Where does memory disappear on Redmi 8T: disassemble the folder “Other”

Owners of the popular Xiaomi Redmi 8T budget smartphone often face a nasty situation: the device starts to work slower, and notifications of space shortages appear more often. When trying to understand the reasons through a standard storage analyzer, the user finds that the lion’s share is occupied by the mysterious category “Other”, This section becomes a real “black box” that absorbs gigabytes for no apparent reason, leaving the owner in a bewilderment.

The problem is not a unique bug, but a feature of the MIUI shell that does not always correctly classify cached data, remnants of deleted applications and system logs. Instead of panicking or immediately carrying the phone to the service, you need to understand the structure of this data. In this article, we will discuss in detail what this volume is made of, why the system hides files and what are the safe cleaning methods for the Redmi 8T model.

It is important to note that blindly deleting files without understanding their purpose can lead to unstable operation of the Android operating system. We will consider both standard cleaning tools and more advanced methods that require a connection to a computer.

The nature of the category “Other” in MIUI

The Other category in the storage analyzer is a kind of junk bin for files that the system has not been able to uniquely identify. In the Android operating system that runs Redmi 8T, thousands of processes create temporary files every minute. If the application has not properly completed work or sent a signal to the system to delete temporary data, these files remain dead weight.

Multimedia messengers like Telegram or Viber play a special role in inflating this section, often storing video and voice cache in formats or directories that the standard MIUI analyzer does not recognize as media files, resulting in gigabytes of correspondence and documents being disguised as system debris, occupying up to 40-50% of all available memory.

And then you get fragments of remote applications, and when you delete a game or a program, the remnants of it -- configs, logs, temporary saves -- often stay in the back of the file system, and the system update cache can also get stuck in this category, especially if the update process has been interrupted or has been bugged, and the accumulation of that data inevitably slows down the readout of the record on the flash memory.

⚠️ Note: Do not attempt to manually delete files from system folders through root-righted file managers unless you are 100% sure of their purpose).

Understanding that the Other is not one file type, but a hoard of data from different sources, is key to solving the problem. Unlike photos or music that are stored in well-defined directories, this data is scattered throughout the internal storage, which is why standard cleaning often proves to be ineffective.

Analysis of occupancy through embedded tools

The first step before any radical action should be a thorough diagnosis. Owners of Xiaomi Redmi 8T do not need to immediately install third-party software, as the built-in tools MIUI have enough powerful functionality for initial analysis.

The standard Customization → Memory path is just a general idea. To go deeper, you need to use the Security app, which is pre-installed on every Xiaomi device. It's hidden details that will help you understand the nature of the space you're occupying, and users often ignore this tool, relying on visual evaluation, which is a mistake.

Here are the main types of data that are most often disguised as “Other” and that can be revealed by careful study:

• 📁 Remnants of Remote Applications: Folders with names of remote games or programs left at the root of internal memory.
• 📦 APK-Installator files: Old installation packages that the system did not automatically delete after installing the software.
• 🗑️ Gallery and Explorer Recycle Bin: Deleted Files That Actually Continue to Take Place for 30 Days.
• 📡 Offline maps and navigation: loaded areas in navigation apps that are not labeled as media.

Special attention should be paid to the Cleanup section of the Security app, which Xiaomi’s algorithms are able to find duplicate files and outdated backups, which are also classified as “Other”, and using this tool regularly at least once a week will prevent critical memory filling.

Manual cleaning through the Conductor and Settings

If the automatics fail, we move to manual cleaning, which requires more care, but allows you to free up much more space. Redmi 8T owners need to open the standard Explorer app and go to the root of the internal storage, and there are many folders hidden here that are not displayed in the gallery.

First of all, look for folders with names of remote applications, often after deleting heavy play of her cache files (folder). Android/data or obb) remain intact. Also check the Download folder, which often accumulates PDF-documents, installers and images from the browser that the system refers to the “Other” due to the lack of tags.

