How to recover photos on Android through Google account on the new Xiaomi phone

The transition to a new Xiaomi smartphone is always an exciting process, often overshadowed by fear of losing personal data, especially photos. Today’s users store thousands of snapshots that capture important moments of life, and their loss can be a serious blow. Fortunately, the Android ecosystem, in conjunction with Google services, offers reliable backup mechanisms to avoid disaster.

Image recovery on a Redmi or POCO device is usually automatic if the old gadget has been enabled sync. However, as practice shows, this process does not always go smoothly: users may experience no images in the gallery or login errors. In this article, we will discuss in detail how to properly configure Google Photos on a new device, where to look for lost photos and what to do if standard methods do not work.

Before you start taking action, you need to make sure that the Internet connection is stable, because downloading the library requires significant traffic, and it is also important to understand that only those images that have been uploaded to the cloud before changing your device are recoverable. If you just bought a phone and have not yet logged in to your profile, all the necessary data is still on the servers of the corporation and waiting for your request.

Checking the backup status on the old device

The first and most critical step is to diagnose the status of your data on your previous phone, and many users mistakenly believe that deleting photos from your device automatically saves them in the cloud, but that's not always the case. You need to pick up your old smartphone and open the Google Photos app by looking at the profile icon in the top right corner.

If you see a message "Backup enabled" with the date of the last saving, then your data is safe. Otherwise, the system can warn you that a user action is required, in which case you should click on the profile avatar and select "Google Photo Settings", and then go to the "Autoboot and Sync".

Make sure the switch is activated, and check which account is used to save. Often, multiple mailboxes are authorized on the phone and the backup is not created on the one you plan to use on the new Xiaomi. Also pay attention to the download quality: the “Saving space” option allows you to store more pictures, but compresses them, whereas “Original” takes up more space in the storage of Google One.

• 📸 Open the Google Photos app and click on your profile icon.
• 🔄 Check the synchronization status: it should be indicated "Synchronization completed".
• 📂 Make sure you choose the right Gmail account for backup.
• 💾 Check the free space in the Google Drive cloud storage.

⚠️ Warning: If the old phone had Wi-Fi-only downloads on and the mobile internet was turned off, the last pictures might not have time to fly to the cloud. Connect the device to the wireless network and wait for the process to be completed before changing the gadget.

In some cases, the system may hide certain folders from syncing by default. For example, screenshots from messengers or photos taken in third-party editors may be in local directories that are not tracked by the service. To fix this, go to the autoload settings, select Device folders, and activate all the necessary directories, including WhatsApp Images, Telegram or Screenshots.

The initial setup of the new smartphone Xiaomi

When you first turn on a new Xiaomi phone, the MIUI or HyperOS system will suggest you go through the initial setup.At this stage, it is critical to use the same Google account that was used on the previous backup device.The data recovery process can start automatically immediately after you enter the password, but often requires manual confirmation.

When you set up the wizard, you'll want to copy the apps and data. Select the "Recover from the Cloud" or "Copy from Google Account" option. The system will prompt you to select a backup by date of creation - choose the latest one. Please note that the recovery of contacts, calendar and system settings is faster than downloading a heavy media library through the Google Photos app.

Once you have completed the initial setup and hit the desktop, don’t panic if the gallery is empty. Xiaomi’s standard Gallery app and Google Photos app are different programs with different databases, and you need to open the flower (or windmill) color icon app where the cloud library is stored.

It can take a while to index inside an app. If you have thousands of photos, it can take anywhere from minutes to hours to show up in the feed, depending on the speed of the Internet and the load on the servers. Don't pull the screen or close the app all the time, let the system load the background.

Search and display photos in Google Photos

The main interface of the Google Photos app is divided into several tabs that can be confusing for a beginner. The Photos main tab displays all images in chronological order, regardless of the folder they were originally in, and it's a single tape that streams camera images, screenshots and saved images from the Internet.

If you're looking for specific photos that were in certain folders on an old phone, switch to the Library tab in the lower right corner, and this shows the directory structure. If you don't see the expected folders (like Camera or Instagram) after you log in, they may have been hidden or not selected for sync before.

To access hidden or archived photos, use Archive. Often users accidentally archive old albums to clear the main tape and then forget about them. Also check Settings → Archiving Settings, where you can control folder visibility. Sometimes the Android system on a new Xiaomi device creates new local paths, and the old folders simply do not automatically pull up.

And smart search is a special focus. Google's neural networks analyze the content of images, so you can find a photo just by typing in "sea," "documents," or a person's name if faces are recognized, and this is especially useful when you need to quickly find a particular frame among thousands of others without manually sorting by date.

Solving synchronization problems with MIUI and HyperOS

MIUI and HyperOS shells are known for their aggressive energy saving policies that can block the background of applications, including Google Photos. If photos don't load or the process is stuck in the middle, the first thing you need to check the battery settings is to "kill" the boot process, considering it to be excessively charge consuming.

Go to Settings → Apps → All apps, search for Photos (or Photos) in the “Activity Control” or “Battery” section and select “No Limits” mode, which will allow the application to run in the background without interruptions, which is critical for downloading large amounts of data.

Another common problem is date-time mismatches: SSL/TLS security protocols used to transfer data to the cloud require precise synchronization of the device’s clock to the server. If your new Xiaomi has a date gone off, the connection to Google’s servers will break.

⚠️ Attention: On new versions MIUI If you are not connected to Wi-Fi, go to the settings of Google Photos and in the section "Traffic Saving Mode" allow downloading over the mobile network, otherwise the process will hang in the status "Waiting Wi-Fi".

It’s also worth clearing the app cache if there are interface glitches or cyclic errors. Go to Settings → Apps → Photo → Storage and click Clear Cache. This won’t delete your photos, but will reset temporary files that may have been corrupted during installation.

Using Mi Mover for Local Transfer

If cloud methods seem too long or the amount of data exceeds the free space in Google Drive, you can use the proprietary Mi Mover utility.This tool is pre-installed on all Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones and is designed to quickly transfer data over Wi-Fi directly between devices.

Run the app on both phones. On the new device, select Receiver mode and on the old device, Sender mode. Devices will find each other, and you will need to confirm the connection. Unlike Google Photos, Mi Mover copies the original files in their original quality and saves the folder structure, which is especially important for those who do not trust the cloud or have poor Internet.

The advantage of this method is that it's fast and independent of Google's servers, and you can move hundreds of gigabytes of data in a relatively short time, but it requires both phones to be physically present at the same time, which is not always possible if the old gadget is already sold or lost.

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When using Mi Mover, make sure that the screens of both phones do not go out during the transfer. Turn on the "Do not turn off screen" mode in the screen settings or simply touch the display periodically so that the connection does not break 99% of the process.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

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The secret to success is patience, and uploading thousands of high-resolution photos to a new phone is a resource-intensive process that can take hours even on fast Wi-Fi. Don't interrupt it and let the system shut down.