[GUIDE] MIUI Battery & Multi-tasking Fix v4.1 (Updated)

MIUI is a forked version of Android with plenty of additional features & tweaks not found in stock AOSP ROM. MIUI is very smooth & has a great battery life on the Redmi Note 3. The powerful Snapdragon 650 with its excellent single core performance coupled with dual channel LPDDR3 RAM & eMMC 5.1 flash storage results in blazing fast 1st time app opening speeds.

MIUI by default is very aggressive at killing background apps in the running in the memory, as a result it is unable to keep more than 3-4 apps in the memory while multi-tasking or after waking up the device. Default settings are aimed to keep as much free RAM as possible thats where the problem lies. It kills the apps running in the background to keep most of its RAM free. Apps get killed & have to be reloaded again from the flash storage into the memory, this takes a lot of CPU, I/O cycles & makes the end user experience less enjoyable. Below settings might make your multitasking a bit better at the cost of less free RAM, but that shouldn't matter as RAM is meant to be used not kept free. Always remember "Free RAM is Wasted RAM.

Usage Access Settings
• Settings App > Additional Settings > Privacy > Apps With Usage Access > More > Show System
- Turn off everything except Google Play Services and Play Store

Battery Settings
• Settings App > Battery & Performance > Manage Apps Battery Usage > Power Saving Modes
- Off: All background data & location access of running apps will be enabled, less battery life
- On: Default Setting, more battery life
• Settings App > Battery & Performance > Manage Apps Battery Usage > Choose apps
- From there you can configure the background data & location services for each app.
• Settings App > Additional Settings > Battery & Performance > System Animations
- Hide System Animations: Speeds up device's performance

Memory Settings
To enable Developer Options : Settings App > About Phone > MIUI Version > Keep on tapping till it is enabled.
• Settings App > Additional Settings > Developer Options
- Window Animation Scale: 0.5x or Off
- Transition Animation Scale: 0.5x or Off
- Animator Animation Scale: 0.5x or Off
- Don't Keep Activities : Disabled
- Background Process Limit : Standard Limit
- Memory Optimization : Off
- Show All ANRs : Disabled
- Force-Closed Apps : Disabled
- Turn On MIUI Optimization : Disabled

Security App Settings
• Security App > Settings > Cleaner
- Remind To Clean: Disabled
- Scan App Memory: Disabled
- Update Automatically: Disabled
• Security App > Settings > Blocklist > Disable
• Security App > Settings > Battery Usage
- Turn Off Mobile Data: Never
- Clear Cache: Never
• Security App > Permissions > Autostart
- Disable unnecessary apps, they wont be launched after a reboot
- Keep important apps enabled such as messaging, email apps

Lock Apps In Memory
- You can lock your desired / most frequently used apps in the memory.
- Open your app, let it get fully launched, open the recent apps menu.
- Swipe down the app icon or recent app screen to reveal a lock icon on top left corner.
- Tap on it, this locks the app into the memory & it wont get force killed in the background.
- To unlock the app repeat the same process and tap it again to unlock it from memory.

Important
- After doing the above mentioned changes, restart your device.
- You might have to re-apply these changes after every MIUI OTA update.
- These settings have hardly any effect on the battery life.
- I am getting more or less the same battery backup after using these settings.

Wiki : What does each and every option do?
• Memory Optimization : This option sets the swap file for multi-tasking. Size varies according to the device and RAM configuration.
- High: 767MB to 1GB
- Middle: 767MB to 1GB
- Low: Swap file disabled
- Off: Swap file disabled
• Show All ANRs : This option enables MIUI to show an obtrusive dialogue box after an app fails to stop responding . Setting this off doesnt show the pop-up frequently.
• Force-Closed Apps : This option enables MIUI to show an obtrusive dialogue box after an app force-closes unexpectedly. Setting this off doesnt show the message. It enables after every reboot.
• Turn On MIUI Optimization : This option enables a plethora of MIUI based settings & optimizations as per the guidelines set by the MIUI developers. It helps to load the app and the app data in parallel reducing load times and ensuring snappier user experience. This setting can sometimes cause a variety of issues on non-MIUI based apps such as Google Apps & Apps from Google Playstore. Its better to disable if you rely on Google Playstore for apps & services or use Global Stable or Global Beta MIUI ROMs

With the MIUI Optimization Enabled, some users reported the following issues
- Cannot set third-party launcher like Nova, Apex or Google Now launcher.
- Wallpaper cannot be set using in-built options via custom launchers.
- Occasional lags, stutters or freezes while scrolling web-pages & long lists.
- Custom apps set as default restore to default MIUI apps on reboot. (Only on MIUI China ROMs)
- Cannot set accessibility services on reboot.
- Background apps cannot sync data.
- Music players stop playing after sometime.
- UI Animations are not synced properly.

• After turning off MIUI optimization
- Above issues may get solved.
- Settings > Data Usage > Graph changes to AOSP style.
- Settings > Battery & Performance > Battery Use > Graph changes to AOSP style.
- Settings > Installed Apps > All > Documents > It will not be disabled after every reboot.
- Settings > Additional Settings > Buttons > Settings may get reset.
- No OTA update notifications. Enable it to receive the OTA updates.

gordito_gr said:

I would love to know what this option does.

I disabled and i notice that the device is a little smoother. I have one very big folder with all the useless apps, scrolling was always stuttering in there.
Now its smooth.

EDIT

My device is the simple redmi 3, but i still would like to know what is this MIUI optimization.

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

It sychronizes the UI thread with the animation time, so by keeping it disabled the clock timer doesnt have to wait for the animation to start/stop. The CPU effortlessly renders the animations without waiting for the MIUI framework to sychronize the animations.

soulz69 said:

Settings App > Additional Settings > Developer Options > Memory Optimization : Enabled
only got off,low,middle,high. no enabled. so which one better?

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

that was a mistake, I edited it. Keep it DISABLED

Thread Updated

inde_pkv said:

I would like to ask to be clear that if i go to customise each app, do i need to turn off the power saving mode or i should put Advanced Mode?

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using XDA-Developers mobile app

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Click to collapse

Power Saving Mode : Standard & then customize each app individually.

KaikuHunter said:

Why disable this?

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Click to collapse

This will prevent the SystemUI from showing XYZ app has been force closed for an uninterrupted user experience.

Thread Updated With In-Depth Explanation