For effective cleaning, follow this algorithm:

• 🔍 Sort files by size to find the most voluminous “hidden” objects.
• 📂 Check the folder. MIUI → debug_log — Here you can store error logs that take up gigabytes.
• 🗑️ Clear the.thumbnails folder (hidden), where thumbnails of the photos and videos viewed are stored.
• 📱 Delete the contents of the Tencent or WeChat folder if you are not actively using these messengers.

It contains all the app data that you installed, and it's strictly forbidden to delete the entire folder, because it will reset all the software settings and lose progress in the games, and only work with specific app subfolders that you have already removed or that you don't need.

Use of debugging mode and ADB for advanced

For users who aren’t afraid of technical terms, there is a more powerful method of cleaning through the ADB interface (Android Debug Bridge), which allows you to see and delete files that are hidden from the average user and even from the standard Explorer. For Redmi 8T, it is a great way to clean up system debris without obtaining root rights.

Before starting the procedure, you need to activate the developer mode. → About the phone and seven times quickly click on the build number MIUI. After the message “You became a developer” appears in the settings menu, a new item “More” will appear» → «For developers. You need to turn on "Debugging by" here. USB».

By connecting the phone to a computer with an ADB driver installed, you can execute a command to clear the Dalvik cache and system temporary files. This is safe for user data, but requires caution:

adb shell pm trim-caches 999999999

This command forcibly trims the cache of all applications to a minimum, and you can also use the command to delete temporary files:

adb shell rm -rf /data/local/tmp/*

⚠️ Attention: Use of teams ADB Input the wrong command, especially one containing rm -rf without specifying a specific path, may result in complete data loss or system failure.

The ADB method is particularly effective for cleaning debugging logs, which can grow to huge sizes with some background processes, but if you are not sure about your actions, it is better to limit yourself to standard methods or consult a specialist.

Specificity of messengers and social networks

Social networks and instant messengers, which are the main memory eaters on Xiaomi Redmi 8T, deserve special attention. Apps like Telegram, WhatsApp and Viber create their own databases and caches, which are often incorrectly displayed in the system, they can take up tens of gigabytes, hiding in the category “Other”.

In Telegram, for example, the cache of media files is stored in a special structure. Even if you cleared the chat, the files can remain in the app cache. To fix this, you need to go to the settings of the messenger itself: Settings → Data and memory → Memory Use. Here you can safely clear the cache without deleting the correspondence.

The same is true of WhatsApp: Backups of a database that you create every day can accumulate. If you have 100 copies in your Databases folder in the last six months, that's a direct road to memory overflow, and you're advised to leave only the latest version, and delete the rest through the file manager.

Below is a table showing the typical space distribution in popular apps on Redmi 8T:

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Turn on the Telegram settings function “Cache Autodeletion” and set a limit of 1 GB. the Application will automatically delete old files, freeing up space in the background.

Cardinal measures: Resetting and optimization

If none of the above methods helped significantly reduce the size of the Other category, and the memory on the Redmi 8T continues to fill up rapidly, there may have been fragmentation of the file system or an accumulation of system errors, in which case the most effective solution is a complete reset.

Before you do this, make sure to back up all your important data to an external medium or cloud storage, and reset will delete everything: contacts, photos, apps and settings, the only way to guarantee 100% cleansing of the Other section, as it removes the structure of the files, not just their contents.

The discharge process is as follows:

• 🔄 Go to Settings. → The phone. → Resetting settings.
• 🗑️ Select the option “Erase everything).
• 🔐 Enter the screen unlock password to confirm.
• ⏳ Wait for the process to be completed and the phone’s initial setup.

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A complete reset is a radical, but often the only solution for older devices when file system software errors do not allow memory management to be properly managed.

Once reset, the phone will work like a new one, and it's recommended that you don't install all the apps at once, but do it gradually, observing the memory behavior, and often the cause of problems is one particular application with leaky code that can be calculated after the reset.