How to recover deleted photos on Xiaomi smartphone: from the cart to deep scanning

Deleted important photos from Xiaomi and don't know how to get them back?The situation is familiar to many: accidentally clicking "Delete", resetting settings or even breaking your phone can deprive you of valuable shots. Fortunately, owners of smartphones on MIUI have several ways to recover - from built-in tools to professional utilities.

In this article, we'll look at 5 proven methods to help you get your photos back to Redmi, POCO, or Mi -- whether you deleted them an hour ago or a few months ago. Importantly, the odds of success depend on how fast you start to act after deleting and whether you've used cloud services. But even if the photos were deleted long ago, don't despair -- modern programs can find traces of files even after overwriting memory.

We will begin step-by-step recovery, starting with the simplest ways.

1.Check the basket at Xiaomi Gallery

The standard MIUI Gallery app automatically sends deleted photos to a shopping cart, where they are stored for 30 days before being deleted, which works if you haven’t manually cleaned the cart or used Clear Place features.

To recover the photo:

• 📱 Open the Gallery app on your Xiaomi.
• 🗑️ Slip on three dots in the upper right corner → pick the basket.
• 🔍 Scroll down the list or search by date.
• ✅ Select the right photos → Click Restore (Icon with a down arrow).

If the cart is empty or there is no photo, move on to the next method. Note: some POCO models with lightweight firmware may not have a built-in basket, in which case skip this step.

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On Xiaomi smartphones with MIUI 14+, the basket is hidden by default. To see it, close all folders in the gallery and swipe down, the Recycle Bin tab will appear.

2. Recovery via Mi Cloud (Xiaomi Cloud)

If your Xiaomi has enabled sync with Mi Cloud, the chances of returning photos are much higher. The cloud automatically saves copies of images (provided that Auto Sync is activated in the settings). Even if you delete photos from your phone, they can stay in the cloud for up to 60 days.

How to check:

1. Go to Settings → Xiaomi Account → Mi Cloud.
2. Make sure the Gallery slider is on (if not, turn on and wait for the synchronization).
3. Open the web version of Mi Cloud on your PC or in your phone browser.
4. Sign in under the same account as on your smartphone.
5. Go to the Gallery → Cart (or Recently Deleted).

If you have photos, select them and click Restore. They'll come back to the gallery on your phone the next time you sync. The important thing is, if you haven't used Mi Cloud before, this method won't work -- the cloud doesn't back up retroactively.

3. Connect to a PC and scan memory

If the photo is not in the cart or in the cloud, the next solution is to connect Xiaomi to your computer and scan the internal memory using specialized programs, which is effective if you have deleted the pictures recently and have not written new files to your phone (they can overwrite deleted data).

The scanning will be suitable:

• 🖥️ DiskDigger (there is a free version for Android).
• 🔍 Recuva (requires root rights for deep scanning).
• 📁 EaseUS MobiSaver (paid, but with trial period).

Instructions for DiskDigger (without root):

1. Download the app from Google Play.
2. Start and select Start basic scanning.
3. Wait until it is completed (it can take 10–30 minutes).
4. Tag the photos found and click Restore (save to PC or other media).

Connect Xiaomi to PC in File Transfer Mode (MTP)

Install ADB drivers (if root is required)

Charge your phone at least 50%

Don't plug others in. USB-device during scanning-->

Limitations of the method:

• Without root-rights, programs see only thumbnails (full-size photos can not be restored).
• If the phone’s memory is heavily fragmented, the chances of success fall.

4.Using backups of Google Photos

Many Xiaomi users are setting up automatic uploads of photos to Google Photos. If you logged in to a Google account on your phone and didn't turn off sync, chances are the images are saved to Google's cloud. Check this out:

Steps to recover:

1. Open Google Photos in your browser.
2. In the left menu, select the basket (photos are stored there for 60 days).
3. If the basket is empty, check the Archive folder or search by date.
4. The photos can be downloaded to your PC or uploaded back to Xiaomi.

If you haven’t used Google Photos, try the alternative clouds.

• 🌥️ Yandex Disk (if the autoloader was configured).
• 📦 Dropbox or OneDrive (when manually booting).

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Google Photos saves the original photos in full resolution if you have enough space in the cloud. Unlike Mi Cloud, there is no strict storage limit (when using compression).

5. Professional utilities for deep recovery

If previous methods have failed, the last chance is deep memory scanning with PC software, which takes longer and sometimes root rights, but can find photos deleted months ago.

An example of working with Dr.Fone:

1. Connect Xiaomi to your PC via USB (enable USB Debugging in Settings → About Phone → MIUI Version → 7 times tap to unlock developer mode).
2. Start the program and select Android Data Recovery.
3. Specify the file type (Photos) and start scanning.
4. After analysis, mark the desired files and save them on the PC.

⚠️ Note: Do not save recovered photos back to Xiaomi until the process is complete.Write new data to your phone can overwrite files that have not yet been found.

What do you do if nothing helps?

If all of these methods have not worked, there are two options:

1. Contact the service center. Specialists can extract data using professional equipment (for example, Chip-Off or other equipment). JTAG), But it's expensive. 5,000. ₽) It does not guarantee 100% results.
2. Try recovering photos from a memory card. If the images were stored on a microSD, connect them to your PC via a card reader and scan them with programs like PhotoRec (free, but requires command line skills).

Also check:

• 📧 Posts in emails (you may have sent a photo by mail).
• 💬 Messengers (Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber) keep copies of the sent media).
• 🖼️ Screenshots (sometimes users take screenshots of important photos).

⚠️ Note: If the Xiaomi phone is physically damaged (not turned on, broken screen, water), do not try to restore the photo yourself - this can lead to irretrievable loss of data.

FAQ: Frequent questions about photo recovery on Xiaomi