Modern Xiaomi smartphones offer users a great balance between price and functionality, but the presence of intrusive advertising content in system applications often clouds the experience. Especially annoying is the appearance of promo banners in the standard task scheduler, which many use daily for maintaining schedules. Advertising can appear in the form of pop-ups, banners at the bottom of the screen or notifications about “recommended events”, which are actually hidden commerce.
Fortunately, MIUI has the flexibility to adjust privacy and limit the flow of advertising data. The process of disabling does not require root rights or complex reflashing of the device. You just need access to the system settings and a little time to go through several menus. It's important to understand that advertising is built into the system services level, so you need to disable it in a comprehensive manner, affecting not only the calendar application itself, but also global marketing services.
In this article, we’ll take a look at all the methods available, from simple switches in the interface to shutting down system services through the developer menu. You’ll learn to block specific types of notifications and prevent unwanted content from appearing in the future. By following the instructions, you’ll turn your smartphone into a pure productivity tool.
Analysis of advertising sources in MIUI
Before we begin to fix the problem, we need to understand the mechanism of the problem: advertising integrations in the MIUI shell are implemented through special system services that collect user data and show targeted content. The main source is the MSA service (MIUI System Ads), which is responsible for displaying ads in many embedded applications, including calendar, conductor and music player.
In addition, Calendar itself has built-in subscription mechanisms for third-party holiday and sporting events, which often include advertising inserts, which can be activated automatically or enabled by default when the device is first launched, and also has a common advertising ID that allows the system to track your actions to more accurately match banners.
Understanding the structure of the ad units helps to act point by point, if you just close the pop-up window, the system will offer it again after a while, so the most effective way to disable the sources of advertising data themselves is to ensure that algorithms stop asking for content from promotion servers.
⚠️ Attention: When you turn off system services, be careful. Do not remove applications completely unless you are sure of their purpose, as this can lead to unstable operation of the interface.
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Ads on the Xiaomi calendar are broadcast via the MSA system service and built-in event subscriptions, so both sources need to be turned off.
Disable MSA service through settings
The first and most important step is to deactivate MIUI System Ads, which is responsible for collecting analytics and displaying advertising materials in standard utilities, and to access the management of this service, you need to go to the advanced password and security settings menu.
Find the Settings menu for the security section of your device. The path may vary slightly depending on the version of the shell, but it usually looks like this: Settings → Passwords and Security → Access to Personal Data. This list shows all the apps that request access to your data to personalize your ads. Find the msa service in the list and turn off the access slider.
Once the slider is turned off, the system will require you to wait 10 seconds before confirming an action. This is a security mechanism to prevent accidental shutdown. Press the "Revoke" button after the timer expires. If the first time failed and there was an error "failed to withdraw permissions", try repeating the procedure after a few minutes or switching to the mobile network, since Xiaomi servers are sometimes temporarily unavailable.
What to do if the switch button is inactive?
In parallel with the MSA shutdown, it is recommended to restrict access to data for other system services that can transmit information for targeting. In the same menu, Access to Personal Data, you should check the following services:
- 📱 Miui daemon – collects statistics on device usage.
- 📊 GetApps – an app store that is often a source of push notifications.
- 🔍 Mi Browser is a standard browser that aggressively promotes news feeds.
- ☁️ MIUI Demo – a service of demo videos, often containing advertising.
After these steps are completed, the background data transfer for advertising purposes will be significantly reduced, but to completely remove banners from the calendar, additional adjustments must be made within the application itself.
Set up parameters inside the Calendar application
Even after the global MSA service is disabled, the app itself may still have active subscriptions to third-party calendars, often the source of pop-ups offering to buy tickets, order food, or watch a match broadcast, which look like regular schedule entries, but when clicked open a browser or advertising landing page.
To clean the calendar, open the app and go to the settings menu, which is usually hidden under a three-dot button in the corner of the screen or a gear icon, find the Settings or Accounts and Sync section, where you need to carefully examine the list of connected calendars, often with extra accounts added without your knowledge.
