How to Clean Contacts on Xiaomi Phone: The Complete Guide

Why are there unnecessary contacts on Xiaomi?

Xiaomi MIUI-based smartphones automatically store numbers from messengers, calls, and even SMS — convenient, but often leads to chaos in the phone book. Duplicates, outdated colleagues' numbers, random contacts from WhatsApp or Telegram take up memory and make it difficult to find the right subscribers. For example, after a job change, your book can remain hundreds of former employees' numbers, and synchronizing with Google Account sometimes creates copies of the same contacts.

Compounding the problem, MIUI defaults to hiding some system contacts (e.g., from MIUI Security or Mi Cloud). Users often fail to notice how the phone book grows to thousands of records, of which only 10% are relevant. Contact clearing on Xiaomi requires a comprehensive approach: it is not enough to simply delete numbers manually, you need to disable automatic saving and synchronization with unnecessary sources.

In this article, we will look at all the cleanup methods, from basic to advanced, including mass removal of duplicates, resetting the phone book via ADB and recovering accidentally erased numbers, and find out why contacts may disappear or duplicate after the MIUI update, and how to avoid this.

Method 1: Manual removal through the standard Contacts app

The most obvious method is to manually delete unnecessary records through the built-in Contacts app (or Contacts on global firmware), a method that works if you want to get rid of 10 to 20 numbers, but can be excruciating when you clean hundreds of records.

Instructions:

1. Open the Contacts app (an icon with a person’s silhouette on a green background).
2. Tap it on three points (⋮) in the upper right corner and select Contact Management.
3. Go to the All Contacts tab and find an unnecessary entry (use a search by name or number).
4. Press the contact, then tap on three points (⋮) and choose Delete.
5. Confirm the action in the dialog window.

Advantages of the method:

• 🔹 No need for additional programs or knowledge.
• 🔹 Allows selective removal of only unnecessary numbers.
• 🔹 It works on all Xiaomi models (from Redmi Note 7 to Xiaomi 14 Ultra).

⚠️ Note: If you manually delete contacts synced to your Google Account, they will disappear on other devices (tablet, computer). If you need to save a backup, export contacts before clearing (see the section on exporting).

💡

To speed up the process, use sorting by date of addition: new contacts are often unnecessary (for example, disposable numbers from ads).

Method 2: Massively remove duplicates via MIUI

If duplicates have accumulated in the phone book (for example, one contact is saved in Google, Mi Cloud, and in the phone’s memory), MIUI offers a built-in tool to merge or remove them.The feature is available on firmware MIUI 12 and newer.

How to find and remove duplicates:

1. Open Contacts. → ⋮ → Contact management.
2. Choose Find and combine duplicates.
3. The system will scan the phone book and show you a list of repeating records, and opposite each take will be a button to Combine or Delete.
4. For mass cleaning, click Select All → Remove the selected ones.

Limitations of the method:

• 🚫 Does not remove duplicates created by messengers (Viber, WhatsApp).
• 🚫 You may miss the contacts saved in the SIM-map.
• 🚫 On the old versions. MIUI (12th function is not stable.

Export backup of contacts|Disable synchronization with Google/Mi Cloud|Check duplicates manually (the system may miss important ones)|Make sure that SIM-The card is not blocked (if the contacts are stored on it)

-->

If the built-in tool fails, use third-party apps like Cleanup: Duplicate Contacts (available on Google Play), which offer more flexible settings for finding duplicates by number, name or email.

Method 3: Cleaning through Google Contacts (for synchronized records)

If your contacts are synced to a Google Account, they can be cleared through the web version of Google Contacts.This is handy for mass removal or editing, especially if you have many Android devices.

Step-by-step:

1. Open your browser on your computer or phone and go to contacts.google.com.
2. Sign in with the same account as Xiaomi.
3. On the left of the menu, select Duplicates, and the system will automatically find the repeating entries. Click Combine all.
4. For selective removal, tick unnecessary contacts and click on the basket icon (🗑️).
5. To delete all contacts at once, select Contact Management → Export (in case of backup) → Allocate → Delete.

