What’s Hidden in Xiaomi’s ‘Other’ Storage

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones are faced with a situation that is rather crowded, and the system insists on freeing up space. When you analyze the disk space in the settings, many users discover a mysterious category called “Other” that can take up tens of gigabytes, which causes confusion and questions about what is stored there and whether it can be deleted.

Ignoring memory occupancy causes MIUI or HyperOS to slow down, problems installing updates, and even applications to freeze. Understanding the structure of the Android file system allows you to effectively manage device resources. In this article, we will detail the composition of the Other section, explain the nature of its occurrence, and provide safe cleaning methods.

Don't panic if you see that this partition takes 20 or 30 GB. It's not a virus or a system failure, but a feature of caching and saving temporary files. The right approach to maintaining a smartphone will allow you to return gigabytes of free space and extend the life of the drive.

The Nature of the Other in Android

The Other section is a system category where the operating system places files that don't fall under standard definitions like Photos, Videos, Applications or Documents. In fact, it's a hoard of temporal data, cache, residual files from remote programs and system logs. Android classifies content automatically, and sometimes sorting algorithms don't work properly.

The bulk of this section is made up of temporary files that are created by apps to quickly load content, such as streaming services that store video buffers and messengers that store media files sent and received, and over time, this data accumulates, taking up more space, even if the user has not used them for a long time.

Another reason for the growth of the category is the remnants of remote applications, which when the program is uninstalled through the standard menu, some configuration files or cache may remain in memory, the system marks them as "unknown", and they go to the "Other" section, and also includes update files of the operating system that were not deleted after the successful installation.

⚠️ Warning: Do not attempt to delete files from system folders through root-right file managers without a clear understanding of their purpose.This could lead to Xiaomi unstable operation or cyclical reboot.

What is the storage: a detailed analysis

To effectively combat space scarcity, you need to know the enemy in person. The Other section is patchy and contains several types of data. Understanding their origin will help you choose the right cleaning strategy. Most people are faced with a social media cache that can weigh surprisingly much.

The second important component is offline map data and navigation, and apps like Yandex.Maps and Google Maps store large amounts of data to work without the Internet, which are often classified by the system as “Other” because they are neither photos nor ordinary documents, and also include messenger databases, including correspondence history and forwarded files.

• 📱 Application cache: temporary files to speed up the work of programs.
• 📂 Residual files: data from remote applications and games.
• 💾 System Logs: Error Reports and System Operations.
• 🎵 Downloaded content: music and videos from streaming services.

Special attention should be paid to the memory dump files that are created when the system malfunctions. If your smartphone recently rebooted due to an error, a large report file could appear in the “Other” section, which can be safely deleted, since it is only necessary for developers to debug.

Safe cleaning methods through MIUI settings

The easiest and safest way to free up space is to use the built-in MIUI shell tools. Xiaomi has provided standard memory maintenance tools that do not require the installation of third-party software.

Inside the Security app, there's a Cleanup function, and when you start scanning, the system analyzes the contents of the memory and suggests that you remove the debris. But standard cleaning often only affects the surface layer. To do more, you need to go to the Memory or Storage section in the main phone settings.

Settings → About the phone → Storage → Cleaning

Here, the system will suggest removing unused applications, large files and duplicates, and paying special attention to the Applications section, where you can manually select heavy programs and clear their cache, this action is safe and does not affect your personal data, such as logins or correspondence, but may require re-authorization in some services.

Some folders are hidden from the standard scanner, so additional actions may be required to completely free up space, which we will discuss below.

Manual cleaning through Explorer and file management

For more advanced users, manual cleaning through standard Explorer is available, and this method requires careful attention, but allows you to find files that the automation missed, and first of all, you should pay attention to the messenger folders, which often inflate to giant sizes.

Find the Android folder, then the media. Many applications are stored here. For example, you can find media files in the com.whatsapp or com.telegram.messenger folder. Inside these directories are often the Video and Image folders, which contain thousands of saved images and videos from channels and chats.

• 🗑️ Delete thumbnails folder: photo and video thumbnails are stored here.
• 📼 Check the folder. DCIM: Sometimes there are hidden folders from remote cameras.
• 📥 Clean Download folder: Old installers are often there APK.

It's also worth checking the root directory for folders with names of remote games or applications, and if you're sure that the program is no longer needed, you can delete the residual files, but before mass deletion, you'd better back up your important data.

⚠️ Note: Do not delete files with the.obb or.data extension unless you know which application they belong to, which can lead to loss of progress in games or reset program settings.

💡

Use size-sorting in the Explorer, which allows you to instantly see the largest files and folders hidden deep inside the system.

Use of disk space analyzers

When built-in tools are scarce, specialized analytics apps come to the rescue, visualizing the file system by showing which files are taking up space, and one of the most popular and reliable tools is DiskUsage, or its modern counterparts, available on Google Play.

These programs build a graphics card where the square size corresponds to the file size, so you can instantly identify the "eaters" of space, you can see that some forgotten series in the video player's cache takes 5 GB, or that the game stores gigabytes of advertising videos.

When using third-party analyzers, it is important to be careful: deleting system files through such ilets can cause the smartphone to fail. Always double-check the path to the file before pressing the delete button. If the file is in the system or vendor folder, it is strongly recommended not to touch it.

Radical measures: resetting and formatting

If the Other partition takes up an unrealistically large amount (e.g., half the memory) and doesn't decrease after all the cleanings, there may have been an indexing error in the file system, in which case only a radical method, a complete factory reset, helps, and this action will delete all the data from the device.

Before starting the procedure, be sure to back up your contacts, photos and documents on your Mi Cloud or computer. Once reset, the system will be clean and the Other section will return to its normal values (usually 1-3 GB).

Settings → About the phone → Reset settings → Erase all data

An alternative to a full reset might be to format an internal drive if it is available in your Recovery menu. However, on modern Xiaomi smartphones with data encryption, this is equivalent to a reset. Once restored from a backup, the Other section can start growing again, but without file system errors.

💡

A complete reset is the only solution if the Other partition has grown due to a logical error in the file system that cannot be fixed software.