You need to uncheck any suspicious subscriptions like Holiday, Sports, Promo or any others you didn't add yourself. Leave only your personal Google account and, if necessary, Mi Account active.This action will instantly clear the event feed of intrusive offers.
☑️ Checking calendar settings
Also, consider the permissions of the app itself. Go to Settings → Apps → All apps → Calendar → Permissions. Make sure the app doesn’t have redundant rights, such as accessing a phone or location, if they aren’t needed for basic functionality. Restricting rights can prevent data collection for targeted advertising.
Notification and personalization management
Push notifications are another channel for advertising information, and even if banners are not in the interface, the phone can vibrate constantly, offering hot offers, and notifications are controlled through the notification system menu and status bar.
Go to Settings → Notifications and Status bar → Notification Management. Find Calendar (or Calendar Services) on the list. Here you will see notification categories. Turn off categories with names like Recommendations, Marketing, or Advertising. Reminders and Events categories, better left on to avoid missing important appointments.
And there's also a personalization option in global ad settings: Settings → Passwords & Security → Privacy → Advertising Services. You can turn off ad personalization here, and it won't take away ads completely, but it will make them less intrusive and more random, because the system will stop using your data to match content.
To clean up the system, you can use the Advertising ID reset function. In the same advertising service menu, click the Reset Advertising ID button. This action is equivalent to installing a new device from the point of view of the ad networks, and the accumulated interest profile will be deleted.
| Setup parameter | Location on the menu | Recommended action | Impact on advertising |
|---|---|---|---|
| MSA Service | Security → Access to personal data | Remove (Revoke) | High (principal source) |
| Calendar subscriptions | Calendar → Settings → Subscriptions | Remove the extras | High (removes events) |
| Personalization | Security → Confidentiality | Shut down. | Average (reduces targeting) |
| Notifications | Settings → Notifications | Category filtering | Medium (removes fluffs) |
Using Developer Mode to Block
For advanced users who want to be guaranteed to get rid of ads, there is a method of blocking through the developer menu, which allows you to disable the background processes responsible for downloading advertising content at a deeper level, but you should use it with caution.
First, activate the developer mode. Go to Settings → About Phone and click 7 times in a row on the MIUI Version field. After the message “You became a developer”, return to the main settings menu, there will be a new section “Additional” or “Extended settings”, and inside – “For developers”.
In the developer menu, scroll through the list to the network or application section, and we are interested in the option to limit background processes or disable data aggregation. Although there is no direct “Disable Ads” button, limiting background activity for system services can prevent ad modules from loading. DNS-filtering if it is maintained at the system level.
Also in developer mode, you can find the option "Don't keep activities": Attention: turn it on is not recommended for everyday use, as this will close the applications immediately after you leave them, which will lead to constant calendar reboots and data loss.
⚠️ Attention: Making changes to the Developer Menu can affect the stability of the smartphone. Do not change the settings, the meaning of which you do not understand. In case of problems, you can always reset the developer settings at the very bottom of this menu.
Alternative solutions and third-party calendars
If the built-in app continues to annoy with its work or hidden features, the most radical and effective solution is to replace the standard calendar with a third-party counterpart.The Google Play store features a host of great apps that are completely ad-free and synced with your Google account.
Popular alternatives like Google Calendar, Business Calendar 2 or DigiCal offer a more flexible interface and no intrusive MIUI integrations. Once you install the alternative app, simply assign it to the default event-management app. Xiaomi's standard calendar can even be turned off in the app settings if the system allows it to do so without disrupting alarm clocks.
Using third-party software also offers the benefit of widgets, so you can install a widget from a new calendar on your desktop that looks stylish and informative without taking up space with banner ads, which dramatically changes the experience of interacting with your smartphone.
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When installing a third-party calendar, be sure to give it permission to access contacts and events, otherwise synchronization with a Google account will not work.
Another option is to use the web version of the calendar through a browser with an ad blocker installed, but this is less convenient for mobile devices. Therefore, installing a native substitute application remains the most rational choice for most users.