Xiaomi and Redmi smartphone owners often face a sudden message of a lack of space, even if few photos are taken and no videos are taken, because an Android file system, reinforced by the MIUI or HyperOS shell, accumulates huge amounts of data that are invisible to the average user on a surface view of the gallery. Understanding the storage structure is the first step to solving the problem, because blindly deleting files can lead to the loss of important settings or logins.
Unlike pure Android, Xiaomi firmware has its own caching and backup features that can take up tens of gigabytes. System logs, temporary update files, and instant messenger data are often hidden in deep directories where standard conductor rarely peeks. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what’s eating up your disk space and how to safely return gigabytes back.
📊 How much memory is your Xiaomi?
32-64GB
128GB
256GB
512GB and more
System Files and Data Partition: Hidden Volume
The bulk of the disk space that users see in the settings as "System" is actually not just the firmware files, but the Data partition, which stores all your applications, their data, settings and, most importantly, extensions that are downloaded after installation, for example, a game can weigh 2 GB in the store, but after downloading additional resources, it takes 6 GB.
Shell MIUI It creates a lot of utility files for its work, and it can be backups of local settings, temporary files for the interface to work, and error logs. /MIUI/debug_log or similar system directories can grow to huge sizes if the system crashed and logging was not disabled.
⚠️ Warning: Never delete files manually from root system folders through a root-rights file manager without knowing exactly what they are intended. Deleting key.config files or libraries can lead to bootloop (cyclical reboot).
To analyze what exactly occupies space in the system partition, it is better to use specialized utilities rather than a standard conductor, which visualize the structure of the folder tree, showing the real weight of each element.
Why does the system take up 20 GB?
Often this section gets the cache of Google Play Services, account sync data and remnants of remote applications that were not correctly uninstalled by the system.> The undisputed leader in memory consumption in Xiaomi smartphones are messengers, in particular Telegram and WhatsApp. These applications have one unpleasant feature: They automatically store all the media files they've watched into internal memory, creating duplicates of them. Even if you just flip through the feed with heavy videos, they've already taken up space on your drive. 11 The data has changed and now the data is often stored along the way. Android/data/org.telegram.messenger. Within these directories, thousands of small files accumulate, which a standard memory analyzer can count as one large block. Telegram, for example, caches everything you’ve ever opened to speed up reboots, but rarely cleans it up on its own. 📸 Telegram Images and Telegram Video folder can weigh more than 10 GB if autocleaning is not configured. 💬 WhatsApp: Creates separate folders for statuses and files sent by duplicated originals from the gallery. 📹 Video cache: Apps like TikTok and YouTube also store huge amounts of temporary data for smooth playback, and the solution is not to delete the app, but to properly configure its internal storage. In the settings of each messenger there is a item "Memory Use" or "Data and Storage", where you can forcibly clear the cache without losing correspondence. folder DCIM Gallery: hidden duplicates It would seem, folder DCIM (Digital Camera Images should only contain your photos and videos, but Xiaomi smartphones often overgrow “garbage”. QR-Social networks and codes can create subfolders inside DCIM, And you can also get thumbnails or saved images, and you can also get a basket in the gallery. MIUI It stores deleted files for 30 days, while taking up full memory space, and many users forget about this feature, thinking that they have already freed up space, even though the files are physically still on the drive. Also worth checking is the Screenshots folder, where screenshots of checks, correspondence and cards can lie for years. Description of the contents can be deleted DCIM/Camera Photos and video from the main camera Only selectively DCIM/Screenshots Screenshots Yes, if not necessary MIUI/Gallery/cloud Cash Cloud Gallery Careful, only cache DCIM/.thumbnails Gallery miniatures Yes (restored) The hidden folder.thumbnails, which stores scaled-down copies of all your images for quick display in the gallery, can weigh up to several gigabytes, is worth a special attention. It can be safely cleaned, but the system will recreate it the next time the gallery is launched. 💡The.thumbnails folder is hidden by default. To see it, turn on the hidden files in Explorer, but delete only the contents of the folder, not the folder itself. Garbage files and remnants of deleted programs When Android apps are deleted, their work directories are not always deleted. There are folders on the disk that contain the names of remote programs, which contain logs, settings or downloaded files, and over time, there are hundreds of orphans, and they form a significant amount of space occupied. APK-installer files. If you downloaded apps not from Google Play, but through a browser or third-party stores (APKPure, RuStore), the installation packages remain in the Download folder or APK. They are no longer needed after installing the program, but they continue to lie dead weight. Xiaomi has a built-in Security app that has a Cleanup feature, but it often works superficially, afraid to remove the excess so as not to disrupt the system. For deep cleaning, it is better to use tools such as SD Maid or Files by Google that can find empty folders and residues. 🗑️ Game remnants: Obb and Data folders often remain after heavy games are deleted. 📄 Temporary files:.tmp,.log extensions at the root of memory can be deleted. 📦 Installers: Check the Download folder for old ones APK-file. ⚠️ Attention: Before mass cleaning of folder Android/obb Make sure you delete the relevant games. Deleting files from an active game will cause it to work incorrectly or require you to re-download resources. ☑️ Deep Memory Cleanup Check Download folder Clear messenger cache Delete remnants of deleted games Clean gallery basket Check Bluetooth folder Completed: 0 / 5 Xiaomi's regular tools only give a general idea of occupancy. To see the real picture, you need to use disk space analyzers. These apps scan memory and output it as a color map or a tree, where the size of the rectangle is the size of the file. One of the best tools is DiskUsage or Storage Analyzer, and they allow you to find giant files in one click that you might have forgotten existed. For example, you may find that a month ago you downloaded a movie. 4K If you're looking at it on an airplane, you forget about it, and it's in the bootloader folder, and you need to be careful about using these tools, and if you see a huge file, you might think it's garbage, even though it might be a database of a navigator or an offline map. Always look at the file extension and the path to it before you delete it: /Android/data/ /Download/ /DCIM/ /WhatsApp/Media/ System section "Other": what is inside? Xiaomi’s memory settings often feature a mysterious “Other” category that can take anywhere from 5 to 20 GB. In this section, the system resets everything it couldn’t classify: cache of system services, temporary update files, data from streaming services (Netflix, Spotify), which downloaded content for offline viewing, and markup files. Sometimes, bloating the “Other” section indicates a logical error in the file system or incorrect operation of a particular system process. If this partition grows uncontrollably, you may need to reset your settings to factory ones, but before that, you should try to clear the cache of all applications immediately through the developer menu or special commands. ADB. Regular monitoring of this partition will help to avoid a situation where the phone will stand up as a stake due to overflow of the system partition, even if the user’s memory is free. In modern versions of HyperOS, the system has learned to better manage this space, but control will do. Why does the memory fill up on its own after cleaning? This is normal Android behavior. Apps create a new cache to speed up work, the system writes logs, and messengers download previews of new messages, and it's not that it fills up, it's the speed of the process. If memory disappears in gigabytes per hour, look for a failed application. Is it safe to use a cleaner app? Most aggressive clinders are the source of advertising and brakes themselves. They often delete the cache, causing the processor to waste resources again to create it. It is better to use the built-in Xiaomi cleaner or proven utilities like Files by Google. SD-map? In modern versions of Android (starting with 6.0 and up) and MIUI shells, the ability to transfer applications to a memory card is limited or completely blocked by developers for the sake of system stability. Only photos, videos and music can work from the card. What to do if the memory is busy, but the files are not located? The file table may be damaged. Try to make a full backup of data and then reset to the factory settings (Wipe Data).