What does the “Other” mean in the memory of the Xiaomi Redmi 9A phone

Owners of budget but popular smartphones like the Xiaomi Redmi 9A often face the unpleasant situation when internal storage suddenly overflows.The system warns of a shortage of space, but when you analyze the memory partitions in detail, the user sees a mysterious category “Other”, which can take up tens of gigabytes. Understanding the nature of this partition is critical for the normal operation of the device, as overflowing the system partition can lead to freezes and the inability to install updates.

In this article, we will discuss in detail what this volume consists of, why standard cleaning methods often fail to be effective in front of the “Other” and what specific steps should be taken by the owner of the Redmi 9A. We will not use questionable applications-cleaners, but rather consider proven system methods and manual cleaning, which is guaranteed to return free space.

It's worth noting that the MIUI operating system you have installed on your device has its own file-accounting features. What is just a file to the user can be a hidden cache or temporary data that it refuses to delete automatically. By understanding the folder structure and understanding what each process is responsible for, you can safely manage your gadget's memory without risking losing important data.

The Anatomy of the Other: What the System Hides

When you go to the memory management menu, the system groups files by types: photos, videos, apps. But there is a lot of data that doesn't fall into any of these clear categories. The Other section is a hoard of system logs, temporary update files, residual files of remote programs and, most importantly, messenger cache. It's messengers like Telegram and WhatsApp that often become the main culprits of bloating this section, storing thousands of viewed images and videos in hidden folders.

In addition, files that the system cannot identify or that were created by third-party applications outside of standard directories fall into this category, such as downloaded maps for navigation, offline music tracks on streaming services or temporary files when editing videos. MIUI labels them as “Other” because it has no clear instructions on which standard media type to include them, which creates the illusion of “missing” gigabytes that actually do not go anywhere, but simply lie dead weight.

⚠️ Warning: Do not attempt to delete files from system folders through root-right file managers without understanding their purpose. Deleting critical system libraries can cause the phone to stop loading or lose some functionality, such as the ability to make calls.

It’s important to understand the difference between user data and system files. If you’re actively using your smartphone to work with documents or graphics, a significant portion of the Other can be self-save and temporary copies of projects. In the case of Redmi 9A, which often has a version with 32 or 64 GB of internal memory, even a small growth of this partition becomes critical. The system starts to work slower, because it lacks space for swap and temporary operations.

The main causes of the growth of system debris

The first and most obvious reason is aggressive caching of modern applications: Social networks and instant messengers are designed to load content as quickly as possible when re-referred, to do this, they store copies of all images, avatars and short videos viewed in local storage, and over time, this cache can exceed the size of the installed program by several times, which is especially noticeable on devices with limited memory.

The second reason is the tails of remote applications: When you delete a game or program through a standard interface, many of them leave behind configuration files, error logs and temporary data in hidden directories. At Xiaomi, these files often accumulate in Android root folders or in specific folders of the manufacturer. With each install and uninstall new software, these “data graveyards” grow, taking up precious space.

• 📱 Streaming cache: YouTube, Spotify and Netflix store buffered data for smooth playback that isn’t always automatically cleared.
• 📸 Tumbnails and Miniatures: The Gallery creates smaller copies of all your photos for quick viewing, and the base of these thumbnails can weigh several gigabytes.
• 📦 Update files MIUI: After a successful system update, archives with new firmware often remain in memory, taking up 2 to 4 GB.

Also worth mentioning are the log files that run some debugging applications. If the app developer hasn't set up automatic cleaning of those logs, they can be written indefinitely until they fill the entire disk. On budget models like Redmi 9A, where write-to-disk speeds are slow, active logging can even lead to slowdowns in the interface.

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Check the Download or Download folder periodically, as many apps store the received files that the system classifies as “Other” if it cannot determine their type.

Standard MIUI cleaning tools

Before you take any drastic measures, you should take advantage of the built-in capabilities of the MIUI shell. The smartphone has a Security app preinstalled, which includes the Cleanup tool. Although many users ignore it as useless, when properly set up, it can find a significant amount of garbage. Run a scan and look closely at the results proposed by the system.

However, standard cleaning is often superficial. It removes obvious cache and temporary files, but can miss the deep remnants of applications. For more efficient work, it is recommended to go to the storage settings through the Settings → Memory menu. Here the system provides more detailed information about which applications occupy the most space, even if they are hidden in the Other section.

