How to set up a gallery on Xiaomi: a complete guide with secrets and life hacks

Gallery on Xiaomi smartphones is not just a place to store photos, but a powerful tool with dozens of hidden functions. Many users for years use standard settings, without even knowing that you can automatically sort photos by date, create secret albums, sync media files with the cloud without loss of quality or speed up the application by 2 times. This article will reveal all the secrets of setting up the gallery on Redmi, POCO and Mi-series – from basic parameters to professional chips that are not written in the official instructions.

The Xiaomi Gallery is closely integrated with the MIUI shell, which means that some features (such as cloud sync) require authorization in Mi Account, while others (like hidden folders) only work on certain versions of firmware. We will discuss the universal methods relevant to MIUI 12-14, and also point out the key differences between models. If you want to not just view photos, but manage them like a professional, read on.

Basic Gallery Settings: What You Can Change in 2 Minutes

To start with, the simplest of them are the settings that are available right in the Gallery app interface, which don't require deep knowledge, but can significantly improve the user experience, such as turning off automatic thumbnail creation to save space or enabling the display of hidden files if they suddenly disappear after an update.

To open the settings, run the gallery and tap three dots in the top right corner (or swipe right to left on the home screen). From the menu, select Settings. Here you will find the key options:

• 🔍 Show hidden files – turn on if they are not displayed after transferring photos from the PC.
• 📁 Show folders – manages the display of system directories (for example, DCIM/Thumbnails).
• 🔄 Auto-Update thumbnails - turn off if the gallery slows down while scrolling.
• 🌙 Dark theme – forced on dark mode, regardless of system settings.

Important: on models with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset (for example, Xiaomi 13 Ultra), an additional optimisation for AI appears in the gallery settings - its inclusion accelerates photo processing using neural networks, but increases the load on the battery.

Sorting and grouping photos: how not to get lost in thousands of pictures

If you have thousands of photos in your gallery, finding the right shot is more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack. Fortunately, MIUI offers several ways to automatically sort:

• 📅 By date, the classic version, where photos are grouped by day/months. To turn on, go to Settings. → species → Date grouping.
• 🏷️ Albums by manual or automatic sorting (e.g., all screenshots in one folder). To automatically distribute, use the Smart Albums feature in the settings.
• 📍 By location -- if you have geotags stored in the metadata, the gallery can show the images on the map. → Additionally. → Map photo.
• 👥 Faces — AI analyzes photos and groups them by people (works only on flagships with the MIUI 13+).

To manually sort, hold your finger in any photo, then tap the Add to the album icon (plus folder). To create a new album, choose Create an album and give it a name. Professional Lifehack: use emoji in album titles (e.g., use emojis in album titles, "🎂 Birthdays to find them on the list faster.

Remove duplicates (Settings → Cleaning)

Insert date grouping

Create smart albums for screenshots/downloads

Check geotags in metadata (via EXIF Viewer app)

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3. Hidden folders and privacy: how to hide personal photos

If you’re storing personal photos on your phone that you don’t want to show to others, Xiaomi offers two layers of protection:

1. Hidden albums – photos remain on the device but are not displayed in the main gallery. To hide the pictures: 1. Select the photo → Click “More” → “Hide” 2. Enter the password (if not installed, the system will prompt you to create) 3. The photos will disappear from the shared gallery, but will remain in the.hidden folder To return them back, go to Settings → Hidden albums and enter the password.
2. Encrypted folders (for only MIUI 14) - Photos are encrypted and stored in a secure partition of memory. → Confidentiality → Encrypted folder Here you can install a separate folder PIN-finger-print.

Attention: hidden albums are not protected from access through a file manager! Anyone who connects your phone to a PC will be able to see the.hidden folder in the root directory. For complete privacy, use third-party apps like KeepSafe or Vaulty.

4. Cloud synchronization: how not to lose a photo when resetting your phone

Xiaomi offers two options for cloud backup photos: through Mi Cloud and Google Photos.

To set up autoboot in Mi Cloud:

1. Open the Settings. → Mi Account → Mi Cloud.
2. Turn on the switch in front of the gallery.
3. Click on the gear next to the Gallery and select: 📶 Download only over Wi-Fi (recommended to save traffic). 🔋 Load when charging - so as not to put the battery down. 📂 Eliminate folders – if you don’t want to sync screenshots or memes.

⚠️ Attention: If you delete photos from the gallery after they have been uploaded to Mi Cloud, the images will remain in the cloud, but if you delete them before sync, they will disappear forever. → gallery → Journal.

5.Storage optimization: how to free up space without losing photos

Xiaomi Gallery can take up tens of gigabytes of memory, especially if you often take pictures in RAW format or shoot videos in 4K. Here is how to reduce the weight of the media library without removing the pictures:

• 🗑️ Duplicate cleaning - the gallery automatically finds identical photos. → Cleanup → Duplicate photos.
• 📉 Photo compression – in the Google Photo settings, you can enable the High Quality option, which reduces the weight of images without visible loss of quality.
• ☁️ Free up space – after uploading photos to the cloud (Mi Cloud or Google Photos), the originals can be deleted from the phone, leaving only thumbnails.
• 🔄 Transfer to SD-Card – if your Xiaomi supports memory cards (e.g. Redmi Note 12 Pro)+), Move the file. DCIM externally.

Professional advice: If you shoot videos frequently, turn off high-resolution Slow Motion saving. Go to Camera Settings → Video → Slow shooting and choose 720p instead of 1080p. This will reduce file size by 3-4 times.

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Before mass deletion of the photo, turn on the display of file size in the gallery. To do this, activate the option Show the file size in the settings, so you can manually delete the most "heavy" pictures.

6. Advanced functions: what is silent official instructions

Few people know, but the Xiaomi gallery is much more than just showing photos. Here are some hidden features that favorably distinguish it from the standard Android galleries:

• 🎨 AI-Real-time retouching on flagships (Xiaomi) 13T, 14 Pro) when viewing a photo, you can click on the icon of the magic wand, and the neural network will automatically improve colors, contrast and sharpness.
• 📽️ Create a video from a photo - highlight a few pictures, click More → Create a video, and the gallery will mount a video with music and transitions.
• 🔍 Content search – you can enter keywords in the search bar (e.g., “sea”, “cat”), and AI Find relevant photos (works on the MIUI 14).
• 📱 Remote access – if you lost your phone, you can view the latest photos through Find Device (when synced with Mi Cloud is enabled).

Another little-known feature is the Visually Impaired Mode, which increases the contrast and size of thumbnails, making it easier for people with visual impairments to see photos.

Settings → Special features → Mode for the visually impaired → Include for the gallery

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Function AI-Photo search only works when you connect to the Internet, as processing takes place on Xiaomi servers. If you value privacy, turn off this option in the settings.

7. Solving the Problem: Why the Gallery is Slowing Down or Not Showing Photos

Even on top Xiaomi models, the gallery can be unstable, and here are the most common problems and solutions:

If the gallery has stopped opening at all, try resetting it to factory settings:

Settings → Applications → Gallery → Three points → Reset settings

⚠️ Attention: On some firmware (MIUI Global for European Region) Clear Data feature can delete hidden albums! Before reset, back up via Settings → Additionally. → Backup.

Frequently asked questions