Editing contacts on Xiaomi: all the ways and hidden functions

Editing contacts on Xiaomi smartphones seems like a simple task — until you encounter unexpected problems. The application “Contacts” does not save changes, duplicate entries after synchronization with Google Account, then disappear photos after updating MIUI. In this article, we will analyze not only basic actions (how to change a name or number), but also rare scenarios: restore remote contacts, fix name encoding, configure display for international numbers.

Xiaomi is very closely integrated with Mi Account and Google, which sometimes leads to contact version conflicts, such as if you edit a phone number and it rolls back to the old version an hour later, automatic synchronization is to blame, and we'll show you how to disable unnecessary synchronizations, merge forked entries, and even return contacts after resetting the phone to factory settings.

Basic editing: name, number, mail

Let's start simple: change the basic contact data. Open the Contacts app.** (a person's silhouette icon on the home screen or app menu) Find the contact you want through a search or scroll through the list and tap it.

In the contact card that opens, click the Edit button** (pencil in the upper right corner).

• 👤 Name and surname - supports Cyrillic, Latin and hieroglyphics. Use the standard to display correctly in messengers UTF-8.
• 📞 Phone - you can add several numbers (mobile, work, home). For international formats, specify the country code (+7, +1 etc.).
• ✉️ Email is a field for email addresses and supports validation (e.g., displays an error when entering a user).@mailru pointlessly).
• 🏢 Organization - company name, position and work address.

After the changes, click Save in the upper right corner. If the button is inactive, check if there are any blank mandatory fields (usually a name or phone number).

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If you save the error "Contact not updated", try restarting your phone, often due to a temporary failure of the MIUI database.

Additional fields: dates, addresses, notes

Few people know, but Xiaomi can add advanced information to your contacts that syncs with Google Contacts, for example:

• 🎂 Birthday – After saving the date will automatically appear in the Google Calendar.
• 📍 Address - supports an index, country, city and street format, and is useful for navigating Google Maps.
• 📝 Notes – here you can specify hobbies, allergies (good for medical contacts) or any other details.
• 🔗 Links to social networks – fields for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other profiles.

To add these fields:

1. Open the contact editing.
2. Scroll down to the “Additional Information” block** and click “Add Field”.

Important: Link and Address fields support clickable links, for example, if you type in the Address field the full URL (https://vk.com/id12345), you click on it and the contact card will open your browser.

Editing a photo of the contact

Photos in Xiaomi contacts can be added in three ways: through a gallery, camera or Google avatars.

Method 1: Download from the gallery

1. Open contact → click “Edit”.
2. Slip the camera icon next to the name.
3. Select “Gallery” and find the right photo.
4. Cut the image (if necessary) and save it.

Method 2: Take a new photo

In the same photo editing menu, select Camera** and the camera app will open. Take a picture, cut and save.

Method 3: Automatic Addition from Google

If the contact is synced with Google Account and it has an avatar in Google Contacts, it will automatically pull up to Xiaomi to update the photo:

1. Open contacts.google.com on your computer.
2. Find a contact and upload a new photo.
3. Wait for synchronization (usually takes 1-5 minutes).

Consolidation of duplicate contacts

The problem of duplicates occurs when synchronizing with multiple accounts (Mi Account, Google, SIM-For example, the same person can be displayed twice: one contact from Google, another contact from Google. SIM-map.

To combine the takes:

1. Open the "Contact" app»** → press three points (⋮) top-right.

If the automatic connection does not work:

• 📋 Open your first contact. → click "Edit» → «More» (⋮) → «Combining with another contact»**.

Make sure that they are really the same person.

Compare phone numbers (sometimes a single number is different)

Check additional fields (email, address)

Keep a backup of contacts (in case of error)-->

Correction of the encoding of names and special symbols

If the contact names are displayed by the Krakozabras (for example, Андрей instead of "Andrey," the problem is the encoding:

• 🔄 Synchronization with outdated versions MIUI (12).

Decisions:

1. Resetting the coding MIUI (extreme case: Settings → My device. → All parameters. → Resetting settings → Resetting application settings ⚠️ Note: This will remove all app settings, but contacts will remain.

Contact Sync: Mi Account vs Google

Xiaomi offers two main ways to sync contacts: through Mi Account (the Xiaomi cloud) and Google Account.

To avoid conflict:

1. Select one primary account for sync (we recommend Google for versatility).

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If you use both accounts (Mi and Google), the last edited contact will take priority, for example, if you change the number in Google Contacts and then in Mi Account, the version from Mi Account will remain.

Restore Remote Contacts

Deleted contact by mistake?Don't panic - Xiaomi has several ways to recover.

Method 1: Recover from the Google Contact Recycle Bin

If your contacts are synced with Google:

1. Go to contacts.google.com.
2. On the left menu, select “Basket”** (Dumpster icon).
3. Find the remote contact and click "Restore"**.
4. Wait for synchronization (usually 1-2 minutes).

Method 2: Restore from MIUI backup

If you backed up through Settings → My Device → Backup:**

1. Open Settings → My Device → Backup → Restore.
2. Select the backup copy that had the contacts you needed.
3. Check "Contacts" and click "Restore".

Method 3: Through a local database (for advanced)

If sync is disabled, the contacts are stored in /data/data/com.android.providers.contacts/databases/contacts2.db.

• 📱 Root access or ADB.
• 🔧 The program for working with SQLite (for example, DB Browser for SQLite).
• 📂 Backup of the file contacts2.db (if).

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If you're not sure about your skills, you should go to a service center, and if you don't edit your database correctly, you can lose all your contacts.

⚠️ Attention: Recovery from backup MIUI rewrite all current contacts. Pre-export them to.vcf file so you don't lose fresh changes.

FAQ: Frequent questions about editing contacts