Owners of the popular budget smartphone Redmi 9 often face an unpleasant situation: notifications about the lack of space appear suddenly, although the user has not downloaded heavy games or movies. When trying to understand the reasons through the standard settings menu, it turns out that the lion’s share of disk space is occupied by a mysterious category, which is designated as “Other” in the MIUI interface, which is puzzling, because it seems that all applications and media files are accounted for, and the place disappears.
This is a bloat phenomenon that is characteristic of the MIUI shell that underlies the smartphone operating system. The system aggregates into this folder all files that cannot be uniquely classified as images, videos, audio or documents. This includes temporary update files, remnants of remote applications, messenger cache and system logs. Understanding the structure of this data is the first step to freeing up valuable space on your device.
In this article, we will discuss in detail what exactly the size of the category “Other” on your Xiaomi Redmi 9. We will not use questionable methods of cleaning the registry, but we will look at safe and effective ways to manage the file system.
The Anatomy of the Other: What's Inside
The Other category in Redmi 9 is a kind of digital warehouse where the system dumps everything that is superfluous, primarily the app cache. Social networks, browsers and streaming services store huge amounts of temporary data to speed up work, for example, watching Instagram or TikTok feeds leaves gigabytes of thumbnails and videos that are not formally your personal photos, but take up space.
The second important component is system files and logs. Android constantly records reports on its work, errors and running processes. On Redmi 9, with its limited internal memory (usually 32, 64 or 128 GB), these logs can grow into obscene sizes if not cleaned, and also includes files left after deleting applications, and data that programs created but did not delete after uninstalling.
⚠️ Warning: Don't try to delete files from system folders through root-righted file managers unless you're sure of their purpose.Deleting critical libraries can lead to a cyclical smartphone reboot.
The third element is the downloaded firmware updates. Sometimes MIUI downloads the system update package but doesn't install it right away, or the installation goes wrong and the file remains dead weight. It can weigh between 2 and 4 GB, which is critical for a public sector employee, and it's also a category that often includes offline map data and downloaded music tracks if the application doesn't properly tell the system about the file type.
Analysis through Conductor and settings
To begin with a detailed analysis, you need to use Xiaomi's built-in tools. The standard File Manager, often referred to simply as "Conductor," allows you to look deeper than the standard settings menu. Go to the Explorer app and pay attention to the top of the screen where the memory occupancy scale is displayed.
Here, the system will suggest sorting files by type. However, to see the real volume of the Other category, sometimes you have to go a tricky way. In some versions of MIUI on Redmi 9, this category may be hidden under the generic name System Files or simply not displayed in detail. In this case, a third-party analyzer will help, but first try the standard path: Settings → Phone → Storage.
If you can't see the contents with standard tools, you can use the hidden test menu. In the Phone app (set number), enter the code ##6484## to log into the engineering menu, although direct access to the file system from there is closed for security reasons. A more effective method is to connect the smartphone to the computer in file transfer mode (MTP) and manually inspect the folders, but this takes time.
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Use Xiaomi’s built-in Security app. Go to Cleanup and click Deep Cleanup – this is a safe way to find large files in the Other category.
It's important to understand that the system sometimes miscalculates the volume, and once the cache is cleared, it may not decrease immediately, the storage statistics on Redmi 9 will only be fully updated after the device has been rebooted, so if you've removed a few gigabytes of garbage, but the figure remains the same, just reboot your phone.
Cleaning cache and temporary files
The safest and most effective way to reduce the size of the Other category is to work with cache. Unlike these applications, cache can be deleted without fear of losing logins, passwords or correspondence. On Redmi 9, this is done through the application management menu. Go to Settings → Apps → All applications.
Find the most "heavy" programs in the list: usually Telegram, WhatsApp, YouTube, TikTok, Chrome. Go to the properties of each application and select Memory (or "Storage"). There you will see the Clean button. It is important not to confuse it with the "Erase Data" button (or "Reset"), which will delete the account and the settings of the application.
☑️ Checklist for safe cleaning
In Telegram, for example, cache can grow to 10-20 GB. Inside the application itself, in Settings → Data and Memory → Memory Use, there is a convenient feature called Clear Cache, where you can set up autodelete downloaded files in 3 days or a week, for example, to prevent the category “Other” from being inflated again in the future.
