Mark Contact as Favorite
If a contact you call or message often gets buried in a long list, you probably haven't set it as a favorite yet. Favorites move straight to the top of the Contacts app and speed up dialing from the Phone app. It's a quick toggle, but easy to miss since it's tucked inside the contact detail view.
Show Emojis in the Symbols Keyboard
On Xiaomi phones the symbols keyboard can display your most recently used emojis for quicker access, but that suggestion strip stays hidden by default. The Mi keyboard needs this behavior turned on separately before recent emojis appear next to the symbols and numbers.
Turn Personalized Ad Recommendations On or Off
If ads on your Xiaomi phone feel oddly tied to your recent searches or app activity, Personalized ad recommendations is the setting behind it. Switching it off does not lower how many banners you see, it only stops MIUI from matching them to your interests and usage data.
Rename a Paired Bluetooth Device
When several Bluetooth accessories are paired to your Xiaomi phone, the device list can quickly fill up with cryptic model numbers or partial MAC addresses. Telling a pair of earbuds apart from a car stereo or a fitness tracker gets difficult once the default names look identical. Renaming each paired device gives you a clear label instead of guessing which entry belongs to which gadget.
Add a New Contact
Saving a new phone number on a Xiaomi device sometimes feels confusing because the Contacts app hides extra fields like birthday, address or company behind a single Add button. Many users only enter a name and number, then wonder later why the birthday never shows up in the calendar. The trick is knowing which fields to expand before you save the entry.
Turn On/Off Camera Live Tips
If your Xiaomi camera keeps popping up messages about a dirty lens or telling you to hold the phone level, the Live tips feature is running in the background. These prompts are useful for beginners but can get in the way during fast shooting, and not everyone wants every single tip active.
Power Button Ends Call Setting
Ending a call on a Xiaomi phone usually means tapping the red hang-up button on screen, which is awkward one-handed or when the display is hard to reach. MIUI has a hidden accessibility toggle that lets you end calls with the power button instead, but it is turned off by default and easy to miss in the settings.
Turn On/Off Emergency SOS
If your Xiaomi phone fires off an emergency text every time you grab it too fast, Emergency SOS is likely reacting to five quick presses of the power button. The feature sends your location and, if you choose, a summary of your last hour of call activity to selected contacts. Turning it off - or setting it up properly first - stops accidental alerts and unwanted location shares.
Raise to Wake: Turn On or Off
If lifting your phone doesn't wake the screen, the Raise to wake feature is probably switched off. This setting decides whether MIUI turns on the display automatically when you pick up the phone, instead of you having to press the power button for a quick glance at the time or a notification.
Send MMS Message
Xiaomi Messages does not offer a separate MMS button, so it is easy to assume attachments go out as a normal text message. As soon as you add a photo, video, or .gif to a chat, the app switches the message to multimedia format automatically. If your carrier has MMS disabled or your mobile data is off, that message can silently fail to send.
Set the Time Manually
If the clock on your Xiaomi phone keeps jumping back to the wrong hour right after you edit it, the Use network-provided time toggle is still active in the background. Xiaomi phones pull the time straight from your mobile network or Wi-Fi connection, so any manual change gets overwritten within seconds. That sync option has to be switched off first before a custom time will actually stick.
Set Default SIM Card for Outgoing Calls
Every time you dial a number, your Xiaomi phone pops up a menu asking which SIM card to use for the call. If you only ever tap the same option anyway, that extra confirmation step just slows down dialing. A fixed default SIM removes the prompt for good.
Reject an Incoming Call
If a call comes in at a bad moment on your Xiaomi phone, you don't have to answer it or wait it out. The red decline icon on the incoming call screen lets you dismiss it right away, but only if you swipe correctly. Miss the gesture and the call keeps ringing or gets answered by accident.
Rename a Fingerprint
Every fingerprint you add on a Xiaomi phone gets a generic label like Finger 1 or Finger 2, which makes no sense once you have three or four saved. If you cannot tell your thumb from your index finger in the list, renaming them is the only way to keep the Fingerprint unlock screen readable.
Set Autoclick Dwell Timing for a Mouse
If you control your Xiaomi phone with a connected mouse, clicking a tiny cursor button gets tiring fast. Autoclick (dwell timing) lets the phone register a click automatically once the pointer stops moving for a set time. The delay is adjustable, so a short dwell time can trigger accidental taps while a long one feels sluggish.
Save Photos and Videos to SD Card Automatically
If your Xiaomi phone keeps filling up internal storage even though a microSD card is inserted, the camera is probably still saving everything to the phone by default. New shots and clips pile up locally instead of moving to the card, which quickly triggers low-storage warnings.
Camera Modes Layout: Tab or Panel
Switching between Photo, Video, and other capture modes takes an extra tap when your camera app hides them behind a 'More' tab instead of a swipeable panel. This layout setting decides how the mode bar behaves at the bottom of the viewfinder, and the wrong choice can slow down quick mode changes while shooting. The option lives inside the camera app itself, not in the general phone settings.
Turn Off Display Animations
Menus and apps on your Xiaomi phone fade in and out with a noticeable delay, and swipe transitions feel slower than the actions behind them. This comes from a system-wide animation effect that MIUI applies to almost every screen change. On older or budget hardware, that extra motion can make the whole interface feel less responsive than it actually is.
Add a Print Service
If a print dialog on your Xiaomi phone shows no printer at all, no print service is registered in MIUI yet. Most phones only come with a driver for Epson devices, so printers from other brands stay invisible until you install their own service. Without that step, apps like a PDF viewer or browser can never send a job to your printer.
Change Password for a Saved Wi-Fi Network
If your router password changed, your Xiaomi phone still tries to connect with the old one and just shows Saved, not connected. This is common after a router reset or a switch to a new internet provider. You do not need to forget the network and start over, the saved entry can be updated directly.
Change Carrier Name in Status Bar
The carrier label at the top of your screen and on the lock screen isn't always what you'd like it to say, especially if your provider's branding is long or outdated. On dual SIM phones the same generic label often shows for both slots by default, which gets confusing when the two cards belong to different networks.
Turn Off the Content Feed in Mi Browser
If Mi Browser opens straight into a wall of YouTube clips, Facebook posts and random subscription suggestions instead of your homepage, the content feed is switched on. This feed pulls in recommended articles and videos every time you launch the app, which feels cluttered if you only want a plain start screen. You can switch it off or back on whenever you want.
Change the Google Backup Account
If your Xiaomi phone keeps backing up to the Google Account you used during setup, files and app data saved under a newer account never make it into the backup. This happens because MIUI locks in the original backup account and does not switch automatically once you add a second Google Account. You have to select the account manually before new backups use it.
Change System Language
If your Xiaomi phone ended up in a language you cannot read, or you simply want to switch after setup, you do not need to go through the activation wizard again. The system language lives in its own settings menu, separate from the one-time language screen you saw when you first turned on the phone. This also affects keyboard suggestions and how some apps display their text.