Special attention should be paid to the Deep Clean feature, which sometimes appears in the Security app, which analyzes repetitive files, large video files and rarely used applications. While this is not a panacea, regular use of this tool helps to keep the volume of the Other partition within reasonable limits without the need for manual intervention in the file system.

Manual cleaning through the file manager

For those who want to get the most out of it, Xiaomi's standard Explorer or any other file manager with access to hidden folders is an indispensable tool. Going to the root directory of internal memory, you'll see a lot of folders with application names, and this is where the most common heavy files that are assigned to the Other are hidden by the system. Be careful and delete only those folders that you know are assigned to.

First of all, look at the Android/data and Android/obb folders. In older versions of Android, access to these folders was open, but in newer versions of MIUI based on Android 11 and higher, access to these folders may be limited. If you have the opportunity to open them, you will find a cache of games and heavy applications there. Also check the messenger folders, which often have their own names at the root of memory, such as folders with names.status or names of developers.

When you're working with files, it's important to keep the sequence. First, back up your important data, then delete the files in small portions, check the stability of the phone. If you delete a folder, you'll always know why. Remember that files with the.tmp or.log extension at the root of the application folders are generally safe to delete.

Cleaning the cache of messengers and social networks

As mentioned, the lion’s share of the Other is in messengers. Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber, and others accumulate huge amounts of data. Unlike standard cleaning through phone settings, the apps themselves have built-in, smarter memory management tools, such as Telegram, which allows you to set up automatic cache clearing or limit the size of space you occupy.

For WhatsApp, the situation is similar: the app stores all the media you receive, even if you've already viewed it and you don't need it. Going to Settings → Data and Storage → Storage Management, you'll see a list of chat rooms that take up the most space. It often turns out that workgroups have accumulated gigabytes of documents and photos for years that can be painlessly deleted.

• 🗑️ Telegram: Settings → Data and memory → Use of memory → Clear the cache. It is also recommended to enable auto-delete after 3 days.
• 💬 WhatsApp: Settings → Data and storage → Storage management.Delete files larger than 5MB.
• 📱 Viber: Additional → Settings → Memory. → Clear the cache.

It's important to understand that clearing the messenger cache doesn't delete your correspondence unless you select the appropriate option, only temporary copies of media files are deleted, when you reopen the dialogue, the picture or video will be downloaded from the network again, and this is a great way to quickly free up space on Redmi 9A before an important trip or upgrade.

⚠️ Before deep cleaning of messengers, make sure that you have an up-to-date backup of chats in the cloud (Google Drive or iCloud) so that you do not lose important correspondence history when accidentally deleted.

Radical measures: resetting and reflashing

If neither cache cleanup nor file deletion helped, and the Other partition continues to grow at an alarming rate, it may have crashed a file table or accumulated a critical amount of system errors, in which case the only effective solution is a complete factory reset, which will delete all user data, applications and, most importantly, clear the system partition of any debris.

Before you reset, be sure to save all important contacts, photos and documents to an external medium or to the cloud. The reset process on Xiaomi is performed through the Settings menu → About phone → Reset → Erase all data. After the reboot, you will get a clean system where the Other section will occupy the minimum possible volume allocated for system needs.

In extreme cases, when even resetting does not help (which is rare and indicates a possible malfunction of flash memory), you may need to flash the device through the computer using the Mi Flash Tool utility. This will allow you to write all system partitions again, eliminating any software errors of garbage accumulation.

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A full factory reset is the only way to guarantee that you will remove “unremovable” system logs and file table errors, returning the phone to its original performance.

Prevention of memory overflow

To prevent the problem from returning too often, it is recommended to introduce a few simple smartphone usage habits. Regularly restarting the device (at least once a week) helps the system correctly complete background processes and clean up temporary files that may have “hang”, it is also useful to periodically check the storage and delete unnecessary applications immediately after use.

Use cloud-based services to store photos and videos. Set up automatic sync with Google Photos or Yandex.Disk will allow you to delete media files from your device, leaving them available in the cloud, not only freeing up space in the Photos section, but also reduces the load on the indexing system, indirectly affecting the size of the Other.

Keep an eye out for MIUI updates. Xiaomi engineers regularly release patches that optimize memory and fix errors that lead to memory leaks. Installing an up-to-date version of software is the best prevention of many software problems, including incorrect accounting of space occupied.