Xiaomi’s modern smartphones are famous for their excellent price-performance ratio, but owners often encounter intrusive pre-installed software. The MIUI 12 shell, despite visual improvements, has retained a lot of built-in services that cannot be removed in the usual way through settings. These programs take up precious memory space and consume CPU resources, which is especially noticeable on budget models.
Fortunately, there is an effective way to get rid of digital junk without having to root or flash the device. Using the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) debugging toolkit, you can safely remove almost any system component. It is important to clearly understand which packets are responsible for the system operation and which can be painlessly unloaded from your gadget’s memory.
In this article, we will discuss in detail the process of preparing your computer and smartphone, and also provide a list of safe applications to remove. Removing system packages through ADB does not require unlocking the bootloader, which saves the warranty on the device. Follow the instructions carefully to turn your Xiaomi into a clean and fast tool for work and entertainment.
Preparing the device and computer for work
Before you start manipulating system files, you need to configure your smartphone correctly. The first step is to activate the developer mode, which is hidden by default. To do this, go to the Settings → About Phone menu and find the MIUI version line. Click on it seven times in a row until you notice that you have become a developer.
Then you should turn on the USB debugging directly. In the Additional Settings menu → For developers, activate the USB debugging switch. When you connect your smartphone to your computer, a request for debugging permission will appear on the screen - be sure to confirm it by ticking the "Always Allow from this computer." Without this step, the computer will not be able to interact with the phone's file system.
On the PC side, you'll need to download the official SDK Platform Tools from Google's site, a minimalist set of utilities that contains the necessary adb.exe and fastboot.exe executables. Unpack the archive into the root folder of the drive, such as in C:\adb, to avoid problems with long paths and filename encoding when working on the command line.
☑️ Checking readiness for removal
Installation of drivers and connection by ADB
The connection between the computer operating system and the Android device is provided by special drivers. In most cases, Windows 10 and 11 automatically find the necessary components when you first connect the cable. However, Xiaomi sometimes requires the installation of a universal Google USB Driver or a specific driver from the manufacturer to work steadily.
You can check the success of the connection via the command line. Open the terminal in the folder with ADB tools and type in the command adb devices. If the list appears serial device with the status of device, then the connection is established correctly. The status unauthorized indicates that you forgot to confirm the request on the smartphone screen or did not activate debugging.
If your computer can’t see your phone, try replacing it. USB-to the original or switch to another port, preferably USB 2.0, located directly on the motherboard. Sometimes it helps to restart the adb service with the adb kill-server command followed by adb start-server.
⚠️ Warning: Removing critical system components may result in a cyclic bootloop or touch screen failure. Always check the purpose of the package before uninstalling it.
List of safe applications to remove
MIUI 12’s shell features a host of apps that are not used outside of China or the manufacturing countries, including Mi Video, Mi Music, various game stores and Baidu’s navigation services, which removes space and stops background activity that consumes battery life.
Also, users often want to get rid of the standard Mi Browser browser and the GetApps app store. These programs are deeply integrated into the system, but are not vital to the operation of Android. You can easily replace them with analogues from Google Play, such as Chrome, Firefox or third-party launchers.
Below is a table with the main packages that can be removed on most global firmware versions, and the package names may vary slightly depending on the regional version of MIUI.
| Title of the annex | Package Name (Package Name) | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Mi Video | com.miui.videoplayer | Safe. |
| Mi Music | com.miui.player | Safe. |
| GetApps (App Store) | com.xiaomi.mipicks | Safe. |
| Mi Browser | com.android.browser | Safe. |
| Yellow Pages | com.miui.yellowpage | Safe. |
The process of removing system applications
After you have prepared the list of unnecessary programs, you can move to the practical part, delete it by sending special commands to the terminal, and syntax commands to completely remove the application for the current user is as follows:
adb shell pm uninstall -k --user 0 name packetInstead of the packet name, substitute a real name, such as com.miui.videoplayer. The -k flag stores the cache and application data in case you want to restore it, although when deleting for user 0 this does not always work predictably.
It is important to understand that this method hides the application and deletes its data for your user profile, but does not physically erase files from the system partition. This makes the method safe: in case of an error, you can always return everything back. For mass removal, it is convenient to use graphic shells such as Xiaomi. ADB/Fastboot Tools that automate this process.