What ‘Other Files’ Means in Xiaomi Storage and How to Clean It

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones often face a nasty situation: the device’s internal memory is filling up rapidly, even though the user has not downloaded heavy apps or movies. When trying to figure out the reasons through standard settings, it becomes clear that the lion’s share of the space is occupied by the mysterious “Other” category, which can grow to tens of gigabytes, causing interface brakes and system failure to install updates.

Ignoring the problem can lead to a critical decline in operating system performance. When the free space on the system partition ends, MIUI or HyperOS begin to work unstable. In this article, we will discuss in detail the nature of this data, explain why standard cleaners often ignore it, and provide a step-by-step algorithm for safe freeing up space.

Understanding the structure of the Android file system is key to memory management. Many users mistakenly believe that the Other is system debris that cannot be touched, in fact, it can store streaming caches, remnants of remote games and temporary messenger files that are safe to remove manually.

Nature of the Category Others

The Other category in Xiaomi’s storage analyzer is a hoard of files that the system cannot uniquely classify as images, videos, music or documents, primarily app cached data. When you watch YouTube videos or flip through Telegram feeds, media files are stored in temporary storage to speed up loading when you re-watch.

The second source of partition growth is backups and logs of system processes. Some applications create local backups before updating or save the history of actions in text format, and often fall into this category files left after deleting applications if the uninstallation was incorrect or the developer did not plan to completely delete the data.

WhatsApp and Viber have a habit of saving the received media files into their own hidden folders, which the system analyzer perceives as an unknown type of data, which creates the illusion of free space, while gigabytes are already occupied.

⚠️ Note: Do not delete files from Android system folders and MIUI through file managers with root rights, if not sure of their purpose, this can lead to a cyclical reboot of the smartphone.

The accumulation of such data is a natural process of operating system operation, but the lack of automatic cleaning in some versions of firmware leads to the fact that the user must control this process himself. Regularly checking the contents of the Other folder helps to keep the device fast at a high level.

Memory Analysis: What's Inside the Folder

To effectively combat space shortages, you need to understand what file types are taking up space, most often in the “Other” category, offline maps of navigators, downloaded tracks in music services and browser cache are hidden, and this data is useful, but often unnecessarily large.

Also, a significant part is temp files (temporary files) that are created while applications are running and must be deleted automatically, and software failures or forced closure of applications cause these tails to remain on the disk forever, and over time, they number in thousands of files.

Analytics and telemetry files deserve special attention. Xiaomi smartphones collect usage data to improve stability; Logs can take anywhere from a few megabytes to a gigabyte if they have not been cleaned for a long time.

Below is a table showing the typical distribution of file types within the D’Other category on a typical 128GB Redmi Note smartphone:

Use of built-in storage analyzer

The first tool that Xiaomi users should have in their arsenal is the built-in analyzer. It's on the Settings → Memory path. Here, the system visually displays partition occupancy. By clicking on the "Other" category, you often won't get a detailed list of files, but you can run a standard cleanup.

However, the standard tool is often powerless before deep cache. For more detailed analysis, it is recommended to use the Explorer app from Xiaomi. Going to the menu (three bars), select Analysis. This tool scans the device deeper and can show large files that are hidden in the Other category.

It's important to distinguish between cache cleaning and data cleaning. The first operation deletes temporary files, the second operation resets the application to the state immediately after installation, removing logins and settings. Be careful when choosing the action in the application management menu.

Regular use of built-in prevention prevents critical memory filling, and it tells you which applications consume the most resources in the background.

Manual cleaning through the conductor

For advanced users, manual cleaning is available. Open Explorer and go to internal storage. You're interested in Android and MIUI folders. This is where the most common heavy files that are classified as "Other" by the system are hidden.

The Android/data folder stores app data. You can find game cache, downloaded streaming episodes, and map archives. Delete the contents of folders of specific applications that you don't use or can be restored. For example, the com.google.android.youtube folder contains a video cache.

A special place is the MIUI/gallery/cloudalbums folder. If you use the Xiaomi cloud, it can store thumbnails and original photos that the system does not always correctly display in the gallery, enrolling them in the Other.

⚠️ Note: Before removing files from the folder Android/data Make sure you don’t erase your game progress if it’s not synced to your account cloud.

Also check the Download and Bluetooth folder, and often for years APK installation files that are no longer needed, but take up space, are stored there, and are completely safe to delete.

Cleaning up garbage messengers WhatsApp and Telegram

Messengers are the main culprits behind the “Other” category bloat. Telegram, for example, caches all photos and videos viewed by default. To fix this, open the app’s settings, go to Data and Memory → Memory Use.

Here you will see a "Storage Media" slider, set a "3 days" or "1 week" value, which will cause the app to automatically delete old cached files, freeing up space in the "Other" section, and click "Clear Cache" for instant results.

On WhatsApp, the situation is similar. Go to Settings → Data and Storage → Storage Management. You'll see a list of chats sorted by memory, often in the top groups, where they constantly forward video.

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Tip: Telegram can enable Auto-Delete for all new chats, which will prevent the accumulation of garbage in the future and preserve the privacy of correspondence.

Deleting media files inside chats doesn’t delete the messages themselves, but frees up disk space. If you care about your correspondence history but don’t need pictures, this feature is the perfect solution for optimizing your file system.

Resetting and radical cleaning methods

If manual methods fail and the Other category continues to grow, the system may have failed to index files, in which case cleaning the Dalvik/ART partition cache helps.

Reset your phone to Recovery mode (pressing the power and volume button). Select Wipe Cache Partition. Important: don't confuse this with Wipe Data, as the second option will delete all your personal data and reset the phone to factory settings.

Another method is to use ADB (Android Debug Bridge) to remove system debris that is not visible to the average user, and by connecting the phone to a PC, you can execute commands to clean the logs:

adb shell logcat -c


adb shell pm trim-caches 999999999

This command forces the system to cache all applications to a minimum, which is safe, but can temporarily slow down the launch of applications until they overwrite the cache again.

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A full reset to factory settings (Wipe Data) is the only 100% way to remove the “Other” category if it is caused by file system errors but requires a full data backup.

Prevention and system setting

To keep the problem from returning, you need to change your smartphone usage habits: check the storage at least once a month, do not allow the memory to be filled up "on the back", leave at least 10-15% free space for the compression and caching algorithms to work correctly.

Use cloud services to store photos and videos. Set up automatic sync with Google Photos or Xiaomi Cloud with the “Free Space” function allows you to store originals on the network, and only leave thumbnails on the device.

Keep an eye out for MIUI or HyperOS system updates. Xiaomi engineers regularly release patches that optimize the file system and fix bugs that inflate system partitions.

⚠️ Warning: Avoid installing accelerators and cleaners from third-party sources, often as a source of advertising and junk files, masquerading as useful utilities.

Controlling application resolution is also important: deny programs access to media files if they don't need it to work, which will limit their ability to create hidden folders in shared storage.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)