Photo recovery on Xiaomi: from the cart to deep scanning

Losing photos on a Xiaomi smartphone is a situation that almost every user faces: you accidentally clicked Delete, formatted a memory card or reset your phone to factory settings - and now valuable footage seems lost forever. But don't panic: 80 percent of the time, files can be returned if you act quickly and correctly.

In this article, we will analyze all the current ways to restore photos on Xiaomi, Redmi and other devices. POCO — standard-tool MIUI You will learn how the mechanisms of deleting files in Android work, why some methods work only in the first hours after data loss, and how to avoid irrevocably erasing images in the future. For example, why microSD card recovery often yields better results than internal memory recovery, and how to get around the limitations of microSD card recovery. MIUI access to system folders.

Important: the effectiveness of the methods depends on the phone model (starting with the Xiaomi Mi 8 and the newer storage algorithms have changed), the version of MIUI (in MIUI 14+ there is an extended basket) and the type of memory (internal vs. removable microSD). If you use POCO F5 or Redmi Note 12, the instructions given will be updated with firmware features.

1. Checking the MIUI basket: the first step to saving a photo

Most Xiaomi users don’t know that MIUI has a built-in shopping cart (similar to Windows’ Recycle Bin) where photos are stored for up to 30 days after being deleted, which works for both the standard Gallery app and Google Photos if it’s installed as the primary one.

To check the basket:

• 📱 Open the Gallery app (icon with colored squares).
• 🗑️ Slip on three dots in the upper right corner → Select the Recycle Bin (or Recently Deleted in New Versions) MIUI).
• 🔍 Scroll through the list: deleted photos are sorted by date. Select the desired photos with a long tap. → press Restore.
• 💾 Files will return to the same folder they were deleted from (e.g. Camera or Screenshots).

⚠️ Attention: B MIUI 12 and older, the Recycle Bin cleans automatically when there is not enough space on the device. If less than 10% of the memory is free, the system can delete files from the Recycle Bin before 30 days.

If the cart is empty or there are no photos, move on to the next method. But first check the hidden folders: sometimes MIUI moves files to.thumbnails or.nomedia, making them invisible to the gallery.

1. Open the files. → Go to the internal memory or SD-map.
2. Enable the display of hidden files: three points → Settings → Show hidden files.
3. Check the DCIM/.thumbnails and Pictures/.nomedia folders.

2. Recovery via Mi Cloud: if synchronization was enabled

Mi Cloud is a cloud storage from Xiaomi that automatically backs up photos if the feature is activated. Even if you deleted the pictures from your phone, they could have been saved to the cloud.

On the phone:

• 🌐 Open the Settings. → Xiaomi account → Mi Cloud.
• 📸 Go to Gallery or Photos (depending on version) MIUI).
• 🔍 Previous PostPrevious Cloud Can Store Versions of Photos from the Last 6 Months.

From the computer:

1. Go to i.mi.com and log in.
2. Select Gallery → check the Autoboot and Backup folders.
3. To recover, click on the photo → Download or Restore on the device.

⚠️ Note: Mi Cloud by default stores only thumbnails of photos in the original resolution until 2048×2048 If you need full-size shots (e.g. with Xiaomi) 13 Ultra in resolution 50 MP), check the synchronization settings: in Mi Cloud → gallery → Settings should be included in the item Download originals.

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If Mi Cloud doesn’t find a photo, try logging in via another browser (like Firefox) or changing your account location in your account settings. Sometimes Xiaomi servers restrict access to individual countries.

If sync with Mi Cloud has been disabled, try Google Photos:

• Open the Google Photos app → Library → Recycle Bin.
• Photos are stored there for 60 days. To restore files → Restore.
• Check out the Archive album - sometimes MIUI automatically archives the photos instead of deleting them.

3. Use of PCs and programs for deep scanning

If you don't find it in the cart or the cloud, you'll have to connect the phone to your computer and use specialized tools, and this works even after you reset it to the factory settings, but with the caveats:

Conditions for successful recovery:

• 📱 The phone was not used after the photo was deleted (new data was not recorded over the old one).
• 💽 MicroSD memory card is not formatted.
• ⏳ It has been no more than 1-2 weeks since the removal (the sooner the better).

For scanning, programs are suitable:

Step-by-step instructions for Recuva (the easiest option):

1. Connect Xiaomi to your PC via USB-cable (select File Transfer Mode (MTP) notice-curtain).
2. Install and run Recuva → select the type of Image files.
3. Specify the location to scan: if the photos were on the memory card, select a removable disk (for example, D:\); if in internal memory - Internal storage.
4. Start a deep scan (a 1-3 hour class).
5. After analysis, tick the desired photos (sort by date or size) → click Restore.

⚠️ Warning: Don't save recovered files to the same drive you're scanning from! Use a different partition of your hard drive or an external drive. Otherwise, new data can overwrite sectors that haven't been scanned yet.

