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

Accidental removal of photos on Xiaomi is one of the most painful mistakes for smartphone owners, especially when it comes to valuable footage: family photos, documents or unique moments that cannot be reproduced. Fortunately, Xiaomi devices (including Redmi, POCO and Black Shark models) have several built-in mechanisms to protect against irretrievable data loss, but you need to act quickly: the less time has passed since the deletion, the better the chances of successful recovery.

In this article, we will look at all the available ways to return deleted photos, from standard functions (basket, cloud storage) to advanced methods using the PC. Separately, we will focus on critical errors that reduce the chances of recovery to zero, and give a checklist for emergency actions. If you deleted the photos less than a day ago, start reading now!

1.Check the "Basket" folder in the Xiaomi Gallery

Starting with MIUI 12, the standard Xiaomi gallery introduced the Recycle Bin feature, where photos are stored 30 days after being deleted, the first and easiest way to return pictures without additional tools.

How to find the basket:

• 📱 Open the Gallery app** (icon with multicolored squares).
• 🔍 In the bottom menu, tap on the Albums section.
• 🗑️ Scroll down and there will be a folder “Basket”** (sometimes hidden under the item “More” or “Other).

⚠️ WARNING: If you have manually cleaned your cart or used Xiaomi on the MIUI 11 and below, this method won't work. Older versions of the firmware don't have a basket, and deleted files are erased immediately.

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If the cart is empty but you are sure that the photos were deleted recently, check the hidden folders. In MIUI, they are displayed only after clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner of the gallery and selecting Show hidden files.

2. Recovery via MI Cloud (Xiaomi Cloud)

MI Cloud is Xiaomi’s proprietary cloud storage that automatically backs up photos if the feature is activated. Even if you deleted photos from your phone, copies of them could be saved in the cloud.

Instructions for verification:

1. 🌐 Go to i.mi.com from any device and log in with the same Mi Account as you do on your smartphone.
2. 🖼️ Select the "Gallery" or "Photo" section of the menu (name depends on the region).

⚠️ Attention: MI Cloud only stores photos in original quality for users with a Mi Cloud subscription+ (from 100 On a free fare (5 GB) images can be compressed to 2048×2048 pixels, which is critical for professional photos.

If the cloud doesn’t have the right photos, check your phone’s backup settings: go to Settings → Mi → MI Cloud → Gallery and make sure that AutoSync is enabled.

3.Google Photos as an Alternative Source of Backups

Many Xiaomi users don’t even realize that Google Photos can automatically save copies of all images – regardless of MI Cloud. If you have this app installed on your device and synced, the chances of recovery are significantly increased.

How to check:

• 📲 Open the Google Photos app (if not, install it from Play Market).

🔹 Important nuance: Google Photos by default compresses photos to 16 MP (if High Quality mode is enabled). To save the originals, you had to choose the option Original Quality - but it is only available when paying for additional space in Google One.

4. PC recovery: programs for deep scanning

If the photos are not found in the cart or clouds, the last chance is software to recover data from the phone’s internal memory, a method that requires Xiaomi to connect to a computer and use specialized software.

🔧 Essential tools:

• 🖥️ PC Windows/macOS free USB-port.
• 📱 USB-Type C Cable (original to avoid connection issues).
• 🛠️ Recovery software: DiskDigger, Recuva, EaseUS MobiSaver or Tenorshare UltData (the latter works best with the user). MIUI).

📌 Step-by-step instructions (based on the example of Tenorshare UltData):

1. Download and install the program from the official website.
2. Connect Xiaomi to your PC and enable File Transfer Mode (MTP) (in the notification curtain).
3. Launch UltData, select the type of Photos files and click Scan.
4. After scanning, mark the desired pictures and click Restore (save them to your PC, not back to your phone!).

⚠️ Warning: Never save recovered files to the same drive from which they were deleted! this can overwrite the remaining pieces of data and make it impossible to further restore them.

Enable debugging on USB In Settings → The phone. → Version. MIUI (tap 7 times)|Install Xiaomi drivers USB Drivers on PC|Disable screen locking during scanning|Use the original USB-cable-->

5 Hidden folders and cache of the gallery: where else can you store photos

Sometimes photos are not deleted, but a gallery or file manager malfunction, in which case they can be found in hidden system folders or app cache.

🔍 Where to find:

• 📁 folder DCIM/.thumbnails — Here are the photos that sometimes remain even after the originals are deleted.
• 📁 folder Pictures/Screenshots — If the pictures were taken as screenshots.
• 📁 Application cache: go to Settings → Annexes → gallery → Memory. → Cash and clean it (sometimes this causes the gallery to re-index files).
• 📁 folder MIUI/Camera — Here you can find temporary copies of photos taken by the camera.

🛠️ How to Access Hidden Folders:

1. Install a file manager with root access support (such as Solid Explorer or FX File Explorer).
2. In the manager settings, enable the option to Show hidden files.
3. Go to the root directory (/storage/emulated/0/) and manually check the folders listed above.

🔹 Advice: If you are using Xiaomi with MIUI 14+, Try the built-in File Search** (file manager magnifier icon) that indexes the contents of folders faster than manual browsing.

6. Emergency measures: what to do if nothing helps

If all of these methods fail, there are radical ways that are going to work, and they depend on how long it's been since you deleted them and how much you've been using your phone since.

🚨 Action in a critical situation:

• 🛑 Stop using your phone immediately to take new photos, install apps, or updates. Each new memory record reduces your chances of recovery.
• 🔧 Reset your phone to factory settings (only if you’re sure your photos are synced to the cloud!) and sometimes it helps restore access to hidden memory.
• 💾 Create a memory image of your phone using ADB (For advanced users. Command: adb pull /sdcard/ C:\Xiaomi_Backup\ This will allow you to scan a copy of memory on a PC without the risk of overwriting.
• 🔄 Contact the service center – if the photos are critical (e.g., evidence for a court), specialists can extract the data using professional equipment (e.g., Chip-Off).

⚠️ Attention: Reset to factory settings (Settings) → The phone. → Resetting will delete all data from the device, including hidden files. Use this method only if you are sure that you have a backup in the cloud!

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The faster you start your recovery, the better the chances of success. Once deleted, the photos remain in the phone's memory as "fragments" that are gradually overwritten with new data. The optimal recovery time is the first 24 to 48 hours.

7 How to prevent future loss of photos: checklist for prevention

The best way to combat data loss is to prevent it, and here's a minimum set of actions that will keep your photos from being accidentally deleted:

• ☁️ Set up automatic synchronization with MI Cloud and Google Photos (Duplicate increases your chances of recovery).
• 📁 Regularly copy your photo to a PC or external drive (for example, once a month).
• 🔒 Use a password for folders with important pictures (in the MIUI This can be done through the files. → Personal vault).
• 📱 Install an alternative gallery (such as Simple Gallery or QuickPic) where the recycle bin stores files longer.
• 🔄 Check your backups periodically – open up MI Cloud or Google Photos and make sure the latest photos are in place.

💡 Additional Life Hack: If you travel frequently or shoot important events, enable “Outload to the cloud when connecting to Wi-Fi”** in Google Photos settings. This ensures that photos are uploaded to the cloud before you delete them from your phone.

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Create a shared album in Google Photos and add a trusted person (such as your spouse or parents) so even if you delete a photo from your account, it will remain in the album with another user.

FAQ: Frequent questions about photo recovery on Xiaomi