Owners of smartphones Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO They often face the need to clean up their media library, VID_20231025...), Renaming videos allows you to instantly find the right videos among thousands of other files, especially if you are actively shooting blog content or keeping a family archive.
The MIUI shell interface or the new HyperOS provides several built-in tools for working with the file system. You do not need to install third-party applications, since the basic functionality of Explorer or Gallery is enough to do this. However, many users are unaware of the hidden features of the menu or confuse the actions for different types of files.
In this article, we will look at all the current ways to change the name of a video, we will look at the nuances of working with local files, the peculiarities of renaming in cloud storage, and solve the typical problems when the system blocks changes. Understanding the structure of Android folders will help you manage the media space more effectively.
⚠️ Note: Before mass renaming important archive records, it is recommended to make a backup copy of them. An error in file or name extension can cause the player to stop playing it.
Use of the built-in Gallery application
The most obvious and quick way to change the title of a video is to use the standard Gallery app, which is ideal when you need to rename one or more files immediately after shooting, and the interface is as simplified and sharpened to visual perception as possible, which reduces the risk of error.
To start, open the album and select the video. In the lower right corner or in the "More" menu (three dots), the editing function of the file information is often hidden. In new versions of MIUI, simply click on the file name at the top of the screen or select "Properties" / "Info".
- 📱 Open the Gallery app on your Xiaomi device.
- 🎥 Select the video file that needs to be renamed and click on it.
- ✏️ Click on the current file name at the top of the screen or find the “Rename” button in the menu.
- 💾 Enter a new name using Cyrillic or Latin and confirm the action.
It's worth noting that in some versions of the firmware, direct renaming via video preview may not be available, in which case the system will suggest moving to the properties of the file. Video metadata also allows you to add a description or change the shooting date, which is useful for sorting the chronology of events.
💡
If you rename a video for later upload to social networks, use short titles without special characters – this will improve the readability of the file after downloading to the platform server.
Working with files through the Explorer application
For more advanced users who are used to the classic file system structure, the built-in Explorer is the best tool, which gives access to the root structure of directories and allows you to manage files the way you do on a personal computer. There are no visual limitations of the gallery.
Find the video in the corresponding folder (usually DCIM/Camera or MIUI/screenrec for screen recordings). A long press on the file highlights it, after which a set of actions appears in the bottom menu, among which there will be the option “Rename”.
☑️ Checking before renaming
Special attention should be paid to file extension. When you manually enter a name, it is easy to accidentally delete the part after the dot or replace.mp4 with.mp3. Android can warn about this, but you should not rely on automatic warnings. Always check that the extension corresponds to the video format.
| Parameter | Recommendation | Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Length of name | Up to 50 characters | Maximum 255 characters |
| Permitted symbols | Letters, numbers, space | Prohibited: / \: *?" < > | |
| Coding | UTF-8 (Cyrillic) | Possible problems in old players |
| Register | Doesn't matter. | File.mp4 and file.mp4 are the same thing. |
Mass renaming and batch processing
Xiaomi’s regular tools have been weak in implementing mass renaming (e.g., “Vacation 1”, “Vacation 2”), and the standard file manager usually allows you to rename only one file at a time or allocate files for copying/deleting, but not for group naming, a significant disadvantage for those who work with large amounts of data.
If you have to rename dozens of videos, you have to use third-party solutions or go to tricks. Some users create new folders with the right names and sort the videos by them, but that doesn't change the names of the files themselves.
There's a way to connect to a computer, and if you connect your phone to MTP, you can select a group of videos to Windows or macOS and rename them serially, but when you go back to the phone gallery, the order can get lost if you sort by date of creation, not by name.
⚠️ Note: When using third-party batch renaming apps, read permissions carefully.The program may request access to all files on the device, which is a privacy risk.
Features of renaming in cloud storage
Many Xiaomi users use the Mi Cloud cloud service or sync with Google Photos. It is important to understand the difference between renaming a local file and a file in the cloud. Changing a name in the cloud interface often does not change the name of the original on the phone if sync is one-way or cloud priority.
In the Google Photos app, which is often the default, renaming is possible through the parts menu, but this change may not be reflected in the phone's file system immediately. In fact, a tag is created in the Google database, and the physical name of the file in the DCIM folder remains the same until it is uploaded or synchronized.
If you're using Mi Cloud, the logic is similar. To ensure that you get the results, you'd better do all the operations on the files in your local memory.-delayed, So, you shouldn’t rely on instant name updates in the cloud.
What happens if the cloud doesn’t update the name?
Problem Solving: Why You Can't Rename Your Name
Sometimes the system blocks the name change, most often because the file is occupied by another process, for example, if the video is open in the background in the video editor or is being processed (stabilization, creating a thumbnail), the Android operating system locks the recording.
Another common reason is the lack of access rights: In modern versions of Android (11, 12, 13, 14), access to the Android/data folder and some system directories is limited, and if the video is in a secure folder of a particular application, the standard Explorer may not allow it to be renamed without special permission.
- 🔒 Check if the file is protected from editing (rarely, but it happens in corporate profiles).
- 📂 Make sure that Explorer has permission to “Manage all files” in the system settings.
- 🔄 Reboot your phone to reset the frozen processes that block the file.
- 💾 Check if the phone memory is full – with 0 free bytes, renaming operations may not take place.
The problem can also be inappropriate characters, and if you try to name a video as "Video | Advertising", the system will fail because the | vertical symbol is reserved, and only use letters, numbers, spaces, hyphens and underline for maximum compatibility.
💡
90% of renaming problems are solved by checking the occupancy of a file by another application or checking the permissions to access the storage in the security settings.
Optimizing video storage after renaming
Once you've got your names in order, you need to think about the storage structure, because renamed files are easier to search for, but they still take up space, and optimizing your library involves not only naming, but also sorting by folder.
Create themed albums in the Gallery. In MIUI, you can create new albums and move videos there. When you move inside the Gallery (not in the Explorer), the file physically changes the folder, which speeds up the indexing system, and this is especially true for owners of low-end Redmi models with the slowest drive.
Remove duplicates regularly. Often when renaming, users find they have three versions of the same video with different quality or cropping. Removing the extra frees up space and speeds up the gallery's scanning at launch.