How to Backup Your Xiaomi Phone: 5 Ways to Save Data

Why backup on Xiaomi is not a luxury, but a necessity

Imagine if you drop your phone in water, it stops turning on, and it has all the photos from your last vacation, your family's correspondence and your work documents on it, or suddenly MIUI offers an update that makes your phone go off the hook, and the only way out is to reset to factory settings. Without a backup, you lose everything. Statistics from Xiaomi service centers show that 68 percent of data recovery requests could have been prevented by a banal backup.

Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones offer a few built-in backup tools, but most users don't use them, either because they don't know or because of the myth that "it's hard." In fact, you can create a backup in 5 minutes, even if you've never done it. In this article, we'll look at all the current ways, from standard MIUI features to cloud services to manual copying on a PC. And also tell you what data is NOT stored in Xiaomi's default backup, it's critical to know, so you don't lose important.

Method 1: Built-in backup via MIUI (the easiest)

The MIUI's proprietary shell has a built-in backup tool that saves almost everything from contacts to system settings. The main advantage is that you don't need to install third-party applications. The minus is that the backup is stored either on the phone (risk of loss if you break down) or in Mi Cloud (volume limit).

How to make a backup copy:

1. Open Settings → About Phone → Backup and Reset → Local Backup.
2. Click Create a backup and select the data to save (all items are marked by default).
3. Wait until the process is complete. The backup file will appear in the MIUI/backup/AllBackup folder.

What persists:

• 📱 Contacts, SMS call-book
• 📁 System settings (wallpaper, sounds, Wi-Fi connections)
• 🎮 Data of some applications (if they support backup via MIUI)
• 📂 Files from internal memory (optional)

⚠️ Attention: Built-in backup MIUI does not save photos from the Gallery, music, videos and files from the Download folder!

Battery charge > 50% | Free space on your phone > 1 GB| Wi-Fi connection (if backup in Mi Cloud)| Memory optimizers (such as Battery and Performance) are disabled

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Method 2: Cloud backup via Mi Cloud (automatically)

Mi Cloud is a cloud storage service from Xiaomi that offers 5GB for free (compared to Google Drive, it gives 15GB), and the main advantage is automation: you can set up daily reservations for contacts, notes and even some applications.

• 🔒 Mi Account (linked to the phone) is required).
• 📶 Without Wi-Fi connection backup is not created.
• ⏳ The first reservation can take several hours (depending on the amount of data).

How to set up an automatic backup:

1. Go to Settings → Xiaomi Account → Mi Cloud.
2. Turn on the Backup switch and select the data to sync.
3. Click Start backup.

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If you don't have much space in Mi Cloud, clear the MIUI/backup folder from old backups before you backup. They take up space, but they don't get deleted automatically.

Method 3: Backup via Google Drive (more reliable than Mi Cloud)

Google offers a more flexible backup solution, especially if you use ecosystem services (Gmail, Google Photos, Calendar).

• 📸 Photos and videos in original quality (if space is enough).
• 📅 Calendars, tasks and notes from Google Keep.
• 🎮 Game and App Data (if developers support Google Backup).

How to enable backup in Google Drive:

1. Open Settings → Google → Backup.
2. Activate the Download to Google Drive switch.
3. Select a Google account and set up options (such as photo quality).

⚠️ Note: If you use Xiaomi with custom firmware (like LineageOS), backup in Google Drive may not work. TWRP or ADB.

Mi Cloud|Google Drive |Yandex Disc |iCloud |Other |Not using cloud-->

Method 4: Manual copying to a computer (for full control)

If you don't trust the clouds or you have a slow Internet connection, the most reliable way to do this is to copy data to a PC, the only way to guarantee that you can save all your files, including:

• 🎵 Music and podcasts from the Music folder.
• 📄 Documents (PDF, DOCX, XLSX) from Download and Documents.
• 📷 Photos and videos in original resolution (including screenshots).

Instructions for Windows/macOS:

1. Connect your phone to your computer through USB-Cable (use the original cable for stability).
2. On your phone, select File Transfer (MTP) mode in the connection notification.
3. On a PC, open the phone folder and manually copy the desired data (for example, DCIM, Download, Pictures folders).

For advanced users: If you want to save apps and their data, use ADB backup.

adb backup -apk -obb -shared -all -f C:\backup.ab

This method even saves application settings, but requires unlocking debugging over USB in Settings → About Phone → MIUI version (click 7 times, then go back to Additional Settings → For Developers).

Method 5: Backup via TWRP (for flashers and power users)

If you install custom firmware or experiment with system settings often, standard backup methods will not work. You need TWRP, a custom recovery that allows you to create a complete image of the system (including the boot partition), which is the only way to restore the phone after “bricking” (for example, if the firmware crashed).

How to make a backup through TWRP:

1. Install TWRP for your Xiaomi model (see instructions on 4PDA or XDA Developers).
2. Boot into recovery: Turn off the phone, then press Power + Volume up.
3. Select Backup, select Boot, System, Data and click Swipe to Backup.
4. Save the backup file to SD-map OTG-accumulator.

⚠️ Attention: Backup through TWRP It takes up a lot of space (from 4 to 10 GB) and requires an unlocked bootloader.If you've never flashed your phone, better use other methods.

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TWRP is the only way to recover a phone from a failed firmware or deletion of system files, but it is not suitable for beginners because of the risk of damaging data.

What to do after creating a backup: check and restore

Backing up is half the way, making sure it works, and knowing how to recover it if you need it, and here's a checklist to check.

• 🔍 Check the integrity of the backup file (for example, open the.ab archive through the 7-Zip Or try to restore it. 1-2 file).
• 📥 If the backup is in the cloud, download it to another device and make sure the files are not corrupted.
• 🔄 Test recovery on another phone (if possible) or create a test copy with minimal data.

How to recover data from the backup:

• For MIUI: Settings → About Phone → Backup and Reset → Restore.
• For Google Drive: When you first turn on your phone, select Restore from a backup and log in to your account.
• For TWRP: boot to recovery, select Restore and specify a backup file.

If the recovery does not work:

• Check the compatibility of the MIUI version (the backup with MIUI 14 may not be restored to MIUI 13).
• Make sure that the phone has enough space (to recover you need 2 times more free volume than the backup weighs).
• If you use ADB restore, check that USB debugging is enabled.

Frequent Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Even experienced users sometimes have problems building a backup, and here are the most common mistakes and solutions:

Another common mistake is ignoring location warnings, like if you have 500MB left on your phone and the backup weighs 1GB, the process will stop in the middle. Always check the space before you start!

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If you frequently reflash your phone, create separate backups for each version. MIUI. For example: backup_MIUI14_12.5.3.ab. This will help to avoid conflicts during recovery.

FAQ: Answers to Frequent Questions