How to restore a remote gallery on Xiaomi smartphones: from the basket to deep scanning

Removing a gallery on Xiaomi is one of the most painful mistakes for users. Photos and videos often store valuable memories that cannot be replicated: a child's first birthday, a dream trip or important documents. Fortunately, even after cleaning a DCIM folder or resetting the phone to factory settings, the chances of recovery remain. In this article, we will examine all possible methods, from standard MIUI functions to professional tools that work even after formatting internal memory.

The rule is, the faster you start, the more likely you are to succeed. When you delete files, they don't physically disappear - they're just labeled as "free space" and can be overwritten with new data. So, immediately after you find a problem, turn off mobile Internet and Wi-Fi to stop background processes (updates, syncs), and do not install new applications.

If you're using the Xiaomi Redmi Note 12, POCO X5 Pro, or any other model on MIUI 14/15, the recovery algorithm will be the same. The only difference is the location of some menu items, we've taken into account all the nuances and prepared instructions that will be suitable even for devices with an unlocked bootloader or custom firmware.

1. Checking the basket in the standard Xiaomi gallery

The first thing you need to do is look in the gallery cart, and in MIUI, deleted files are stored there for 30 days (by default), and then automatically cleared, and this method works even if you manually click "Delete" in the Gallery app or through the file manager.

How to open the basket:

1. Launch the Gallery app (an icon with colored squares).
2. Slip along three horizontal lines (menu) in the lower right corner.
3. Select the Recycle Bin (may be called Recently Deleted on some firmware).
4. Click Restore Everything or select the files you need and tap Restore.

If the cart is empty or you don’t find this item, check:

• 🔍 Gallery settings: go to Settings → Cart and make sure the function is on (POCO F4, Redmi 10C) basket disabled by default.
• 📁.trash folder: Through any file manager (such as Mi File Manager) open internal memory and find the hidden folder.trash or.recycle.
• 🔄 Gallery Update: Sometimes After Update MIUI Reset the cart. Try updating the app through Google Play.

⚠️ Warning: If you have manually cleaned the cart or used features like “Memory Optimization” in Settings → Memory, files could have been permanently deleted, in which case, proceed to the following methods.

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Some MIUI firmware has a cart hidden. To see it, close all apps, clear the gallery cache in Settings → Apps → App Management → Gallery → Clear the cache, then restart the phone.

2. Recovery via Mi Cloud (Xiaomi Cloud)

If your Xiaomi has enabled sync with Mi Cloud, the chances of returning photos are extremely high, the service automatically reserves media files, even if you did not set it up manually, the main thing is to remember the Mi Account account that was tied to the phone.

Instructions for remediation:

1. Go to i.mi.com from a computer or other device.
2. Sign in with the same account you used on your phone.
3. Select Gallery or Photos (depending on the version of the interface).
4. Find the files you want and download them to your device, and you can use the Select All feature for convenience.

If there are no photos in the cloud, check:

• 📱 Synchronization settings: on the phone go to Settings → Xiaomi account → Mi Cloud → Gallery.Make sure the feature has been enabled before deleting files.
• 🗓️ Last backup date: in the same Mi Cloud section, see when the data was last updated. If the date is older than the deletion, the files may not have had time to download.
• 💾 Volume Limit: Free Mi Cloud account only provides 5GB. If the memory was full, new files were not synced.

⚠️ Note: If you have reset your phone to factory settings and have not untied your Mi Account before then, the device may be blocked (Mi Account Lock function.

3. Using Google Photos to Restore

Many Xiaomi users are installing Google Photos as an alternative to the standard gallery.If the app was set to automatically download, your photos could be saved to the Google cloud even after being deleted from your phone.

How to check and restore:

1. Open the Google Photos app or go to photos.google.com.
2. Sign in with the same Google account you had on your phone.
3. Check the Recycle Bin (files are stored there for 60 days) or Archives.
4. To recover, select files and click Restore (they will return to the main gallery).

If there are no photos, follow these steps:

• 🔄 Check your backup settings: in Google Photos go to Settings → Backup and sync. Make sure the function is active.
• 📅 Filter by date: maybe the files weren't deleted, but simply "lost" among thousands of images.
• 📱 Check other devices: If you used the same Google account on a tablet or other phone, your files could be synced there.

