Shake to Auto-Arrange Home Screen Icons
Empty cells scattered across your Xiaomi home screen after uninstalling an app? Shaking the phone while in edit mode can pull the remaining icons together and close those gaps automatically. The feature, called Shake to fill empty cells, sits hidden in the display settings and can be switched on or off.
Split Screen on Xiaomi Phones
Split screen lets you run two apps side by side on your Xiaomi phone, so you can chat while browsing or take notes while watching a video. MIUI offers more than one way to trigger it, and not every app supports it the same way. Knowing how it behaves helps you decide when it actually saves time.
Turn On/Off Incognito Mode in Mi Browser
If Mi Browser keeps saving your search history and open tabs even though you wanted a private session, Incognito mode is probably switched off. Once active, the tab icon shows a small mask and the background turns dark purple, but many users never notice the toggle or find it again after closing the app. Without it enabled, every page you visit stays logged in your browsing history.
Custom Image on Always-on Display
If the pre-installed Always-on Display themes on your Xiaomi phone all look the same, you can swap them for a photo of your own. MIUI lets you pick any image from your gallery instead of the default clock designs. Once applied, you can still adjust the clock position, text color, and how battery or notification icons appear on top of your picture.
Remove a Contact from Speed Dial
Speed dial slots on Xiaomi phones fill up fast, and once all numbers are taken you cannot assign a new one until an old entry is cleared. Removing a number from the list only deletes the shortcut, not the contact itself, but the option sits several menus deep inside the call settings and is easy to miss.
Clear RAM and Storage
If your Xiaomi phone feels sluggish or storage keeps filling up, junk files, app cache, and rarely used apps are often the cause. MIUI includes a built-in cleanup tool that clears RAM and storage in one pass, but what actually gets removed depends on which categories you select before confirming.
Turn Auto-Sync Data On or Off
If your Xiaomi phone burns through mobile data or drains battery faster than expected, background account synchronization is often the reason. This setting keeps your Google Account data, like contacts, calendar entries and photos, updated in the background at all times. Switching it off stops the drain immediately but also means new changes stop arriving until you sync manually.
Turn Tap Sounds On or Off
Every tap on a button, the Back key, or a menu item triggers a short click sound on your Xiaomi phone. If that noise gets distracting during calls, meetings, or at night, the Tap sounds setting is behind it and can be switched off just as quickly as it can be turned back on.
Turn Off Battery Saver Automatically After Charging
If Battery saver stays active even after your Xiaomi phone finishes charging, it keeps throttling performance and dimming the screen longer than needed. MIUI can switch Battery saver off on its own once the battery reaches a set charge level, so you don't have to remember to disable it by hand every time you unplug the charger.
Turn a Keyboard On or Off
A new keyboard downloaded from the Play Store does not automatically show up next to Gboard on your Xiaomi phone. Until you switch it on in the input settings, it stays hidden from the language switcher and typing keeps defaulting to the old keyboard. This usually happens with third-party layouts, handwriting keyboards, or apps installed after the initial setup.
Snooze App Notifications
When a chat app or delivery tracker keeps buzzing during a meeting, muting it completely isn't always what you want. MIUI lets you pause a single notification for a set time instead of turning it off for good. This keeps the alert coming back later without touching the app's notification settings.
Set Up a Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot
If your Xiaomi phone still hands out a hotspot name and password nobody chose, other people nearby can guess it or connect without permission. A weak default SSID also makes it harder to spot your own hotspot among several devices in the same room. Setting a custom name and password fixes both problems and keeps the connection under your control.
Select Network Manually
When you travel abroad and your phone keeps hanging on a weak carrier, automatic network selection is usually the cause. MIUI picks a network by signal priority, not by actual reception quality, so calls drop and data stalls even though a stronger carrier is available nearby. Switching to manual selection lets you pick that carrier yourself instead of waiting for the phone to reconnect.
Restrict Mobile Data Usage for an App
If a Xiaomi phone burns through your data plan even though you barely open certain apps, background data access is usually the cause. By default every installed app can use mobile data and Wi-Fi without restriction. On dual-SIM phones this applies separately to each SIM slot, which makes it harder to spot which line is actually consuming the data.
Edit and Rearrange Quick Settings
If the toggle you need most sits at the bottom of the control center or is missing entirely, you have to scroll or swipe further every time you want to switch it on. MIUI lets you add, remove and reorder these quick settings tiles, but the edit option is easy to miss if you have never opened it before.
Set Touch & Hold Delay
If long-pressing an app icon on your Xiaomi home screen either opens the shortcut menu too fast by accident or takes too long to react, the touch and hold delay is set to the wrong stage. This timing controls how long you need to keep your finger down before a long-press action triggers, and it affects every control element that supports it, not just app shortcuts.
Add New Browser Tabs
Closing your current page every time you want to check something else in Mi Browser gets old fast. If you cannot find a way to browse two pages at once without losing your place, the tab feature in Mi Browser solves that without extra apps.
Switch to Scientific Calculator Mode
You open the Calculator app on your Xiaomi phone expecting only basic math, but functions like sine, cosine, tangent, square roots or Pi are nowhere to be found. Many users assume the app simply lacks these tools, when in fact they are hidden behind a display mode that most people never trigger. Without knowing the trick, you end up switching to a third-party app for calculations your phone already supports.
Fingerprint Shutter: Enable or Disable
If your Xiaomi phone snaps a photo every time you rest a finger on the fingerprint sensor while the Camera app is open, the fingerprint shutter option is turned on. Some users only notice this after an accidental shot ends up in the gallery, others want to turn it on deliberately for a steadier one-tap trigger. Either way, the setting lives inside the Camera app itself, not in the general phone settings.
Change Ringtone for a Contact Group
If every group member still rings with the default tone, or one contact keeps overriding the sound you picked, the group ringtone setting inside the Contacts app is being ignored. On Xiaomi phones a ringtone assigned directly to a single contact always takes priority over any group-level tone, no matter what you set in My groups. That mix-up is the most common reason a group ringtone seems to have no effect.
Change Font Size
Reading long texts on a small screen strains your eyes if the system font stays too small, and cranking up brightness alone does not fix that. On Xiaomi phones the text scale sits in its own menu, separate from general display settings, which is why many people never find it. MIUI offers six size steps instead of a simple small/medium/large switch, so getting the right level takes a bit of trial and error.
Set a Timer in the Clock App
Setting an alarm just to catch the end of an eBay auction wastes a reminder slot and still leaves you guessing when to check back. The Timer function in the Clock app on your Xiaomi phone counts down a fixed period and alerts you the moment it is over, without touching your alarm list. Many users overlook this tool because it sits next to the alarm and stopwatch tabs and rarely gets used.
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.
Change App Lock Password Type
If you set up App lock on your Xiaomi phone with a pattern and now want something faster or more secure, you are not stuck with that choice. The lock type you picked during setup can be swapped for a PIN or password at any time, without disabling App lock first.