Accidentally deleting important videos on a smartphone is a stressful situation that almost every Android device owner has faced. Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and Poco devices often wonder if lost files can be returned if they disappear from the gallery. Fortunately, the Android operating system and the proprietary shell MIUI (or HyperOS) have several levels of data protection, which significantly increases the chances of success.
Before you panic, you need to understand how your gadget's file system works, because when you click the Delete button, it doesn't physically erase the information from the disk right away, it just marks the place where the video file is stored as free to record new information. If you continue to actively use your phone, shoot new videos or download apps, the likelihood of irretrievable data loss increases exponentially, which is why the first action when you detect a loss is to stop any active recording to internal memory.
In this guide, we will look at all the available ways, from simple system folder checks to using specialized software on your computer. We will look at both Xiaomi’s built-in tools and third-party solutions so that you can choose the most suitable option for your situation.
Checking the system basket in the MIUI Gallery
The first and most obvious step, often ignored in a hurry, is to check the built-in Recycle Bin, and since certain versions of MIUI, developers have implemented a buffer zone where deleted files are stored for 30 days, a kind of insurance against random user actions, allowing you to quickly return media files without using complex tools.
To access this storage, you don't need an Internet connection or any additional software installation. Everything is in the standard app that every device in the brand has. You just have to open the Gallery app, go to the Album tab, and scroll to the bottom, and you'll find a folder called Deleted or Recently Deleted.
Inside this folder, files are sorted by deletion date, and you can select one particular video or multiple files at once by clicking on them and selecting Recover, but remember that if more than 30 days have passed since deletion, the system will automatically clear that buffer and the files will disappear forever.
- 📂 Open the Gallery app on the main screen.
- 📂 Go to the bottom tab of the albums and find the section Deleted.
- 📂 Click Select, tick the desired videos and click Restore.
☑️ Pre-reconstruction checks
Use of the Mi Cloud cloud service
If the local memory of the device no longer has a file, the next logical step is to check the cloud storage. Xiaomi devices are closely integrated with the Mi Cloud service. If you had a Mi Account enabled and the gallery synced, your videos could automatically upload to the cloud before deleting or even be there as a backup.
To check this, you don't have to look for a file in your phone's settings. The easiest way to go to the official i.mi.com website is from a computer or other device. Enter your credentials (login and password from Mi Account). In the cloud storage interface, select the Gallery section, and it displays all the media files that have ever been synced with your device.
⚠️ Note: If you deleted the video on your phone and the sync was active at the time of deletion, the file may also be deleted from the cloud. However, in some cases, if the Internet is disabled at the time of deletion, the copy may remain in the cloud.
The important nuance is the free limit. Xiaomi's baseline rate provides just 5GB, which quickly fills up high-resolution video. If your video was too large, it might not sync, so it's worth checking other connected services, like Google Photos, if you've had cross-sync.
What to do if you forget your Mi Account password?
Recovery via Google Photos and other clouds
Many Android users use Google services by default. The Google Photos app is often installed on Xiaomi smartphones by default or downloaded by the user when you first set up. Its backup algorithms can work regardless of MIUI settings, saving your videos in original or compressed quality.
Go to the Google Photos app or photos.google.com. Look at the Library -> Recycle Bin. Unlike Mi Cloud, Google stores deleted files for up to 60 days. This is a much longer time frame, which gives you a better chance of saving data. If a video was recently deleted, it is likely to be there.
Also, check for other installed cloud clients: Dropbox, OneDrive, Yandex.Disk. Often users install them for specific tasks and forget that the autoloading function of photos and videos could have been activated globally.
- ☁️ Check the cart in the Google Photos app (storage up to 60 days).
- ☁️ Sign in to other cloud services (OneDrive, Dropbox).
- ☁️ Search files by shooting date, not download date.
Memory analysis by computer (ADB and Explorer)
If cloud methods don't work, you'll have to work with the file system directly through your PC. Connect your phone to your computer with a USB cable and select File Transfer (MTP) mode in the notification on your smartphone screen. In Windows Explorer, find the DCIM folder and inside it, find the Camera. Sometimes deleted videos remain as junk files with non-standard extensions or zero sizes that you can try to open with specialized players.
A more advanced method is to use USB debugging. To do this, activate the developer mode: go to Settings -> About phone and 7 times click on the MIUI Version. Then in the Advanced Settings -> For developers, enable Debugging over USB. This will allow the computer to gain deeper access to the file system.
With the help of the command line and utility ADB You can try to make a full partition dump if you have the superuser rights (Root) obtained. However, for ordinary users, this method is complex and risky. ADB-The protocol scans memory for signatures of deleted files.
adb devices
adb pull /sdcard/DCIM/Camera/ C:/Recovery/⚠️ Note: When connecting to USB Always choose a reliable connection. Do not interrupt the scanning or copying process, as this can lead to logical errors of the file system and complicate further recovery.
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Direct connection to the PC via a quality cable is the only way to start deep memory scanning by third-party recyclers.
Use of specialized software for recovery
When embedded tools are powerless, data recovery software comes to the rescue, with leaders in this niche being Dr.Fone, DiskDigger (Android), Recuva (requires disk emulation), and PhotoRec. These utilities can read raw data and search for file titles even if information about them is removed from the file system table.
Root-based software is the most effective. If your Xiaomi is unlocked and has superuser rights, the chance of recovery is 80-90%. Programs like DiskDigger, when they have root rights, scan the internal memory by sector, finding the video stream where it is not visible by conventional methods. Without root rights, scanning is limited to cache and thumbnails.
The recovery process usually looks like this: installing the program on a PC, connecting the phone, running a scan, previewing the files found and saving them to the computer. It is important to save the recovered files to the PC, not back to the phone, so as not to erase other deleted data.
| Programme | I need a Root. | Type of file | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| DiskDigger | Preferably. | Photos, Videos | Low. |
| Dr.Fone | No (partially) | All types | Medium |
| PhotoRec | Yes (for deep) | All types | Tall. |
| Recuva | No (SD only) | All types | Low. |
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If you have a microSD card on your phone, take it out and paste it into your computer card reader, and data recovery software works much more efficiently and safely with external cards than with internal phone memory.
Prevention of data loss and setting up autosave
After a successful (or unsuccessful) recovery, it’s worth thinking about preventing similar situations in the future. Data loss is always a matter of time unless an automatic backup system is set up. In today’s Xiaomi smartphones, this process can be automated almost completely, forgetting about manual copying.
Configure your Mi Cloud or Google Photo sync to only happen when you connect to Wi-Fi, so you don't waste mobile traffic. It's also recommended that you make a full backup of your system and data once a month to an external hard drive or to a large cloud storage, which will take a few minutes, but save you years of memories.
Remember to check your backups periodically. Sometimes it happens that the sync has been hanging for months because of a password error or overflowing storage, and the user only finds out about it at a critical moment. Regular audit of your digital archives is a sign of a competent user.
- 🛡️ Enable autoload in Google Photos and Mi Cloud.
- 🛡️ Copy important files once a month to a PC or external drive.
- 🛡️ Keep an eye on free space in cloud storage.
⚠️ Warning: Never store a single copy of important videos only on your smartphone’s internal memory. Phones can crash, get lost, or be attacked by a ransomware virus. The three-copy rule (main, backup local, backup cloud) remains the gold standard for security.