Are you tired of your friend or colleague on Xiaomi Redmi having a loud and annoying tune play every time you call? or accidentally assigning an inappropriate ringtone to a particular contact and not knowing how to return a standard signal? Unlike iPhone, where the audio settings are hidden in the depths of iOS, MIUI offers several ways to manage customized tunes - but not all of them are obvious.
Complicating the problem, after the MIUI 13 and MIUI 14 updates, the audio menu interface has changed, with some items moved and old instructions from the Internet stopped working. In this article, we will discuss 5 current ways to remove a tune from a contact on Redmi Note 10/11/12, Redmi 9/10 and other models - from basic to hidden functions for power users.
Method 1: Contact editing (fastest)
If you've assigned a tune manually, the easiest way to remove it is through a contact card, which works on all versions of MIUI and doesn't require any additional applications.
Open the Contacts app (the icon with the person's silhouette on the home screen). Find the contact you want and click on it. In the upper right corner, tap the pencil icon (Edit). Scroll down to the Call Melody block - this will show the current ringtone. Click on it, then select Default at the top of the list. Save the changes with the Ready button.
- 🔍 Where to look: Contacts → [Name of contact] → Edit → The ringing melody
- ⚙️ Works on: MIUI 12/13/14, Android 10-14
- ⏱️ Time: 10-15 seconds
⚠️ Warning: If the melody doesn't reset after saving, restart the phone. MIUI 14 Sometimes there is a bug caching sounds - helps a simple reboot.
Method 2: Reset all individual tunes through sound settings
When there are many individual ringtones assigned, editing each contact individually is inconvenient, in which case you can reset all the personal tunes at once.
Go to Settings → Sound and Vibration → Call Melody. At the top of the screen, find the switch Individual Melodies (or Personal Ringtones in older versions). Turn it off, it will return all contacts to the standard melody. If there is no switch, then you do not have any contact with the individual sound.
Make sure you don’t have any important contacts with unique ringtones.
Remember or record current tunes if you plan to return them later
Make sure the standard tune is right for you (you can change it in the same menu)
Close all applications that use sound (music, video)
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This method doesn't remove the melodies from the phone's memory, it just unties them from the contacts, and the audio files themselves will remain in the Ringtones folder and can be reassigned.
Method 3: Remove the melody through the phone app
Few people know, but the standard Xiaomi Phone app has a hidden menu for managing call sounds, which is useful if the contact is not saved in the phone book, but is in the call history.
Open the Phone app and go to the Contact tab. Find the contact you want and hold your finger on it for 2-3 seconds until the context menu appears. Select Sound Management (or Call Settings in new versions), where you can reset the melody to the standard or turn off the sound for this number altogether.
| Action. | The result | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Select by default | The standard melody will come back. | Does not delete the ringtone file |
| Select No Sound | Calls will be without melody (only vibration) | Does not affect SMS notifications |
| Remove contact and recreate | Reset all individual settings | Radical method if others do not work |
Accidentally pressed and I don't know how.
Through contact editing
I use third-party apps.
I never give you individual tunes.
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Method 4: Remove the Melody File from the Phone Memory
If a melody has been added as a user file (such as a downloaded song), it can be physically deleted, which will cause MIUI to automatically reset the audio settings for all contacts using the file.
Connect your phone to your computer or open a file manager (like Explorer or Mi File Manager). Go to Internal Storage → Ringtones. This is where all user ringtones are stored. Find the file you want (usually in.mp3 or.m4a) and delete it. After that, restart the phone, the melody disappears from the list of available sounds.
⚠️ Note: Deleting files from the Ringtones folder may cause some system applications to fail if they use these sounds. Before deleting, check if this tune is assigned to an alarm or notification.
How to recover a deleted melody file?
Method 5: Reset the settings of the Contacts app (radical method)
If none of these things worked, there may have been a bug in the Contacts database, and then resetting the settings will help, and it will bring all the settings back to factory settings, including individual tunes.
Go to Settings → Applications → Application Management. Find Contacts (or Contacts) in the list and open its settings. Slip it on Storage, then select Erase Data and confirm the action. Importantly, this will delete all the settings of the application, but the contacts will remain if they are synced with Google or Mi Account.
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Before resetting the Contacts app, make sure that your cloud sync is enabled. Go to Settings → Accounts → Google/Mi Account and check that Contact Sync is active.
Why does the melody come back on its own?
Many Xiaomi Redmi users are faced with the fact that after resetting the individual melody reappears after a while.
- 🔄 Cloud Sync: If the contact syncs with Mi Cloud or Google Contacts, the tune settings can be restored the next data update.Solution: disable sync for that contact or reset the tune in the web version of Google Contacts.
- 📱 Update MIUI: After major system updates (e.g., with the MIUI 13 on MIUI 14) some settings are reset to default values but then restored from backup.
- 🎵 Third-party apps: Programs like Zedge or Ringtone Maker can automatically assign tunes to contacts.
If the problem recurs, try turning off automatic sync for contacts: Settings → Accounts. → Mi Account/Google → Synchronization of contacts.
Frequent Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
When working with individual tunes on Xiaomi Redmi, users often make typical mistakes:
- Removing the contact instead of resetting the melody, which results in the loss of all the information about the person, instead using methods from Method 1 or Method 2.
- Ignoring cache. When you change your audio settings, always restart your phone, which clears the cache of media files.
- Use incompatible formats. MIUI supports only.mp3,.m4a,.ogg and.wav. Files in.flac or.aac format may not be played.
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If the melody doesn't reset after all the manipulations, check if the phone has a power saving mode. In MIUI, it can block changes to system sounds. Turn it off in Settings → Battery and Performance → Power saving mode.