Add Owner Info to the Lock Screen
If your Xiaomi phone shows your saved contact card name instead of a custom message on the lock screen, that text comes from a separate owner info field, not your business card. Many people want a different name, a backup contact number, or no personal details at all showing before the phone is unlocked. This setting controls exactly what text appears above the clock on a locked screen.
Set Up a Private DNS Server
If your Xiaomi phone still resolves domains through whatever DNS your carrier or Wi-Fi router assigns, you get no ad blocking, no tracking protection, and inconsistent speeds between networks. On some models the Private DNS option is missing entirely or resets to Automatic after a reboot, which silently stops a custom provider like Cloudflare or Google DNS from taking effect.
Enable or Disable Notification Shade Access on the Lock Screen
Swiping down on your Xiaomi lock screen normally opens the notification shade before you even unlock the phone. If you share your device often or just want less exposed on a locked screen, that shortcut can feel like a privacy gap. MIUI lets you turn this specific swipe-down access on or off without touching your screen lock security.
Add or Remove Emergency Contacts
Once Emergency SOS is active on a Xiaomi phone, the contact list from setup often stays fixed unless you go back and update it. If a family member or new number was left out, that person will not receive an alert or location share when SOS triggers.
Turn Off Screen Lock
Want to skip entering a pattern, PIN, or password every time you wake your Xiaomi phone? Removing the screen lock only asks for your current unlock method once, but afterward the device stays open to anyone who picks it up. That trade-off matters if the phone holds banking apps, messages, or saved logins.
Change Keyboard Height
If the on-screen keyboard on your Xiaomi phone feels cramped for typing or covers too much of the screen, the Keyboard height setting is usually the cause. MIUI offers seven size presets from extra short to extra tall, and picking the wrong one makes typos more likely or blocks content you need to see while typing.
Scan QR Codes Automatically with the Camera App
If your Xiaomi camera does not react to a QR code on a package or shipping label, the Scan QR codes function is likely switched off. Without it, the camera behaves like a normal photo app and shows no scan prompt at all, forcing you to search for a separate scanner app.
Forget Saved Wi-Fi Networks
If your phone keeps reconnecting to a slow or wrong Wi-Fi network instead of your home connection, an outdated saved entry is usually the cause. This often happens after a router password change or when two networks share the same name. Removing the old entry forces your Xiaomi phone to ask for the current password the next time it connects.
Route a Contact Straight to Voicemail
When a specific contact keeps calling at bad times, you do not have to reject the call manually every time. MIUI lets you route calls from a single contact straight to voicemail while everyone else still gets through as normal.
Turn On/Off Contact Suggestions
When Contact suggestions are active on a Xiaomi phone, the keyboard pulls names, numbers and email addresses from your Contacts app while you type messages or fill out forms. That can be handy for quick replies, but it also means personal details from your address book show up as autocomplete hints in apps that have nothing to do with Contacts. If you want tighter control over what your keyboard suggests, this setting is the one to check.
Block Calls from Unknown Numbers
When a caller shows up as Unknown or Private, your Xiaomi phone has no caller ID to check against a blocklist entry. Instead of rejecting these calls by hand every single time, you can have the Phone app reject them automatically before they ring through.
Turn Auto-capitalization On or Off
If your Xiaomi keyboard keeps capitalizing letters you want lowercase - like usernames, code snippets, or crypto addresses - auto-capitalization is likely running in the background. It automatically capitalizes the first letter after a period or new sentence, which speeds up regular typing but gets in the way for technical text. The setting sits inside the keyboard's text correction options, not the main system settings.
Hide or Show the Notch
If icons or app content get cut off by the camera cutout on your Xiaomi phone, the Notch display setting is likely still set to show full-screen content behind it. Some apps stretch their layout right into the cutout area, hiding status bar icons or clipping off parts of the interface. MIUI lets you switch between covering the Notch with a black bar or letting content run around it.
Change Default Messaging App
Texts land in one app while replies keep opening in another, or a new SMS app you downloaded from the Play Store never becomes the one that actually launches. This happens because MIUI keeps a fixed default assignment for messaging that does not update automatically when you install a new app. Until that assignment is changed manually, notifications and quick replies keep routing to the wrong app.
Assign a Custom Ringtone to a Contact
If every incoming call sounds the same, you have to check the screen to know who is calling before you pick up. On Xiaomi phones, the default ringtone applies to all contacts unless you override it manually for specific people.
Manage App Permissions
If you tapped Deny when an app first asked for camera or contacts access, that app stays locked out until you change the setting yourself. MIUI does not repeat the prompt later, so features like document scanning or contact sync can quietly stop working. The permission is not deleted, it just needs to be switched back on in the app settings.
Change Call Waiting Notification Sound
If the call waiting tone plays continuously instead of just a short beep, or a second incoming call barely gets your attention, the notification style set for call waiting is likely the cause. Xiaomi phones let you pick between a single tone, a repeating tone, or a tone combined with vibration, and the wrong choice makes overlapping calls easy to miss or annoying to handle.
Set a Custom Ringtone for Calls
If your Xiaomi phone still rings with a stock tone and you want a favorite song for incoming calls instead, the built-in ringtone list only shows preset options at first glance. MIUI actually lets you pick any audio file already stored on your phone, without moving it into a dedicated ringtone folder. On dual SIM devices, the ringtone also needs to be set separately for each SIM card.
Block Apps from Using Mobile Data or Wi-Fi
If an app keeps burning through your mobile data plan even though you are connected to Wi-Fi, a per-app network permission is likely still letting it use the mobile connection. Xiaomi phones let you lock individual apps to just one connection type, which stops unexpected background data use. This helps with apps you only want active when Wi-Fi is available, or that should never touch mobile data.
Turn On/Off Call Forwarding
Calls landing in voicemail even though your phone never rang usually means call forwarding is already active in the background. On many Xiaomi phones the network sets forwarding for 'busy', 'unanswered' and 'unreachable' cases by default, so you might not notice it until a call disappears. Each of these forwarding rules can be switched on or off separately, or redirected to a different number entirely.
Turn MIUI Optimization On or Off
If your Xiaomi phone feels sluggish after enabling developer options, or certain apps crash or render oddly, the 'Turn on MIUI optimization' toggle inside developer options might be the cause. This setting controls how MIUI's custom interface layer interacts with the underlying Android rendering engine. Switching it off can fix app compatibility problems but also changes how some system apps look and behave.
Import Contacts from VCF, SIM or Account
If your contacts are stuck on a SIM card, an old VCF backup, or a different account, your Xiaomi phone won't just pick them up automatically. Contacts app import options are easy to miss inside Settings, so people end up re-typing numbers by hand instead of pulling them in from an existing file or account.
Set the Monthly Data Usage Reset Date
If the data usage counter on your Xiaomi phone resets on a different day than your carrier billing cycle starts, the numbers you see never match your actual plan. This happens because the reset date in Data usage is set independently from your SIM contract and has to be adjusted manually. Without matching it, data warnings and remaining allowance calculations stay inaccurate all month.
Turn Color Inversion On or Off
If your Xiaomi phone suddenly shows a black background with white text everywhere, or photos and videos look like a photo negative, Color inversion is likely switched on. This accessibility feature swaps colors system-wide, including in apps, galleries, and the camera preview, which can make the phone look broken until you know where to turn it off.