Advantages of the method:

• 🌐 Available from any device (even if the phone is lost or broken).
• 🔍 Powerful filtering tools (by labels, groups, date of addition).
• 🔄 Changes sync with all Android devices.

⚠️ Note: Deleting contacts via Google Contacts does not affect records stored only in the phone’s memory or on the phone. SIM-To clean them, use the first method.

In the memory of the phone|On Google Account|Nana SIM-map|In Mi Cloud|I don't know/no follow.

-->

Method 4: Reset the phone book through MIUI settings

If the contacts are heavily clogged and manual cleaning takes too long, you can reset the phone book to factory settings, which will delete all records, including system records (e.g., emergency numbers added by MIUI by default).

How to reset contacts:

1. Go to Settings → Applications → Application Management.
2. Find the Contacts (or Contacts) app and tap on it.
3. Select Warehouse. → Clear the data.
4. Confirm action. The system will warn you that all contacts and settings of the application will be deleted.

What happens after the reset:

⚠️ Note: After reset, the Contacts app may not work stable until first synced with Google or Mi Cloud.If the phone book is empty, check the sync settings in Settings → Accounts.

Method 5: Delete contacts via ADB (for advanced users)

If standard methods don’t work (e.g., contacts stuck to the system after the MIUI update), you can use ADB, an Android debugging tool that only works for power users, as the wrong commands can disrupt your phone.

Step-by-step:

1. Turn on Developer Mode on Xiaomi: Go to Settings → About Phone. Tap 7 times on MIUI Version. Go back to Settings → Additional → For Developers and turn on USB Debugging.

USB

ADB

Mi PC Suite

CMD

Terminal

adb devices

(Your device name should appear as a confirmation of your connection.)

adb shell pm clear com.android.contacts


adb shell pm clear com.miui.contacts

These commands will reset the Contacts and MIUI Contacts app data.

Risks of the method:

• 💀 Can delete system contacts (e.g., Xiaomi service numbers).
• 🔌 Requires PC connectivity and team knowledge ADB.
• 🔄 After the execution, you will have to adjust the synchronization again.

💡

Use ADB only if other methods have failed. For most users, standard Section 1-3 cleaning methods are sufficient.

How to prevent contact contamination in the future

To prevent the phone book from filling up with garbage, set up Xiaomi according to the following rules:

1. Turn off automatic number saving: Go to Contacts → ⋮ → Settings → Save Contacts: Disable the options Save Call Numbers and Save Numbers from Messages.
2. Set up sync: In Settings → Accounts, leave sync enabled with only one source (like Google or Mi Cloud, but not both at the same time).
3. Use Groups: In Google Contacts, create groups (e.g., Work, Friends, Family) and add only relevant numbers.

Clean messengers regularly

• On WhatsApp, Telegram and Viber, turn off the automatic addition of contacts to the phone book.

Useful control applications:

• 📱 Simpler Contacts – Blocks the Retention of Single-Use Numbers.
• 🔍 Contact Cleaner – Searches and removes duplicates on schedule.
• 📊 Truecaller filters spam calls and doesn’t save them in contacts.

💡

If you change often SIM-Maps, keep contacts only in Google Account or Mi Cloud, this will eliminate the need to transfer numbers when changing phone or operator.

How to Back Up Contacts Before Cleaning

Before mass removal of contacts, be sure to keep a backup. MIUI and Google offer several ways to export:

Method 1: Export through MIUI:

1. Open Contacts. → ⋮ → Contact management → Imports/Exports.
2. Select Export to the file and specify the location of the save (for example, Internal Memory or SD-map).
3. The file will be saved in.vcf (business card) format.

Method 2: Export through Google Contacts:

1. Go to contacts.google.com.
2. On the left, select Export → specify the format (Google CSV or vCard) and click Export.
3. The file will be uploaded to your computer and saved in a safe place (e.g. Google Drive).

How to restore contacts from backup:

• Through MIUI: Contacts → ⋮ → Imports/Exports → File-based import.
• Through Google: On the Google Contacts site, select Import and upload the.vcf or.csv file.

⚠️ Note:.vcf files may not be properly imported if they are corrupted or created in another encoding. Before mass cleaning, check the backup on another device.

Frequent Questions (FAQ)