How to send files from your phone to your Xiaomi TV: the full guide

Xiaomi’s modern Android TV smart TVs are a powerful multimedia center that often outperforms mobile devices in display and sound quality. Users often face the need to showcase a family album to guests on a large screen or run a high-resolution movie stored in their smartphone memory. Owners of Xiaomi Mi TV and Redmi TV devices have several effective ways to accomplish this task, each of which is suitable for different use cases.

The choice of method depends on the type of data transmitted, the amount of information and the availability of free time. You can use wireless protocols for fast broadcasting or cable connection to transfer heavy files without loss of quality. Next, we will discuss all the options available in detail so that you can choose the most convenient for your situation.

Wireless screen broadcast via Miracast

The fastest way to show the contents of a smartphone screen on a TV is Miracast technology, which is built into most modern Xiaomi Android smartphones and TVs, which allows you to clone an image from the phone’s display to the large screen in real time, which is ideal for viewing a photo gallery or navigating the interface.

To get started, make sure both devices are connected to the same Wi-Fi network. On the TV remote, click the button with the app image or go to the signal source menu and select Wireless or Cast. On a Xiaomi smartphone, the option is often called “Translation” and is in the notification curtain or in the Settings menu. → Connection and sharing → Broadcasting.

• 📱 Open the notification curtain on your phone and find the Translation icon».
• 📺 On the TV, launch the Wireless Display app or similar.
• 🔗 Choose the name of your TV from the list of available devices.
• ✅ Confirm the connection on the TV screen if a request appears.

It is important to consider that when using wireless mirroring, image quality may depend on the speed and stability of your router.If you plan to watch 4K video, make sure that a 5GHz network is used, as the 2.4GHz standard may not provide sufficient bandwidth.

⚠️ Warning: When broadcasting a screen in high resolution, the smartphone battery can discharge much faster than usual.

Use of DLNA and Media Applications

If your goal is to play a video file or a music track, rather than displaying the entire screen of a smartphone, DLNA technology will be a more energy-efficient solution. Unlike Miracast, here the TV acts as a renderer, decoding the data stream itself, which reduces the load on the phone's processor.

Xiaomi phone owners find it easier to use the built-in Mi Video or Gallery app. Open the file, click on the icon (rectangle with Wi-Fi signal) and select your Xiaomi Mi TV. The system will automatically find the device on the local network and start playing.

For more advanced users, there are specialized applications such as LocalCast or BubbleUPnP that support a wider range of formats and allow you to control the playback queue. These programs are especially useful if the standard player does not see the TV or support the file format.

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Use video playback applications to save your phone’s battery power, as the smartphone screen can be turned off while watching.

One of the key features of this method is that you can control playback from your phone, so you can pause, rewind, or adjust the volume without getting up from the couch while the TV does all the hard work of decoding the video stream.

Transfer of files via USB-storage

When you need to transfer large files, for example, a movie in a format 4K weighing more than 20GB, or when the wireless network is unstable, the best solution is a physical connection. USB-This method guarantees maximum data transfer speed and no delays typical of Wi-Fi.

To implement this method you will need USB-A flash drive or external hard drive. It is important that the drive is formatted in the file system. FAT32 or NTFS, since Android TV You may not see the exFAT format without installing additional drivers. Copy files from your phone to the drive using an adapter OTG, If your smartphone does not support direct connection of the flash drive.

After connecting the storage device to USB-When you're in the port of the TV, the system automatically prompts you to open the file manager or start the media player. If this does not happen, go to My apps. → Explorer and select the connected device. Xiaomi TVs usually read files from folders located at the root of the disk without any problems.

⚠️ Warning: Some external hard drives require power from a separate source.If the drive is not detected by the TV, try plugging it in via a separate source. USB-powerhouse.

Cloud storage and network resources

Xiaomi’s ecosystem and third-party services offer convenient ways to access files without physically transferring them. If you use Google Photos, Google Drive or the Mi Cloud, you can access your data directly on your TV.

The most versatile solution is to install a file manager with cloud support, such as File Commander or X-plore. Once you log in to the app on your TV, you will have access to all the files you upload to the cloud from your phone, which eliminates the need to copy files back and forth.

You can also set up a folder sharing on your computer (SMB) and open it on your TV through a built-in media player, but it is easiest for the average user to install and log in to a specific cloud service application (such as Yandex.Disk or Dropbox) from the Google Play store on your TV.

This is especially true if you take pictures on your phone and want to show them on the big screen immediately, without wasting time connecting devices, and the main condition is that you have a stable Internet connection with a sufficient speed of incoming flow.

Connection via HDMI and adapters

For professionals who require image transfer without any compression or delay, there is a wired option via the HDMI port. Since modern Xiaomi smartphones rarely have video output, a special USB-C to HDMI adapter will be required.

Connect the adapter to your smartphone, connect the HDMI cable to your TV, switch the TV signal source to the appropriate HDMI 1 or HDMI 2 port, and the image will appear instantly, and the phone will identify the TV as a second monitor, allowing you to expand the workspace or start a game in high resolution.

It is worth noting that with this connection, the phone can quickly heat up, as the video processor is in a high-speed mode, and some adapters require additional power, which can be supplied through the built-in USB port on the adapter itself.

Solution and optimization

Even if all instructions are followed, there can be technical difficulties, most often users are faced with the fact that the TV does not see the phone in the list of available devices, 90% of the time the problem lies in the settings of the router, which isolates the devices from each other (AP Isolation function).

Check if the router is split into guest and main network, both devices should be on the same subnet, and rebooting the network equipment helps: turn off the router, TV and phone, then turn them on in sequences: router → TV → phone.

If you use third-party apps to transfer, make sure they are given all the necessary permissions in your Android settings.In particular, access to the LAN and files should be allowed explicitly, especially on Android versions 11 and above, where security requirements are enhanced.

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Connection stability depends on whether devices are on the same Wi-Fi network (the same SSID) rather than simply connected to the same router across different bands (2.4/5 GHz).

⚠️ Warning: Antiviruses or firewalls on your computer or in router settings can block ports used by protocols DLNA Try temporarily disabling the diagnostics protection.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)