How to transfer a file from your phone to your Xiaomi TV: the complete guide

Today’s Xiaomi Mi TVs and Mi Box consoles offer access to a wealth of entertainment content, but it’s often necessary to recreate the personal media stored in your smartphone’s memory. Whether it’s family photos from your last vacation, a high-resolution video, or a music collection, it’s natural to want to bring this to the big screen. Fortunately, the Android TV ecosystem that powers Xiaomi TV software offers a variety of flexible tools for wireless and wired data.

In this guide, we will take a look at all the current ways to quickly and efficiently stream content from your mobile device to your TV display, learn about the built-in operating system, third-party streaming apps, and media servers, and look at both standard protocols like DLNA and Miracast, as well as more advanced methods over the local network.

Regardless of which model of Xiaomi TV you have installed — budget series Mi TV Stick or flagship QLED TV — the principles of the organization of data exchange remain the same. the main thing is to set up the connection and choose the right format to avoid image delays or interruption of playback. Let's start setting up your home multimedia center.

Preparing devices for synchronization

Before you start transferring files directly, you need to make sure that both devices — smartphone and TV — are ready to interact. A fundamental requirement for most wireless methods is to find gadgets on the same local area network. This means that your phone and Xiaomi TV must be connected to the same Wi-Fi router. If you have a dual-band router, make sure that both devices use the same frequency, for example, 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz, although modern routers often combine them into a single network.

The second important step is to update the software. Check if the TV has the latest version of Android TV firmware installed. Older versions of the software may contain errors in network protocols or not support new video codecs. To check, go to the settings menu, select About device and click System Update.

⚠️ Note: When using a Guest Network, devices may be isolated from each other for security reasons, in which case file transfer will not be possible until you switch to the main network.

Also worth paying attention to energy saving: If your smartphone is in a power-saving mode, the operating system may restrict background activity of network modules, which will cause a connection break when transferring large files.

Screen broadcast via Miracast and built-in Casting

The fastest way to display a picture from a smartphone to a Xiaomi TV is to use mirror technology. In Android, this feature is often called Cast, Broadcast or Smart View (depending on the phone manufacturer). Xiaomi TVs support the Miracast protocol natively, so installing additional software is usually not required.

To activate a feature on your TV, you need to make sure it's enabled in the settings. Go to Settings → Apps → All apps and find the Wireless Display or Broadcast app. Run it and leave it open. On some models, it's easy to be on the home screen because the service is running in the background.

Now let’s move on to the smartphone setting:

• 📱 Open the Quick Settings Panel on your phone (swipe top-down) and find the Translation, Smart View or Device Connect button".
• 📡 Wait for the phone to scan the available devices on the network.
• 📺 The list will show the name of your Xiaomi TV (e.g. Living Room) TV). Press it.
• 🔗 Confirm the connection on the TV screen if the corresponding request appears.

Once paired successfully, the phone will be completely duplicated on the TV screen, which is convenient for presentations, photo galleries or games, but it is worth remembering that with this method, the phone screen must remain on, which can lead to a quick battery drain.

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If you're streaming videos from apps like YouTube or Netflix, you'd better use the built-in "Cast" button inside the app itself rather than mirroring the entire screen, which will allow the phone to do less work and save battery life, as the video will be loaded directly by the TV.

Using the Google Home app for Chromecast

Most Xiaomi TVs have built-in support for Google Chromecast built-in technology. This allows you to stream content from supported apps directly to the TV using your smartphone as a remote control. To control the device and adjust some settings, it is useful to have an installed Google Home app.

Chromecast is different from mirroring, where when you send a video to TV, the phone only sends a command to start the stream and a link to the content, the video stream itself is downloaded by the TV directly from the Internet, which provides a more stable picture quality and allows you to use the phone for other tasks while watching.

To take advantage of this method:

• 🏠 Install and open the Google Home app on your smartphone.
• 🔍 Find your Xiaomi TV in the list of devices.
• ▶️ Click the "Cast my screen" button for full mirroring or use the broadcast button within specific applications (YouTube, Spotify, VLC).

An important advantage is the ability to create groups of devices for multi-room audio or control multiple TVs at the same time, and Google Home allows you to quickly switch the Wi-Fi network to which the TV is connected, without using a remote.

Transfer of files over the local area network and DLNA

If your goal is not just to stream online content, but to open a specific file (MKV video file, RAW photos or FLAC music) stored in your phone’s memory, the most effective solution is to use the DLNA protocol or create a local server. Xiaomi TVs work great with media servers.

To do this, you'll need a smartphone server app, and popular options are VLC for Android, BubbleUPnP, or LocalCast, which lets you share folders with files, making them visible to your TV on the local network.

Let’s consider the algorithm of actions on the example of the popular VLC player:

1. Install the VLC for Android app on your smartphone.
2. In the side menu of the application, find the "Network" section and turn on the "Shared access via Wi-Fi" option.
3. The app will issue IP-address (e.g, http://192.168.1.55).
4. On a Xiaomi TV, open the VLC for Android TV app (available from the Google Play Store on TV) or any other DLNA-compatible player.
5. In the Local Area Network or UPnP section, you'll see your phone, and when you log in, you'll have access to all the media files.

This method is ideal for viewing heavy files, as it does not require compression of the video stream on the fly, as it happens with mirror display.

Wired connection via USB and OTG

When the wireless network is unstable or you need to transfer files of huge volume (for example, 4K movies weighing 50-80 GB), nothing compares to the reliability of a wired connection. Xiaomi TVs are equipped with USB ports that allow you to connect external drives. However, connecting a smartphone directly with a USB-to-USB cable may not work, since both devices act as a “host”.

There are two main scenarios for wired data transmission: One is using a smartphone as a flash drive. Some modern Xiaomi smartphones and other Android devices allow you to choose USB mode when connecting to a TV. You need to choose MTP (Media Transfer Protocol) or File Transfer mode in phone notifications, in which case the TV will see the phone as an external drive.

The second, more universal way is to use USB-hub or adapter, if you have one. USB-A powered hub, you can plug a flash card or an external hard drive into it, by first transferring files from your phone to it. USB-TV port Xiaomi.

⚠️ Note: TVs may not support file systems NTFS Or exFAT without installing additional codecs. If the TV can't see the file, try formatting the drive into format. FAT32 (for files up to 4GB) or make sure that the TV has a powerful player, for example, MX Player with codecs.

Direct cable connection ensures no delays and compression artifacts, which is critical for viewing high-bitrate video files. In addition, this method does not consume battery power of the smartphone, and in some cases can even recharge it.

Solution and optimization of speed

Users can face a variety of technical difficulties in setting up, and one of the most common problems is low data rates or constant video buffering, which often involves overloading the Wi-Fi channel. If you have multiple devices running simultaneously, the bandwidth may not be enough to stream high-resolution video.

To optimize speed, it is recommended:

• 📶 Switch the TV and phone to the 5GHz band, which is less busy and provides speeds than 2.4GHz.
• 📉 Close background apps on your smartphone that may consume traffic (cloud syncs, downloads).
• 📍 Place the router closer to the TV reception area, or use a Wi-Fi repeater if the signal is weak.

Another common problem is the lack of sound when broadcasting video, which may be due to an audio stream codec that is not supported by the TV, and in such cases, using a third-party player on a TV (for example, VLC or Kodi), which has its own built-in codecs, solves the problem.

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Connection stability depends on the quality of the router and the distance to it. To view 4K content over Wi-Fi, it is highly recommended to use the 5 GHz band.

Remember that Xiaomi TV software is updated periodically. If a method stopped working after the update, check the forums or official support pages - security settings or communication protocols may have changed.