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Google Photos only retains the original quality of photos at a paid rate. If you had High Quality enabled, the images could be compressed to a resolution of 16 MP (enough for most cases).

4. Recovery through File Manager and Hidden Folders

Sometimes photos are not deleted completely, but moved to hidden system folders, which is true if you have used third-party memory cleanup applications (like Clean Master or Files by Google) that “optimize” storage by moving files to archives.

Where to look for deleted files:

• 📂 folder DCIM/.thumbnails: It's where you store thumbnails of photos, and sometimes the originals stay in that folder even after you delete them.
• 🗑️ folder Android/data/com.miui.gallery: Gallery cache may contain temporary copies of images.
• 🔍 folder Pictures/Screenshots: Screenshots often remain intact when cleaning the gallery.
• 📥 Download folder: check if photos from messengers (Telegram, WhatsApp) are saved here.

How to turn on the display of hidden folders:

1. Open Mi File Manager (or any other file manager, such as Solid Explorer).
2. Slip on the three dots in the upper right corner and select Settings.
3. Activate the option to show hidden files.
4. Return to the root directory of internal memory and manually check the folders from the list above.

Check the DCIM/.thumbnails folder

Look for files with the.nomedia extension

Sort files by date of change

Check the folders of messengers (Telegram, WhatsApp)-->

⚠️ Note: Do not move files from hidden folders directly to the gallery. First, copy them to a separate directory (for example, to the gallery, Pictures/Recovered), Avoid re-deleting by system processes.

5. Deep memory scanning programs

If standard methods don’t work, you’ll have to use specialized data recovery tools that scan your internal memory at a low level and find files even if they were deleted months ago. Importantly, this method requires root rights on most modern Xiaomi devices (due to the limitations of MIUI and Android 10+).

Top.-3 recovery:

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

1. Install the app from Google Play.
2. Start and select Full Scan (requires root rights).
3. Specify the file type: mark JPG, PNG, MP4.
4. Wait until the scan is completed (may take several hours).
5. Select the files found and click Restore by selecting a folder on a memory card or PC.

Critical: If you restore files to the same phone, save them to an external memory card or computer, and write to an internal drive can overwrite the data that has not yet been restored.

6.Recovery after reset to factory settings

If the gallery was deleted after hard reset (reset via Settings) → Reset or Recovery, the chances of recovery are reduced, but not zero.

Procedure:

1. Check backups: In Mi Cloud (Backup section) in Google Drive (if you have Settings synced in → System → Backup) on your computer (if you have used Mi PC Suite or Xiaomi Backup Tool).
2. Use TWRP Recovery (if installed): Boot to TWRP (keep Power + Volume up when turned on). Select Mount → System and connect your phone to your PC. Using PhotoRec, scan the /data partition.

Please contact the service center:

• For Xiaomi with 2.2/3.1 UFS (e.g. Mi 11 Ultra, Redmi K50), the odds are higher than for devices with eMMC.

⚠️ Note: If the reset was made via Fastboot (fastboot erase userdata command), the data cannot be restored - it is overwritten with zeros.

7.Prevention: How to avoid future loss of photos

To avoid the problem of remote gallery, set up automatic backup and follow the simple rules:

Checklist for data protection:

• ☁️ Enable sync with Mi Cloud and Google Photos: Settings → Xiaomi account → Mi Cloud → gallery → Enable Settings → Google → Backup → Photos and videos → Turn it on.
• 📁 Copy files regularly on PC: Use Mi PC Suite or simple transfer via cable USB-C.
• 🔄 Set up automatic unloading in Telegram Saved Messages: bot @SaveAsBot It can save all new photos in the Telegram cloud.

For owners of POCO and Redmi with limited memory:

Use responsive storage in Google Photos: turn on the option to Free up space after backup. This will delete local copies of photos, but save them in the cloud in original quality (at a paid rate).

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On devices with MIUI 14+, the Cloud Gallery feature has been introduced, which automatically uploads photos to the Mi Cloud without manually configuring. Check it in Settings → Memory → Cloud Gallery.

FAQ: Frequent questions about the restoration of the gallery on Xiaomi