How to Flash MIUI Global ROM on Xiaomi Phone
It’s all too easy for consumers to accidentally (or purposefully) purchase a Chinese ROM Xiaomi phone for use outside China. Not only do the company’s handsets routinely go on sale there before other countries, they are also typically cheaper.
But it’s not until you get your Chinese ROM Xiaomi phone out of the box that you realise you’ve messed up. Everything is in Chinese, including the keyboard, and there’s no support for Google Play or other Google services out of the box. You have three ways out of this:
Neither of the latter two options are for the faint-hearted, and if you’re a tech novice who is uncomfortable messing around with software and settings we would never recommend that you buy a Chinese ROM Xiaomi phone.
How to unlock the bootloader on MIUI
The bootloader is responsible for ensuring the correct operating system is selected when you first power on a device. By unlocking it you are able to swap out the original operating system for something else, but many manufacturers frown upon this. Most Android phone makers sell their phones with locked bootloaders, and unlocking the bootloader will almost always invalidate your warranty.
Xiaomi does not sell any of its phones with unlocked bootloaders, so if you do receive an unlocked Xiaomi phone then you can be certain that someone has messed with the software. It hopes that by locking the bootloader – and making it reasonably difficult to unlock or at least batch-unlock them – it will put people off buying cheap phones in China and selling them on the global market, installing bloated software on genuine Xiaomi handsets, or installing genuine MIUI software on fake handsets.
In order to unlock the bootloader on a Xiaomi phone that phone must be signed into a Mi account, and must have an active SIM inserted. Xiaomi limits each Mi account to unlocking just one phone every 30 days. If you were hoping to get around this by creating multiple Mi accounts with multiple email addresses, know that each account must have a unique phone number associated with it – and you must have access to that number in order to receive a verification code.
Is an unlocked bootloader a security concern?
It can be, making your smartphone more vulnerable to malware, but also allowing anyone who happens to get hold of your phone to bypass the secure login and flash a new operating system to it.
Having an unlocked bootloader can also interfere with the correct working of some secure apps. These apps will not appear in Google Play, but even if you sideload them via the APK file you may find they do not work.
We’ve found problems with using Google Pay and Netflix on unlocked Xiaomi phones. Some banking apps may also be affected, though we’ve had no issues with HSBC and Natwest.
So can’t I just relock the bootloader?
That depends on the situation. If you have flashed a Global ROM to a previously Chinese ROM Xiaomi phone, or vice versa,relocking the bootloader will result in your phone being bricked.
If you have merely unlocked and then relocked the bootloader, you should be fine. However, do note that unlocking the bootloader wipes all data from the phone, so make sure you have a backup first.
The reality is that if you want to flash the Global ROM on to a Chinese ROM phone, you will have to live with the unlocked bootloader thereafter. If you decide this is something you want to go ahead and do, read on below for step-by-step instructions.
Request permission to unlock the bootloader
Unlock the bootloader with the Mi Unlock Tool
Find a MIUI Global ROM
Finding and downloading a Global ROM is perhaps the most time-consuming part of this whole procedure, given that the file will likely be somewhere between 1.5- and 2GB in size.
You cannot just install any old Global ROM on the phone: it must be specific to that model and also a stable Fastboot version. We expect you know the model of your phone, but you can be certain by checkingSettings>About phone>Device model.
We have foundMiFirm.neta good source for Global ROMs. Browse by model name, then select the Global tab in the search results. Choose ‘Fastboot Stable’ then clickDownloadnext to the most recent version. Follow the prompts to download the software to your computer, then extract the contents of the Zip file.
Flash the new ROM to the phone
Read next:Best Xiaomi Phones&Best Xiaomi Deals
Author: Marie Black, Editorial Director, International
Marie is Editorial Director at Foundry. A Journalism graduate from the London College of Printing, she’s worked in tech media for almost 20 years, covering all types of consumer tech from smartphones and their accessories to smart home gear. These days she manages our international editorial teams and leads on content strategy, having witnessed first-hand Foundry’s transition from print, to digital, to online - and beyond.
