Owners of the popular Xiaomi Redmi 8 smartphones often face an unpleasant situation: the phone starts to run slower, and notifications about the lack of free space appear more often. When trying to understand the reasons through the standard storage settings, the user sees that the lion’s share is occupied by an obscure partition, which the system designates as “Other” or “System data.” This partition can grow to tens of gigabytes, creating the illusion of a crowded drive, although you do not have many photos and applications.
Understanding the nature of this phenomenon is key to freeing up valuable resources in your device. System debris accumulating in the background is not a critical firmware error, but requires a competent approach to removal. In this article, we will examine in detail what this volume actually consists of, why standard cleaning methods often fail, and what safe ways to free up space exist for your model.
Many users mistakenly believe that the Other section is only the system files of the MIUI operating system that cannot be touched. In fact, a significant part of this volume is the application cache files, remnants of deleted programs, error logs and temporary files that applications forget to delete themselves. Ignoring the problem can lead to complete inability to install updates or new applications.
The Anatomy of the Other: What's Inside
The “Other” section of Xiaomi’s file manager is a kind of “black box” where the system puts all the data that did not fall into the standard categories like “Photos”, “Video” or “Apps” – primarily social media and instant messenger cache files, such as Telegram or WhatsApp can store gigabytes of viewed media files that are not formally part of the app itself, but are not classified as a user gallery.
The second important component is the remnants of remote applications, which when you delete the program in the standard way, some configuration files or temporary data may remain deep in the file system, and over time, these tails accumulate in large numbers, and also include firmware update files that the system saved in case of rollback, but did not delete after successful installation.
⚠️ Warning: Don't try to manually delete files from system folders through advanced root file managers unless you're sure of their purpose.Deleting critical libraries can lead to a cyclical smartphone reboot.
The third component is streaming content: apps like Spotify, Netflix, or YouTube cache data to load quickly, and that cache often falls into the “Other” category, and analysis shows that up to 60 percent of this section may be from third-party apps, not the system itself.
Integrated MIUI cleaning tools: efficiency and limitations
The first thing that comes to mind for a Redmi 8 user is to use the standard Security app, which is pre-installed in the MIUI shell. This tool really does know how to find and remove some debris, but its algorithms often work superficially. It safely cleans the system cache and advertising files, but rarely touches heavy folders of messengers.
To clean it deeper, you need to use the Cleanup function inside the Explorer app, and here the system suggests removing the old ones. APK-installer files and large files that you may have forgotten in downloads. However, even after this procedure, the volume of the Other partition may decrease slightly, since many files are marked by the system as important for the operation of applications.
- 🧹 Standard cleaning removes only temporary files and browser cache, ignoring deep deposits.
- 📱 Cleaning through “Settings» → «Applications" allows you to manually erase data of specific programs, but it takes time.
- ⚙️ The Advanced Cleanup feature in the security app may suggest removing old screenshots and sketches.
It’s important to understand that Xiaomi’s built-in tools are designed with a security focus, not aggressive space-freeze intent. They won’t touch files that the system might theoretically need, even if you haven’t used them for years, so radical solutions often require additional action.
Hidden eaters of the place: messengers and streaming services
The most active fillers in the Other section are messengers. Telegram, for example, stores the entire history of media files in the device’s memory by default. If you are in many channels and chats, this cache can easily grow to 10-20 GB. In the settings of the application itself, there is a feature called Memory Use, which allows you to clear the cache without deleting correspondence.
Similar to Viber and WhatsApp, these apps back up databases and media files in local storage that are often duplicated, local backups take up space even if you have cloud sync enabled, and checking storage settings in each messenger separately is the most efficient way to get gigabytes back.
Why doesn't the cache remove itself?
Streaming services also contribute, with offline maps in navigators, downloaded tracks in music services and streamed episodes in online cinemas all settling into the “Other” section, checking downloads in these apps periodically to keep things under control.
Radical methods: Resetting and cleaning through Recovery
If standard methods fail and the Other continues to grow, occupying a critical volume, a deeper intervention may be needed. One effective way is to reset your settings to factory settings. Before this procedure, be sure to back up your important data in an external medium or in the cloud, as all data from your phone will be deleted.
Resetting via Settings → About Phone → Resetting allows the device to return to the “shop-like” state. This is guaranteed to remove all accumulated software debris, application registry errors and hidden files. After reset, the “Other” section usually takes up the minimum possible amount allocated for system files.
☑️ Preparation for full discharge
⚠️ Warning: Resetting will delete all your personal data, including photos, contacts and installed apps. Make sure you have an up-to-date copy of important information.
A more advanced method is to clean through Recovery mode, which means turning off your phone and pressing the Volume Up + Power button combination. In the menu that appears (using the volume buttons for navigation and the power button for selection), you can select Wipe Data, which is especially useful if the phone is not stable or not loading normally.
Analysis with third-party utilities
For those who want to know exactly which file is taking up space, there are specialized analysis applications, programs like DiskUsage or Storage Analyzer that build a visual memory card, showing the nesting of folders and their real weight, which allows you to find forgotten folders with heavy files that the standard Xiaomi Explorer does not show.
Using such utilities, you may find that some long-deleted application left behind a folder with gigabytes of data, or that the game stores resources for levels you have already passed.
| Type of data | Where to find | Can I remove it? | Risk of data loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash messengers | Application settings | Yes, it's safe. | Low (uploaded photos/video in chat) |
| Folder.thumbnails. | DCIM/.thumbnails | Yeah, but he'll recover. | Low (the gallery will be slower to create previews) |
| Logs of the system | System folders | Only with caution. | Medium (services may be disrupted) |
| The game remnants | Android/obb or data | Yes, if the game is deleted. | High (the game will stop running) |
However, it is worth remembering that installing additional cleaner applications consumes resources on its own, often using one high-quality analyzer that is used once a month for prevention, rather than constant background optimization processes.
Overflow prevention and best practices
To prevent the problem with the “Other” section on Redmi 8 from returning regularly, it is useful to develop a digital hygiene habit. First of all, set up automatic cache cleaning in the applications themselves. For example, on Telegram you can set automatic deletion of the cache of media files 3 days or a week after viewing.
Second, check Downloads regularly, and often download APK installation files, documents and pictures that you no longer need but take up space, and files in the Download folder are not automatically deleted when you delete the apps that created them.
💡
Use the Cleanup function in the Security app immediately after you upgrade or install a large number of new applications.
It’s also worth revising the habit of storing everything on your phone: Cloud services (Google Photos, Yandex.Disk) allow you to store original photos and videos in the cloud, leaving only compressed copies on your device or deleting them locally, which significantly reduces the load on internal memory and reduces the size of the “Other” partition.