Disable Wi-Fi and Mobile Data on Xiaomi|Charge the phone to 50%+|Use the original USB-cable|Do not connect your phone to other devices during scanning-->

For advanced users, if standard utilities can't find photos, try PhotoRec (part of TestDisk), which runs at the file system level and can recover data even from damaged partitions.

1. Connect Xiaomi in MTP mode.


2. Run PhotoRec through the command line:




photrec /d D:\recovery /cmd D:\sdcard\DCIM\Camera .jpg,.png




(where D:\recovery is the folder to save, D:\sdcard is the path to the phone's memory).




3. wait until the scan is finished (may take up to 5 hours).

4.Recovery after reset to factory settings

If you have done a hard reset (reset via Settings) → The phone. → Resetting, the chances of returning a photo are reduced, but not zero. MIUI:

What happens when you dump:

• 📂 All user data from the section is deleted /data, including folder photos DCIM and Pictures.
• 🔄 The file system is not formatted – it simply cleans the file records (they can be restored until new data is written on top of them).
• ☁️ Data in Mi Cloud and on microSD (unencrypted) remains intact.

For recovery after discharge:

1. Disconnect your phone from the internet (Wi-Fi and mobile data) immediately to prevent automatic synchronization and recording of new data.
2. Connect Xiaomi to your PC and use DiskDigger or PhotoRec (instructions above).
3. If the phone has been encrypted (device encryption is enabled in the security settings), recovery without a password is impossible.

⚠️ Attention: On devices with MIUI 13+ and Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset 8 Gen 1/2 (for example, Xiaomi 12 Pro, Redmi K50 Ultra) after the reset, the hardware encryption is activated, in which case the photo can only be returned if:

• You remember the password from the Xiaomi account tied to the phone.
• You have a backup in Mi Cloud or Google Drive.
• The phone was not flashed through Fastboot (this erases all data without the possibility of recovery).

5. Features of recovery from microSD memory card

MicroSD cards have a different file system (usually FAT32 or exFAT), so recovering photos from them is often easier than from internal memory.

Benefits of MicroSD Recovery:

• 🔧 The card is not encrypted by default (unlike internal memory). MIUI).
• 📁 The file system is less fragmented, making it easier to scan.
• 🛠️ You can connect the card directly to the PC via the card reader (without the risk of overwriting data through the card reader). MTP).

Instructions for the memory card:

1. Remove the microSD from the phone and insert it into the PC card reader.
2. Run Recuva or R-Studio → select a removable disc.
3. Turn on the Deep Scan option and wait until it is completed.
4. Save the recovered photos to your PC hard drive (not to the card!).

⚠️ Note: If the memory card was formatted via a phone, it will be more difficult to recover the data:

• Use TestDisk to restore the partition:
• Select [Search] → [Analyse] → find the lost partition and save its structure.

If the card is defined as RAW (Unknown File System), try the DMDE utility:

• Download the program from the official website dmde.ru.
• Select a memory card → Full scan → wait for the results.
• Export the found files to the folder on the PC.

6.Photo Loss Prevention: How to Avoid Future Problems

The best way to avoid losing a photo is to prevent it from being deleted.

Automatic backup:

• ☁️ Mi Cloud: Enable autoload photo in Settings → Xiaomi account → Mi Cloud → Gallery: 5GB is free, but you can buy extra space (100GB costs). ~300 rubles per year).
• 📸 Google Photos: Install the app and activate Backup and Sync. Google offers 15GB for free (common with Gmail and Drive).
• 💾 Local Copy: Transfer your photo from your phone to your PC or external drive once a month through Files → Backup.

The settings of the MIUI Gallery:

• 🗑️ Increase the storage time in the basket: Gallery → Settings → Basket → Storage period (maximum - 60 days).
• 🔒 Turn off automatic cleaning: in the same basket settings, uncheck the tick with Clean if there is a lack of memory.
• 📂 Create separate albums for important photos: a long tap on the folder → To secure (this will protect it from accidental removal).

Hardware measures:

• 📱 Use a microSD class memory card A2 or U3 (SanDisk Extreme – they are less likely to fail.
• 🔋 Monitor the health of the drive: in Settings → Memory. → Diagnostics MIUI Shows the state of internal memory and maps.
• 🛡️ Install the app SD Maid to clean up garbage without risking removing important files.

⚠️ Note: If you often take pictures in the format RAW (For example, on Xiaomi 13 Pro, remember that such files take up to 50 MB each. Set up a separate backup for them through Google Photos → Settings → Backup → File format (select original quality).

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Even if you use cloud storage, check regularly that backups are being created. For example, in Google Photos, go to Photos → Library → Devices and make sure that the latest snapshots are synced.

FAQ: Frequent questions about photo recovery on Xiaomi