How to recover deleted photos on Xiaomi phone: from cart to deep scan

Why are photos disappearing from Xiaomi’s phone and can they be returned?

Deleting photos from a Xiaomi smartphone is one of the most painful situations for a user: travel photos, family photos or important documents can disappear in an instant, due to accidental clicking, resetting, a virus or even a banal lack of memory. Fortunately, in 90% of cases, files are recoverable — if you act quickly and correctly.

Redmi, POCO and Mi are powered by MIUI, Xiaomi’s proprietary shell, which has built-in data protection mechanisms. For example, the Recycle Bin in the gallery defaults to storing deleted photos for 30 days, and synchronization with Mi Cloud allows you to recover images even after a complete reset. But what if the cart is cleared and the cloud is not used? Here come the help of specialized utilities and hidden Android features.

In this article, we'll look at all the current ways to recover photos, from basic (fitting even beginners) to advanced (require root rights or PCs). Importantly, the sooner you start, the better the chances of success. When you delete files, they don't disappear instantly — they're just labeled "free" and can be overwritten with new data. So don't install new apps, don't take photos, and don't update the system until the recovery is complete.

Method 1: Recovery from the Recycle Bin in the standard MIUI Gallery

The easiest and fastest method is to check the built-in Recycle Bin in the Gallery app, which works on all Xiaomi smartphones with MIUI 12 and later (including Redmi Note 10/11/12, POCO X3/X4/X5, Mi 11/12/13, etc.) By default, deleted photos are stored here for 30 days, after which they are automatically cleared.

How to check the basket:

• 📱 Open the Gallery app (icon with color circle).
• 🗑️ In the lower right corner, tap on the Recycle Bin (or Recently Deleted in some versions). MIUI).
• 🔍 Look through the list of photos. Select the desired pictures with a long tap.
• 🔄 Click Restore at the bottom of the screen. The photos will return to the original folder.

If the Recycle Bin is empty or there is no photo, then please move on to the following method. Note that in some firmware (e.g., POCO F3/F4), the Recycle Bin may be disabled to enable it:

1. Go to Settings → Applications → Gallery → Storage.
2. Activate the Recycle Bin option and set a shelf life (maximum 60 days).

Method 2: Recovery via Mi Cloud (Xiaomi Cloud Storage)

If your Xiaomi has enabled sync with Mi Cloud, the chances of returning photos are much higher. The cloud automatically stores copies of images (if the function is activated in the settings), even after resetting the phone to factory settings or breaking the device, the photos will remain in the cloud.

How to recover photos from Mi Cloud:

• 🌐 Go to i.mi.com from any device and log in with the same Xiaomi account as you do on your phone.
• 📁 On the menu, select the Gallery. → Albums or Cart (if the photos were recently deleted).
• 📥 Select the pictures you want and click Download. ZIP-archive.
• 📲 To return the photo back to your phone, send the archive to your mail or upload through Files. → Mi Cloud.

If the photo is not in the cloud, check:

⚠️ Attention: Mi Cloud sync is disabled by default on new phones. To work, you need to manually activate the Auto Sync Gallery option in Settings → Xiaomi account → Mi Cloud → Gallery, without this, the photos won't be uploaded to the cloud!

Sign in to Xiaomi account on your phone

Open Settings → Mi Cloud

Make sure the Gallery slider is on

Check available space in the cloud (free – 5 GB)-->

Method 3: Using Google Photos to Recover

Many Xiaomi users don’t know that Google Photos can be a more reliable solution than Mi Cloud. If you have this app installed on your phone and have autoloaded, all the images are automatically copied to the Google cloud – even if you deleted them from your device.

How to recover photos via Google Photos:

• 📲 Install Google Photos from Play Market if it is not available.
• 🔗 Sign in with the same Google account that was used on your phone.
• 🗑️ Go to the Recycle Bin (side menu) and the photos are stored here for 60 days.
• 🔄 Select the desired pictures and click Restore.

If the Recycle Bin is empty, check the Archive or use the Date/Place Search function. Google Photos keeps the original image quality as long as you have enough space in the cloud (free – 15 GB per account).

Method 4: Programs for deep memory scanning (without root)

If you don't find the photos in the Recycle Bin or the clouds, you'll have to use specialized tools that scan the phone's internal memory at the file system level and recover deleted data until it's overwritten.

Step-by-step instructions for DiskDigger (the most popular option):

1. Download the app from the Play Market (or from the official website if the Market is not available).
2. Start DiskDigger and select Start Basic Scan (without root).
3. Wait for the process to be completed (it can take anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour depending on the amount of memory).
4. You can look at the photos you find, highlight the ones you want, and click Restore. Save them to a memory card or to the cloud.

⚠️ Note: When recovering through programs, do not save files to the same memory from which they were deleted! SD-map, cloud or PC, otherwise you risk overwriting lost data.

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If the phone is not defined by the program on the PC, turn on the file transfer mode (MTP) customized USB-To do this, when connecting to your computer, select the option in the notification curtain: Transfer files.

Method 5: Recovery with PC (for power users)

If the previous methods didn't work, you just have to connect the phone to your computer and scan the memory with desktop utilities, which is more complicated, but more effective -- especially if the photos were deleted a long time ago.

• 🖥️ Computer with Windows/macOS/Linux.
• 📱 Cable USB (Preferably original from Xiaomi).
• 🛠️ Recuva, PhotoRec or TestDisk.

Instructions for Recuva:

1. Connect your phone to your PC in File Transfer (MTP) mode.
2. Run Recuva and select the type of Image files.
3. Specify the phone’s drive (usually a Removable Disk or Xiaomi in Explorer).
4. Start a Deep Scan (30 minutes to several hours).
5. After completion, select the found photos and click Restore, saving them to the hard drive of the PC.

For advanced users, if you have root rights on your phone, you can use ADB or TWRP to create a complete memory image and analyze it, but this method is risky, because if you do the wrong thing, you can damage the system.

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Deep scanning of your phone's memory is the most effective way, but it takes care. Never interrupt or turn it off. USB-cable during the program.

What do you do if nothing helps?

If all of the above methods have not yielded results, extreme measures remain:

• 🔧 Contact Xiaomi Service Center, they have specialized equipment to recover data from damaged memory chips, the cost of the service is from 3,000 to 10,000 rubles depending on the model.
• 💾 Try recovering photos from backup if you've ever done a backup through Settings → System system → Backup, you can try to extract data from the archive (the file usually has the extension.mbk).
• 🔍 Check other devices. Sometimes photos can stay on old phones, tablets, or even in messenger messages (for example, on Telegram or WhatsApp, if you sent them somewhere).

If the photos were critical (such as documents or unique footage), you can turn to data recovery professionals. Companies like Kroll Ontrack or ACE Lab work even with physically damaged drives, but their services are expensive (from 15,000 rubles).

⚠️ Warning: Avoid questionable "masters" who promise to recover data for 500 rubles. Often such services lead to complete loss of information due to the use of unlicensed software or incompetent actions.

FAQ: Frequent questions about photo recovery on Xiaomi