Remove Ads from Xiaomi Phones with MIUI 12

Photo by Zana Latif on Unsplash
Xiaomi’s MIUI is one of the most popular and feature-rich android custom skin out there with millions of active users around the world. But every MIUI users out there unanimously dislike it in terms of Ads present it. Xiaomi started to push Ads in their UI with MIUI10 and still continuous and get much worse by day. The ads and bloatware in MIUI are much more noticeable in countries like India and especially in the budget-oriented Redmi series of phones. Here is our detailed step by step guide to remove ads and bloatware from your favourite Xiaomi phones.

if you are interested, we already made a detailed guide to ads and bloatware removal from Samsung and Realme devices. checkout our guides section for more tutorials like this.

Why does Xiaomi phones have ads?

Xiaomi’s business model is different from other smartphone manufacturers out there. According to them, they are an internet company like Google or Amazon and doesn’t consider itself as hardware manufacture. The company promised to deliver all its hardware with a 5% profit margin cap. Its products are known for value for money and great hardware at low prices. Like every company out there, they have to make money. They make money from smartphones by pushing Ads and promoting third-party apps in the UI. According to them, Advertising has been and will continue to be an integral part of their business model.

How to Remove Ads and bloatware from Xiaomi?

If you are ready to spend some time, you could quickly turn off Ads in your favourite Redmi, POCO or MI phones and can nearly make ads-free ultimately.

These are the four major methods you can go for and below we discussed each one in more details

  1. Changing the device Region
  2. Manually Disabling ads in settings
  3. Uninstalling/disabling system apps through ADB
  4. Flashing MIUI based customs ROMs

1. Changing the Region

This one is the easiest but least effective way of removing ads in MIUI. You may end up in various issues like network problem, lack of face unlock feature, quick copy OTP feature etc. But if you wish, you can set your region to any of the nations within the European Union(select the region with the language you preferred). But I could not recommend this method to anyone, and recently Xiaomi begins to heavily monetizing users in those regions too.

2. Manually Disabling ads in settings

This one is an easy and little time-consuming but very effective method to remove ads in various part of the UI and easily recommendable. Follow the steps below for each one

A. Disabling MSA App

Every Xiaomi phones come with MSA App. But this app is not available on your home screen.
MSA stands for “MIUI System Ads”. As the name suggests, it is responsible for ads in various UI elements. So by disabling this app can drastically reduce ads shown across the system.
To disable, follow the below steps.

  1. Open the Settings
  2. Go to Passwords & security
  3. Select Authorization & revocation
  4. Find msa and toggle it off
How to disable Ads in Xiaomi device with MIUI 12

When you toggle it off, it first shows the 10-second timer, and then you can revoke it. If you are not successful in the first attempt, try again until it toggles it off.

B. Disable Personalized Ad Recommendations

Disabling personalised ad recommendations still shows the same quantity of ads when it’s on, but we can avoid behaviour data and personal information collection for more safety.

  1. Open the Settings
  2. Go to passwords & security
  3. Select Privacy
  4. Select Ad services
  5. Toggle of Personalized ad recommendations
C. Disable Ads in App vault

First of all, Xiaomi now gives the option to use Google Discover instead of App vault in -1 screen, and you can set it up from the Home screen settings page. On a rare case, you still need to use App vault follow the steps below.

  1. Open App vault settings
  2. Click on the – sign on all unwanted cards
  3. Select About App vault
  4. Disable Personalised services
D. Disable Ads from the Package installer

First, you have to be in the package installer app to get its settings to disable ads in it. For that, first, you have to install an application manually, Installing an app from the Play store will not trigger this package installer in every Xiaomi phones. So I recommend you to download and install an app from APKPure or any other App store or just from google search. 

When you are in the package installer application, click on the Settings icon on the top right corner. Then toggle off “Recieve Recommendations” option

E. Disable Ads from App Lock
  1. Open Settings
  2. Select Apps
  3. Go to APP Lock
  4. Click on the cog-wheel settings icon
  5. Toggle off “Recieve Recommendations
F. Disable Ads in Mi File Manager

Xiaomi stopped showing ads in Mi file manager recently, but if you are still facing the issue, follow the steps below

  1. Open the Mi file Manager
  2. Tap on the menu button(top left corner)
  3. Select Settings
  4. Select About
  5. Toggle off “Recommendations
G. Disable Ads in Downloads App
  1. Open Downloads App
  2. Click on the Menu button( top right corner)
  3. Disable “Show Recommended content
H. Disable Ads from Mi Browser

Xiaomi removed Mi browser (Mi Browser Pro) from MIUI 12.0.3 version. So if you are in version or above, you can skip this.

  1. Open the Mi Browser app.
  2. Click on the Menu button(bottom-right corner)
  3. Select Settings
  4. Select Privacy & Security
  5. Disable Personalized services

Or you can change the default start to page any other URL you prefer to avoid promotional content in the default homepage. You can change this by Browser > Advanced > Set start page >any URL according to your preference.

I. Disable Ads in Mi Security App

You have to disable recommendation in 3 areas. Follow the steps below 

  1. Open the Mi Security App
  2. Click on the cog-wheel Settings icon(top-right corner)
  3. Disable “Receive Recommendations
  4. Go back to the Mi Security app’s settings.
  5. Select Cleaner 
  6. disable “Receive Recommendations
J. Disable Ads from Mi Music(Music)

With Latest version, Xiaomi disabled online content ads from Music App, So below steps are applicable to some devices only

  1. Open the Mi Music app
  2. Click on the Menu button(top-left corner)
  3. Select Settings
  4. Select Advanced settings
  5. Disable “Receive Recommendations
K. Disable Ads from Mi Video(Video Player)

Xiaomi removed Mi Video Player from latest version MIUI in some devices, so follow the steps below if Mi Video Player still exist in your device.

  1. Open the Mi Video app
  2. Open the Account menu
  3. Select Settings
  4. Disable “Online Recommendations
  5. Disable Personalized Recommendations
  6. Disable “Push Notifications
L. Disable Ads in folders

MIUI will list some promoted apps in the folders present on the home screen. To disable it you can follow the steps

  1. Tap on the folder you want to disable ads
  2. Tap on the folder name, like if you are going to change the folder name
  3. A Promoted apps section will show up. Disable it.
M. Disable Ads from MIUI Themes
  1. Open the Themes App
  2. Click the My Page (bottom right corner)
  3. Select Settings
  4. disable “Recommendations
  5. Disable “Personalized wallpaper selection” if you didn’t need it.

By this method, you can easily notice a drastic decrease in the number of system ads. The next method is slightly more difficult. But it is optional. If you can do it, go for it

3. Uninstalling/disabling system apps through ADB

By this method, you can uninstall or disable your unwanted system apps to save battery, space and avoid ads from these apps. Check out our detailed guide to uninstall system apps through ADB for more details

4. Flashing MIUI based custom ROMs

First, this method is not for everyone. It is only for people with good knowledge on bootloader unlocking, using custom recoveries for flashing custom ROMs, etc. but if you are interested in it, check out our detailed guide by clicking on the links.

There are plenty of MIUI based Custom ROMs out there like Mi room(rum),,mi-globe, RevOS, Epic ROM, MIUI Pro, etc. and mi room are the popular option. With my usage mi room was the best in terms of stability and features. But they recently announced terminating their services. So as of now, it is better to go with available for most of the devices). 

With these MIUI based customs ROMs, you could get the latest MIUI features, if you opt for beta(weekly update) or stay with their stable option but both with no ads and bloatware in the user interface.  But as said earlier, this method is not for everyone!!

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