How to increase RAM on Xiaomi: ways and secrets

Many smartphone users face a situation where the device starts to run slower, applications are unloaded from memory, and games are slowed down. These are classic signs of a lack of RAM. Owners of budget and mid-budget models Xiaomi and Redmi often wonder whether it is possible to program this resource to extend the life of the gadget.

Physically, it is impossible to add a memory chip inside a smartphone, as they do with computers, but there are software methods to optimize and expand the available space. Modern shells MIUI and HyperOS offer built-in tools, and there are advanced ways for advanced users. In this article, we will discuss all the current solutions to the problem.

It’s worth noting that the best performance gains come from a combination of clearing the cache and managing the background properly, not just a formal extension. Understanding how the system manages resources will allow you to effectively customize your phone to your needs without using questionable apps from third-party stores.

Built-in memory expansion function in MIUI and HyperOS

Starting with certain firmware versions, Xiaomi has implemented a native feature that allows you to use part of the internal storage as additional RAM, a process called swapping.

To find this setting, go to Settings → About Phone → Memory (or Extension of Memory) and here the system will suggest selecting the amount of memory you add, which depends on the free space on your drive. Usually options are available from 1 GB to 4 GB additionally.

But it's important to understand the difference between physical RAM and virtual memory, because the read and write speed of an embedded flash drive is much lower than that of RAM, so enabling this feature may not boost heavy gaming, but it will help keep more applications open in the background without rebooting them.

⚠️ Attention: Active use of the memory expansion feature increases wear on the built-in drive.If your smartphone has an eMMC type of memory rather than a memory type UFS, Frequent recording operations can shorten the life of the device.

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Built-in memory expansion is a software compromise: you sacrifice the speed and resource of the drive for the ability to keep more applications in the background.

Using an SD memory card as a RAM

MicroSD-enabled models can turn a flash drive into a memory-based memory-enabled memory, a method that requires deeper system intervention and often involves root rights. Standard Android tools cannot turn an SD card into a full RAM due to speed limits and security architecture.

This method typically uses specialized applications such as SWAP No Root or Kernel Adiutor (requires root), which work by creating a paging file on an external medium, and the system starts dumping less active processes there, freeing up the main memory.

• 🚀 Availability: The method works on almost all devices with a card slot.
• 📉 Speed: Speed of memory card operation SD It is much inferior to even the cheapest RAM.
• 🔋 Energy consumption: Constant work with a memory card increases battery consumption.

If you decide to go this way, make sure your memory card is Class 10 or higher, preferably UHS-I. Using a slow card will lead to strong interface lags, making the phone virtually unusable.

Optimization through Developer Settings

There is a less radical but effective way to free up RAM, not by adding new gigabytes, but by making the system more economical to use the existing ones. To do this, activate the developer menu. Go to Settings → About the phone and press 7 times in a row on the MIUI version.

After the message “You became a developer” appears, a new section “Additional settings → For developers” will appear in the settings menu. Here we are interested in parameters related to background processes. Find the item “Background Process Limit” and select the restriction, for example, “No more than 2 processes” or “No background processes”.

Settings → Additional settings → For developers → Limit of background processes

This setup forcibly kills the applications you folded, preventing them from hanging in memory, which will free up resources for the application running right now, but keep in mind that the next time you run the applications will be rebooted, which may take time.

Also on this menu, you should pay attention to the animation settings: Reducing the scale of the animation of windows and transitions from 1x to 0.5x visually speeds up the interface, creating a sense of a faster system, although the actual volume of RAM does not change this.

Comparison of methods of increasing memory

So that you can choose the best way to use your scenario, let's compare the methods we've reviewed on key parameters, each with its own pros and cons, which are critically important to consider before making changes to the system.

As you can see from the table, embedded tools are the safest, but they do have a moderate effect. Using root rights gives you access to the fine-tuning of ZRAM memory compression, which can be very effective, but requires deep knowledge.

For most users, the best choice is a combination of built-in memory expansion and competent manual cleaning, and you should not chase the maximum numbers in the characteristics if this leads to unstable work.

Third-party applications and memory cleaning

There are hundreds of apps on Google Play and GetApps that promise to “accelerate” and “increase” memory, most of which, like Clean Master, SD Maid, or Xiaomi’s built-in Security app, work on a forced shutdown principle.

These programs periodically scan running processes and terminate those that consume a lot of resources, which creates a short-term memory-free effect. However, modern versions of Android are effective in managing memory themselves, and aggressive cleaning can even harm the system by forcing it to restart system services.

• 🧹 Cache Clearing: Deleting temporary files does free up space, but does not increase speed RAM.
• 🛑 Ad Blocking: Some accelerators block background activity of ad modules, which indirectly helps.
• ⚠️ Aggression: Avoid apps that promise to increase memory 200-300% — It's a marketing scam.

⚠️ Note: Avoid installing apps with names like «RAM Booster Pro 2026" if they require suspicious permissions, often the programs themselves are the sources of advertising and collect user data.

The best cleaning app is the built-in Security → Cleanup tool, which has access to system processes and knows which services can be safely completed without disrupting the MIUI shell.

Radical measures: Root rights and flashing

For advanced users who are willing to risk the guarantee for performance, there is a way to obtain superuser rights (Root), which allows you to change the system files responsible for memory management and install custom cores.

One popular method is to adjust the vm.swappiness setting, which can make the system use the paging file more actively, and installing lightweight custom firmware (like LineageOS or Pixel Experience) instead of heavy MIUI can dramatically improve the situation on older models.

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Before obtaining root rights, be sure to make a full backup of data (TWRP Backup), as unlocking the bootloader often leads to a complete reset of the device.

The process of unlocking the bootloader and setting the superuser rights is complex and individual for each model. A mistake at any stage can turn a smartphone into a brick. If you are not confident in your abilities, it is better to limit yourself to software methods without deep interference.

In conclusion, increasing RAM on Xiaomi is a balance between software tricks and the physical limitations of hardware, the most sensible approach being to use built-in optimization features and regularly monitor installed applications.

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