Xiaomi and Redmi smartphone owners often face a situation where empty space mysteriously disappears from their device memory, showing that “other files” or “Other” are a significant amount of storage, but standard cleaning tools can’t handle them, a common problem caused by the peculiarities of the Android file system and the specific approach of the MIUI shell to data classification.
The accumulation of junk data is gradual: application cache, remnants of deleted programs, temporary update files and error logs create a volume that can reach tens of gigabytes. Understanding the nature of these files is necessary to safely clean without the risk of losing important data or disrupting the operating system. In this article, we will discuss in detail the mechanisms for creating the category “other” and how to effectively free up space.
The main difficulty is that standard conductor often hides the real size of system folders or classifies them incorrectly. The user sees the free space, but can not find what it is occupied. Storage analysis requires the use of specialized tools and manual intervention in the structure of directories, which we will discuss later.
What is hidden in the category "Other" on MIUI
Category Other or “Other” in memory settings is a collection of data that the system failed to categorize as standard types like Photos, Videos or Apps, including archives, documents, APK installation files, browser cache and, most importantly, instant messenger data. Owners of Xiaomi Redmi Note and older models often notice a sharp increase in this category after long correspondence in multimedia messengers.
Special attention should be paid to the cache of streaming services and social networks. Apps save the videos and images they watched for quick download, but rarely delete them automatically, this data takes up space and is classified as unknown files, and also includes error logs and temporary files created in the background.
Why can't the system see these files?
It's important to understand that not all files in this category are garbage, some are necessary for installed programs to function properly, and blindly removing all content can result in resetting application settings or losing progress in games, so selective cleaning is the preferred method.
Use of built-in storage analyzer
The first step to diagnosing memory occupancy is to use native MIUI shell tools. Unlike pure Android, Xiaomi provides an advanced analyzer that visualizes disk space. To access it, you need to go to the Settings → Memory menu.
Here, the system will suggest a quick cleanup, but the more interesting section is the detailed analysis. If you click on the appropriate button, you'll see a file distribution diagram. The analyzer can show the size of individual application folders, which helps to identify heavyweights. It often turns out that Telegram or TikTok take up several gigabytes, although their weight is listed as lower.
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Use the built-in Cleanup tool regularly, but don't rely on it completely.It only removes the secure cache by skipping large files in messenger folders.
After scanning, the system will suggest deleting temporary files, but for the category “other” this may not be enough, and file size sorting is also available in this section, allowing you to manually find and delete forgotten downloads or large documents that are mistakenly classified by the system.
Clearing the messenger cache: Telegram and WhatsApp
The main source of growth of the category “other” are messengers. Telegram and WhatsApp by default store all received media files in the memory of the device. Even if you deleted correspondence, files can remain in the cache of the application, taking up space and displaying as system debris.
To clean up Telegram, you need to go to the app settings, select Data and Memory, and then Memory Use. There's a "Clear Cache" button available. It's important to set up auto-delete media files so that the problem doesn't happen again. WhatsApp has the same procedure: Settings → Data and Storage → Storage Management.