Xiaomi is one of the most budget-friendly brands one can get in the smartphone market. But what makes the experience of owning one unimpressive are the ads embedded in the software.
Disabling MSA and personalized ad recommendations
MSA app is not available on the home screen in order to disable it
Make sure your Xiaomi phone running is connected to the Internet. You can’t revoke this permission offline
Navigate to Settings > Additional Settings > Authorization and Revocation, and click on toggle beside MSA from the list. wait for the 10-sec timer to pass, and then click on revoke.
If you are not successful in the first attempt, keep trying until you eventually are. Revoking authorization for MSA should drastically reduce the number of ads shown across the system. If it does not, keep on following the other steps.
Disable Ads in Mi File Manager & Downloads
Launch the Mi File Manager app and tap on the menu icon (three stacked lines) in the top-left of the screen. From there, select “Settings” and toggle off “Show Recommended Content”. Follow the same steps for the Downloads app.
Mi Downloads
Open the Downloads app. You’ll find it in the Tools folder.
Tap the three-dot menu on the top right corner.
Turn off the Show recommended content toggle
Disable ads in folders
Tap on the folder you want to disable ads for.
Tap on the folder name, as if you were going to change the name.
A Promoted apps section will show up. Toggle it off.
Disable ads in MIUI Themes
Open the MIUI Themes app.
Open the Account menu.
Select Settings.
Toggle off Recommendations.
Disable Ads in Mi Security
Firstly, launch the Mi Security app and click on the cog icon in the top right of the screen. Then, find the toggle switch labeled “Recommendations” and flick it off.
Disable Personal Ad Recommendations
You will next need to turn off the personalized “recommendations” that Xiaomi is keen on bombarding you with. By disabling personal ad recommendations, you are quite effectively stopping Xiaomi from collecting your usage data, such as your browsing history.
First, open up the Settings app and click on “Additional Settings”. Then select “Privacy” and look for “Ad Services”. Now tapping on that will give you the option to toggle “Personalized Ad Recommendations” off.
Disable Ads in Mi Music App
Launch the Mi Music app and tap on the menu button on the top-left of the screen (it looks like three lines stacked on top of one another). From here select “Settings -> Advanced Settings”. Then simply toggle off “Recommendations”. As with your video app, you can always install a third-party music player that isn’t ad-supported like Musical.
Block Xiaomi push notifications
Push Notifications have long been criticized not just because they are irritating, but they also push inappropriate content in the notifications, which might is troublesome to some.
To fix this, whenever you receive such a notification, don’t dismiss it right away. Long hold the notification and disable the toggle. Once disabled, tap “done” and repeat the process for every notification until you’re left with none.
Alternatively, you could go to the “Notifications” menu in the “Settings” and switch off notifications from any suspicious applications in one-go.
Disable Lockscreen Ads in MIUI
Furthermore, MIUI also shows story links and ads at the bottom of your lock screen. To disable them, navigate to Settings > LockScreen > Glance for Mi and disable the feature. This will remove pesky lock screen ads on your Redmi phone.