In March of this year, we wrote an article on how to increase internal storage on Android devices with adaptive storage. If you remember, we mentioned that not all phone manufacturers — including Samsung and Xiaomi — offer the option to increase the internal storage. That’s pretty eccentric, isn’t it?
But all is not lost, we have been tweaking our Xiaomi devices since then and came up with this amazing solution to increase the internal memory on any Xiaomi phone.
This solution (like the old one) also uses an SD card to borrow said memory, however, it also includes flashing a custom ROM to enable adaptive storage.
Conditions for this trick to work
- The phone must have support for external memory.
- Android version must be Marshmallow or higher.
- The SD card used in this process must be a high-speed class 10 SD card. This is just a reasonable point of warning – if you continue to use slow memory cards, it can slow down your Android in the long run.
- ADB and Fastboot are installed on your computer.
So without further ado, let’s get started.
#first. Back up all data
As said above, the process involves flashing a custom ROM to the device, which means you are essentially wiping all the data of the device. So, before you proceed, make sure that all your apps, data, and contacts are safely backed up on your computer or the cloud.
#2. Create a FREE account
Again, this is a prerequisite for flashing your phone as creating an MI account helps you to unlock the bootloader.
This process usually takes 3-4 days and requires you to write to the Mi admin to let you have developer permissions. Xiaomi always locks the bootloader to keep users’ private data safe from rogue ROMs or devices.
#3. Download Developer ROM
As you may already know, every Xiaomi device has two or more types of ROMs associated with it — Global ROM and China ROM. Obviously, the global ROM will only run on phones with Snapdragon processor, and the Chinese ROM will run on the MediaTek processor.
In this step, all you need to do is select your phone (In our case it was Redmi Note 3) and choose the developer ROM. Clicking download will automatically download the zip file to your computer.
#4. Switch ROM
Now that the ROM has been downloaded to the computer, transfer the zip file to your phone using the data cable. Here, make sure that the file is copied to your device’s internal storage. Once that’s done, go to the Updater app (under Tools), tap the three-dot menu, and manually select the ROM from the internal storage.
This process usually takes about 8-10 minutes to complete, after which the phone will boot into the new developer mode.
Central point:
The bootloader controls how the device in question will boot, and accessing the bootloader is called Fastboot.
#5. Enter Fastboot Mode
The next steps require another tool called Mi Unlock. This tool helps to enter Fastboot mode. Once downloaded, Mi Unlock also requires you to log in with the same Mi credentials.
After verifying the Mi account, turn off your phone and hold the volume down key and power button simultaneously until you see the bunny on the screen.
After entering Fastboot mode, connect your phone to your PC with a data cable and click “Unlock” (on the unlock tool).
#6. ADB Recovery and Customization
Unlocking the device completes the first half of the process. The second half uses a different set of tools,
- ADB and Fastboot
- TWRP Custom Recovery
- Lineage ROM
- GApps (Google Apps)
The popular forum XDA Developers has an installer called “15 seconds ADB Installer v1.4.3”, as its name suggests, which ensures that all necessary files are copied in your program files directory. Your PC at a glance.
These files will be in a folder named Minimal ADB and Fastboot.
Navigate to the folder, right click to open command prompt and enter below command,
fastboot-go oem unlock
If your system does not allow you to open the command prompt from within the folder, click here. The unlock oem command helps determine if the device has been successfully unlocked.
The message True unlocked the device indicating that we should move on to the next step — copying TWRP image file inside the minimal ADB folder to change the device’s recovery type.
To copy files, type the command below:
fastboot flash recovery [TWRP image name]
Here, replace the image name with the name of the TWRP file you downloaded.
See also: How to Root LeEco Le 2 and Install TWRP: Detailed Step-by-Step Guide
#7. Install ROM Lineage
Copy the Lineage ROM file (downloaded in step 6) to your phone’s internal storage. Now boot the phone in recovery mode i.e hold the power button and volume up button until you see TWRP flashing on the screen. Tapping the Backup option will back up your NANDroid to your Android device
A NANDroid backup is a copy of the Android device’s file system and is usually created using a custom Android recovery, but it can also be created using an app. Once the backup is done, it’s time to erase the device.
Make sure that you also clear the cache along with system data and internal storage. Now that everything is new and clean, hit install and install both zip files – ROM Lineage and then GApps.
After both zip files have been installed, the device will reboot. This will take about 10-12 minutes, after which your phone will use the same stock Android skin as on the OnePlus3 or Moto G5 Plus.
Talking about Moto G5 Plus, let’s see the difference between Redmi Note 4 and Moto G5 Plus
#8. Enable adaptive storage
As they say, patience always pays off, and this was absolutely true in this case. Once everything has been successfully completed — and your phone has taken on a whole new look — you’ll be able to activate flexible storage.
Go Setting > Warehouse, Later USB > Portable Storage and tap on the hamburger menu in the upper right corner. Tap settings and select Format is Internal Memory > Erase and format. Once done, the device memory will show the aggregate of both memory.
This point requires a reasonable caveat — since phones now treat SD cards as part of internal storage, unplanned ejecting can lead to unstable phones and can cause apps to forcefully shut down. .
That is all!
So that’s how you can increase the internal memory of your Xiaomi device. Undoubtedly it is a bit of a process but at the end of the day you will get a significant increase in memory and less memory related problems. Of course, flashing a new ROM means you’ll have to say goodbye to the built-in IR Blaster. But hey, more memory, remember?
See also: How to increase the resolution of your Android device without root
Categories: How to
Source: thpttranhungdao.edu.vn/en/
