Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones sooner or later face an unpleasant situation: the storage is crowded, although you have not installed heavy games or shot videos in 4K. When trying to figure out the details through standard settings, you find that the lion’s share of space is occupied by a mysterious category called “Other”.
This is particularly true for MIUI and HyperOS, where file management works differently than on pure Android. Users often panic when they see tens of gigabytes that can’t be removed in the usual way. In this article, we’ll go into detail about what’s behind the term, why the system doesn’t let them be deleted, and what safe ways to free up space are available.
Understanding the file system structure of your device is the first step to effective memory management. The Other category is not a virus or bug, it is a system storage for temporary data, app cache and residual files of remote programs. However, over time, this digital garbage can grow to huge sizes, slowing down Xiaomi and causing updates to fail.
What is really hidden in the category “Other”
Many users mistakenly believe that the Other is some secret system files that cannot be touched, but it is actually a collection of data that the operating system cannot uniquely classify as Photos, Videos, Apps or Documents, and this basket includes messenger cache, temporary update files, streaming services and browsers.
Social media data is a big part of this. Telegram, WhatsApp and Viber have a habit of saving copies of all the media files viewed into hidden folders, which the system sees as “other.” If you are in multiple chats and channels, this cache can easily take up 10-20 GB, remaining invisible in the standard gallery.
Also included are residual files after deleting games and applications. Software developers often leave error logs, temporary configs and databases that are not deleted during a standard uninstallation. Xiaomi sees these disparate files, cannot match them with a particular application, and classifies them as a general category.
⚠️ Warning: Do not attempt to delete system files through root-righted file managers unless you know exactly what they are intended for. /data or /system manually can cause data loss or “bricking” of the device.
Another source of growth in this category is offline maps and navigator cache, where applications like Yandex.Maps or Google Maps store huge amounts of data to quickly map the terrain, which are technically app data but are often classified by the system as “Other” because of their size and format.
Why is the system not showing details?
Storage Analyzer: built-in MIUI and HyperOS tools
Before resorting to third-party solutions, it is worth taking advantage of the built-in features of the system. Xiaomi shells are equipped with a fairly advanced analyzer that allows you to see which applications occupy the most space in the “Other” category. To access it, you need to go to Settings. → Memory.
Here you'll see a color diagram where each data type has a different color, and if you click on the "Other" sector, the system will suggest that you start cleaning up, but automatic cleaning is often superficial, and it only removes the obvious cache, leaving the large files inside the messenger folders intact.
A more efficient way is to use the Security app, which is pre-installed on every Xiaomi, and inside there's a Cleanup feature that scans the device for junk files, but there's a caveat: for deep cleaning, you need to go to Deep Cleaning or Storage Analyzer.
- 📱 Go to Settings. → The phone. → General review repository.
- 🧹 Use the "Security" app» → «Cleaning up for quick garbage removal.
- 📂 In the "Application Management" section, check the cache weight of heavy programs.
- 🗑️ Enable the Auto Clean function in the analyzer settings for regular maintenance.
It’s important to understand that embedded tools are primarily focused on security, so they don’t delete files that the system isn’t 100% sure about, which protects against accidental loss of important data, but leaves the user with the task of manually sorting.
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The built-in analyzer is secure, but often powerless against the sprawling messenger cache, which requires manual verification inside the apps themselves.
Manual cleaning through the “Conductor” application
The most effective, though careful, method is manually checking the file system. The standard MIUI guide allows you to see the structure of folders. To find heavyweights, open Explorer, click on the folder icon, and select internal memory.
First of all, look at the Android folder, which has a data subfolder that stores all the data from all the apps installed, and that's where gigabytes of cache are often hidden, and also check the DCIM folders (and the.thumbnails subfolder that stores the thumbnails of the photos) and MIUI.
Pay special attention to messenger folders. At the root of internal memory are often folders Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber. Inside Telegram, for example, the Telegram path → Android → com.telegram.messenger → files can contain hundreds of megabytes of video and photos that you did not even save to the gallery.
When you manually delete files, use the seven-measure method, delete only the contents of cache folders or clearly temporary files, and do not touch files with the.db (database) or.xml (configuration) extension unless you know what they are responsible for.
