Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphone owners often face a nasty situation: notifications of space shortages appear suddenly, even though the user has not downloaded heavy games or movies. When trying to figure out the situation through a standard storage analyzer, it turns out that the lion’s share of memory is occupied by a mysterious section called “Others”, which can take up tens of gigabytes, causing confusion and frustration, since the system does not give direct information about the content.
Many users mistakenly believe that this is system debris that can be thoughtlessly removed, but the reality is more complicated: Inside the Others category, messenger caches, temporary update files, remnants of remote applications and even offline map data are hidden. Understanding the structure of this partition is critical to effectively managing your device’s memory without risking losing important data.
In this article, we will take a closer look at what this volume is made of, why it grows so fast on the shell of MIUI and HyperOS, and what methods can be safely freed up space, learn how to distinguish important system data from digital debris and use hidden Android tools for deep cleaning.
Anatomy of the "Others" section on the MIUI shell
The “Other” section of Android, and in particular in Xiaomi firmware, is a collection of data that the operating system cannot classify as standard categories like Photos, Apps or Music. When you see that this block takes up 10, 20 or even 40 GB, it means that many applications have created files that do not have a clear file. MIME-type or stored in closed directories.
The bulk of this is cached data from social networks and messengers, such as Telegram or WhatsApp, which stores images and videos viewed in its own format, which the standard Xiaomi Explorer perceives as an unknown data type, and also includes offline maps of navigators, downloaded podcasts and temporary files left after installing system updates.
- 📂 Application cache: Time data to speed up programs that grow to giant sizes over time.
- 📦 Update files: Firmware archives that the system didn’t delete automatically after successful installation.
- 🗑️ Residual files: Folders and logs from long-deleted games and utilities left behind».
⚠️ Warning: Do not attempt to delete files from system folders through root rights unless you are sure of their purpose. data.img or system_cache It can be critical to launch Android.
It's important to understand that file algorithms in MIUI are not perfect. Sometimes, regular PDF documents or ZIP archives downloaded from a browser can end up in Others if they're in a non-standard folder. The system simply groupes everything that doesn't fit into other categories into one big bag.
The main culprits of memory overflow
If you’re wondering why memory fills up on its own, it’s 90% of the time that messengers are to blame. Telegram, WhatsApp, and Viber have a habit of saving every image, sticker, and short video you see into internal memory. Over time, the media database grows, and standard cache clearing through Android settings often doesn’t affect the deep files of those apps.
The second major consumer is streaming services and browsers. YouTube, Spotify, and browsers like Chrome or UC Browser cache videos and pages they've watched to load faster when they're re-accessed, stored in hidden sections and displayed as "Other Files." If you watch videos online often without clearing the cache, prepare to lose a few gigabytes.
The third category is game data: Modern high-graphics mobile games can load additional resources (textures, sounds, levels) during the game, often in the Android/obb or Android/data folder, and the system sees them as an unknown type of data, especially if the game has not been launched for a long time.
Manual cleaning through standard Xiaomi tools
The first step to freeing up space is to use built-in tools. Xiaomi smartphones have a powerful Security app that includes the Cleanup feature. However, to get to hidden files, you need to use an advanced storage analyzer. Go to Settings → Memory or open the Security → Cleanup app.
Here, the system will suggest removing the obvious debris, but working with the Others section will require a deeper approach. Click on the Analyze or Storage Management button. The system will scan the device and show a diagram. If you click on the Others section, you will see a list of the apps that occupy the most space in this category.
☑️ Safe cleaning plan
Select a leader app (like Telegram) and click Clear. Be careful: the system can only suggest removing cache, not important files. For instant messengers, it is better to use the built-in Memory Use feature inside the application itself, where you can delete the cache of channels, saving correspondence.
| Type of data | Where to find | Can be removed | Risk of loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash messengers | Application settings | Yes. | Low (uploaded photos disappear) |
| Update files | Folder download/updater | Yes. | No. |
| Logs of the system | MIUI/log folder | Yes. | No. |
| Game Data (OBB) | Android/obb | Only if the game is deleted | High (game won't start) |
Using the hidden capabilities of Android
Standard tools don't always show the full picture. For a deeper analysis, use the hidden Android testing menu. Enter the Phone app code ##4636##. If the code doesn't work on your version of MIUI, go to Settings → About Phone → MIUI version and quickly tap 7-10 times on the build number to activate the developer mode.
In developer mode or through special utilities, you can see a more detailed file structure. It's also useful to know about the.thumbnails (or DCIM/.thumbnails) folder, where you store thumbnails of all your photos and videos. With a lot of media, this folder can inflate to several gigabytes. Deleting the contents of this folder is safe - thumbnails will be created again the next time you open the gallery, but this will temporarily free up space.