes

Look for files with the.db or.bak extension (e.g. notes2.db)

Copy them to your computer for backup.

Use DB Browser for SQLite to view content

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On Xiaomi models with MIUI 13/14 The path may change to: Internal Storage → Android → data → com.miui.notes → Important: without root rights, you'll only see a portion of the files. ADB (see section 4).

⚠️ Note: Do not edit.db files directly, this can lead to data loss. If notes are encrypted (for example, in Mi Secure Notes), they can not be read without a password from your Mi Account.

3.Export of Notes through MIUI Backup

The MIUI backup feature allows you to save notes to an archive that you can then retrieve on a PC. Here's how to do this:

1. On the phone, open Settings → About the phone → Backup.
2. Select Local Backup and tick Notes.
3. Click Create a backup and wait until it is completed.
4. Connect your phone to your PC and find the backup file in the MIUI/backup/AllBackup folder.

The backup is.mbk format. To extract notes:

1. Rename the file to.zip and unpack it.
2. Find the com.miui.notes folder, and it will contain note files.

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If the backup is damaged, try opening it through the 7-Zip archiver with the "Fix Archive" option.

This method works on all Xiaomi models, but has a limitation: only notes created through the standard Notes app are backed up. If you used Google Keep or OneNote, their data must be exported separately.

4. Access to Notes via ADB (for Advanced)

If previous methods didn’t work, you can try extracting notes through Android Debug Bridge (ADB), which requires USB debugging and installed Xiaomi drivers on your PC.

Instructions:

1. Enable USB debugging on your phone: Settings → About Phone → MIUI version (click 7 times), then go back to Settings → Additional → For Developers → Debugging over USB.
2. Connect the phone to the PC and confirm the debugging permission.
3. Open the command line on PC and type: adb pull /data/data/com.miui.notes/databases/notes2.db C:\notes_backup\

⚠️ Note: New models (Xiaomi 13 Pro, Redmi) K60) The path to the database can be protected by SELinux, in which case only root access or special utilities like MiXplorer with SQLite module will help.

After extracting the notes2.db file, open it via DB Browser for SQLite. Notes are stored in the note table - look for title and content columns.

5. Recovering deleted notes through third-party utilities

If the notes were deleted but the phone wasn't completely reset, you can try to recover them with data recovery software.

• 🔍 EaseUS MobiSaver – supports scanning internal memory for note files.
• 📱 Dr.Fone – Recovers data from Mi Cloud backups and local storage.
• 💾 DiskDigger – Searches for deleted files.db and.bak.

Important: The less you use your phone after you delete notes, the better the chances of recovery. When you write new data, old files are overwritten.

The recovery algorithm:

1. Install the program on your PC and connect the phone.
2. Select the Deep Scan mode.
3. Wait until it is completed (may take 1-2 hours).
4. Filter results by keywords (e.g., “notes”, “miui”).

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Third-party utilities don't guarantee 100% recovery, especially if notes have been encrypted or your phone has been reflashed. Always back up important data!

6. Alternative ways: sync with Google and third-party apps

If you use third-party apps (such as Google Keep or Microsoft OneNote) rather than standard MIUI Notes, the process of extracting notes is simplified:

• 🌐 Google Keep: Go to keep.google.com under your account – all notes will be there.
• ☁️ OneNote: Open onenote.com or use a desktop app.
• 📝 Simplenote: Export notes through Settings → Exports in.zip format.

To automate synchronization between MIUI Notes and Google Keep, you can use NoteSync (available on Google Play) to copy notes from one service to another in the background.

⚠️ Warning: When using third-party apps, disable autosynchronization of Mi Cloud for notes to avoid duplication and version conflicts.

FAQ: Frequent questions about Xiaomi notes