For browsers, the situation is similar: Accumulated cookies, download history and cache pages can weigh hundreds of megabytes. In Chrome or the built-in MIUI Browser, go into history and select to clear the browsing data. This will not only free up space, but also potentially speed up the browser, as old temporary files are often fragmented.
Working with Android and Tencent folders
Redmi 9's internal memory contains special directories where apps store their additional data. Most often, the "junk" is hidden in the Android folder, namely the data and obb subfolders. Here are the game cache files and app settings. Xiaomi owners often find folders there with the names of games deleted six months ago that continue to occupy space.
Another space eater on Russian smartphones is Tencent’s folders (the creator of WeChat and QQ, and the publisher of PUBG Mobile), even if you don’t play Tencent’s games, there may be traces of them on your phone. Tencent’s folder at the root of internal memory often grows to gigabytes, and it has MicroMsg subfolders (Whatsapp cache if it’s stored there) and QQPim.
| folder | Description of the contents | Can I remove it? |
|---|---|---|
| Android/obb | Cash files of heavy games (additional resources) | Only if the game is deleted |
| Android/data | Application data and cache | Careful only if you know the app |
| MIUI/debug_log | Logs of system debugging | Yes, it's safe. |
| DCIM/.thumbnails | Photo and video miniatures | Yeah, but they'll be created again. |
When manually cleaning through a file manager (e.g. Files by Google or Total Commander), be extremely careful. Only delete folders that you know are intended. If you see a folder with the name of a remote application (e.g. com.example.game), it can be erased. If the name doesn't tell you anything, you should leave it alone or pre-copy it on your computer.
Hidden system folders
System Logs and Error Reports
The MIUI-based Android operating system keeps detailed logs of events, which developers need to debug, but the average Redmi 9 user only gets in the way of them. Over time, the log folder can grow to several gigabytes, especially if there is instability or frequent malfunctions in applications.
You can find these files at the root of the internal memory. MIUI/debug_log. Inside, you can have files with the.log or.txt extension that were dated to the past months, and they're completely safe to delete and won't affect your phone, but it can even speed things up a little bit, because the system won't have to index that garbage.
⚠️ Warning: If you see logs growing at a tremendous rate (hundreds of megabytes per hour), it is a sign of a buggy application or system failure, in which case a simple cleaning will not help, you need to look for the culprit in the list of installed programs.
It's also worth checking the Backup folder. Sometimes Redmi 9 backs up a system or applications that the user forgets about. Unless you plan to restore the phone from that copy right now, old backups can be deleted. They often lie in the MIUI/backup folder and take up a significant amount of space, falling into the "Other" category when analyzing storage.
Use of third-party analyzers
If Xiaomi’s built-in tools don’t seem informative enough, specialized analytics apps will come to your aid, visualizing the file system by showing which files are taking up space, and DiskUsage (or its analogues, since the original hasn’t been updated for a long time, but it works) is considered one of the best solutions.
Once installed and granted access rights, the program will build a memory card in rectangles. The larger the rectangle, the more space the file or folder takes up, which allows you to instantly find the "culprit." Often, "Other" is a forgotten movie in the download folder or a map cache in the navigator that the system did not recognize as media.
Another popular option is Files by Google.This file manager has a built-in Cleanup feature that cleverly finds duplicate files, screenshots that are no longer needed, and large files you haven't opened in a long time. It's secure and integrates well into the Android ecosystem.
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Third-party memory analyzers show a real picture of the disk’s filling, which Xiaomi’s standard settings often hide or aggregate into the “Other” category.
When using third-party software, keep privacy in mind. Don't give unknown developers' applications access to all files unnecessarily. There are enough rights to read and write to internal memory, access to contacts or a microphone to clear.
Cardinal measures: resetting and formatting
If neither cache cleanup nor log deletion helped, and the Other category continues to occupy an absurd volume (e.g., 20GB out of 32GB), there may have been a file system error or an accumulation of undeleteable debris. In this case, Redmi 9 remains a radical but effective method - a complete reset.
Before you do that, make sure to back up your important data to your computer or the cloud (Google Photos, Mi Cloud). Then go to Settings → About Phone → Reset → Erase all data. The phone will go back to the “out of the box” state and the “Other” category will disappear as it will be cleared completely.
There is also a less radical method, formatting the internal drive as an external drive (but this will turn the phone into a “brick” for conventional applications, so this method is practically not used on modern versions of Android).