☑️ Manual cleaning algorithm
Specialized tools and PC software
If built-in tools are not enough, third-party utilities come to the rescue, and one of the most effective solutions for Xiaomi owners is the Mi PC Suite program or its modern counterparts, as well as file managers like Total Commander or FX File Explorer with plugins.
Connecting a smartphone to a computer through USB-You can see the full picture of the space you're taking, and you can sort files by size and date on a PC, and you can quickly identify "heavy" forgotten downloads or duplicates of photos that your phone didn't notice.
And there are specialized analytics applications, like DiskUsage or Storage Analyzer, that build a visual memory card, where each square is a file. The bigger the square, the more the file weighs, and that allows you to instantly find hidden gigabytes of video or archives.
| Tool. | Type of access | Efficiency | Risk of error |
|---|---|---|---|
| MIUI settings | Systemic | Low. | Minimum |
| Conductor (manually) | Customized | Tall. | Medium. |
| DiskUsage (App) | Visually | Very high. | Low. |
| PC + USB | Outside | Tall. | Low. |
Using third-party software offers more flexibility, but requires the installation of additional applications. The safest way to deep clean up without losing data is to use visual analyzers like DiskUsage, which do not delete files themselves, but only show their location.
Clearing the messenger cache: Telegram and WhatsApp
The leaders in the “Other” category are always messengers. Telegram and WhatsApp save all media files by default. Telegram has a built-in cache autodeletion feature that many people don’t know about. Go to Settings → Data and memory → Memory Use and set a cache limit, for example, 1 GB or 500 MB.
On WhatsApp, the situation is similar. Go to Settings → Data and Storage → Storage Management. Here you will see a list of chats sorted by location, you can select a specific dialog and delete all videos or GIFs, leaving text messages.
Important: Cleaning the cache inside the app doesn’t delete your correspondence, only temporary files (pictures, videos, voice) that are already uploaded to the server or the cloud are deleted. However, if you delete the app data through your Android settings (Apps → WhatsApp → Memory → Clear Everything), you will lose the correspondence if you don’t make a backup.
- 🚀 In Telegram, turn on “Auto-Delete Media” to make room in the future.
- 💾 On WhatsApp, check the “Storage Management” section regularly».
- 📹 Remove large video files from chat rooms first, they weigh the most.
- ☁️ Set up automatic media upload in Google Photos or the messenger cloud.
Regularly cleaning the messenger cache is the fastest way to recover several gigabytes of free memory. In active groups and channels, the cache can be updated daily, so it is worth checking at least once a month.
⚠️ Warning: Before cleaning the application data (“Erase Everything”), be sure to back up the chats in Google Drive or iCloud, otherwise it will be impossible to restore correspondence.
Resetting: a radical method of solving the problem
If the Other category takes up a critical amount (for example, 40-50 GB per 64 GB of memory) and no methods help, the last measure remains – a complete factory reset – this is guaranteed to remove all accumulated software debris, file system errors and hidden logs.
Before you do this, you need to create a complete backup of important data: contacts, photos, documents. Reset will remove all data from the phone’s internal memory, returning it to the “out of the box” state. Go to Settings → About the phone → Reset → Erase all data.
After resetting, the phone will run faster and the Other category will take up the smallest possible amount (usually 2-4 GB of system files).However, if you restore the backup of applications and their data “cast” immediately after the reset, the problem can return, as you recover and garbage.
It is recommended to install applications manually again after reset, rather than restore them from a full copy, which ensures that old erroneous files and bloated cache do not return to the system.
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After resetting, don’t install all the apps at once. Use your phone for a couple of days in basic mode so that the system forms a clean file structure without old debris.
Prevention: How to prevent memory growth
To keep the Other problem from coming back, you need to change your smartphone usage habits, first of all, disable autoloading media in mobile data messengers, which will not only save traffic, but also prevent the accumulation of excess cache.
Check Download regularly, at least once a week, often with APK installation files, forgotten presentations, and documents that are no longer needed but still occupy space.
Use cloud storage. Set up automatic sync of photos and videos with Google Photos or Mi Cloud with Free Space, which will remove the originals from your phone by leaving them in the cloud, and significantly reduce the memory load.
Don’t let the memory fill up. Android and MIUI always need to have at least 10-15% free memory to work properly. If the memory is full, the system can’t create temporary files and swapping, which leads to severe brakes and errors.