Another in Xiaomi’s memory: what it is and how to clean

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones face an unpleasant situation sooner or later: the device’s internal memory suddenly ends. When you try to analyze the storage, the user sees a frightening picture where the lion’s share is occupied by the mysterious “Other” or “System Data” section, which can inflate to tens of gigabytes, occupying up to 40% of the total storage volume, which causes the system to slow down and the inability to install new applications.

Many people mistakenly believe that this is system debris that cannot be removed without data loss or flashing. In fact, the Other category is a collection of temporary files, application cache, residual data after deleting programs and user content that the MIUI or HyperOS shell cannot automatically classify. Understanding the structure of this data is the first step to freeing up space.

In this guide, we will take a closer look at what is hidden under this label, why the system doesn’t see these files as normal photos or videos, and what are the safe cleanup methods available, and how to use embedded tools and third-party utilities to analyze the file system without risking damage to the operating system.

What’s Hiding in the “Other” Category on Android

The “Other” (or Other) category in Xiaomi’s storage is a kind of “black box” where the system drops all files that are not standard types: images, videos, audio, documents or installed applications, most often temporary files created during the operation of programs to speed up their launch.

The main culprits in this section are often messengers like Telegram, Viber and WhatsApp, which store the media they receive into their internal folders, which the standard memory analyzer perceives as system data rather than user photos, and also store the cache of streaming services such as Spotify or YouTube, which allows you to quickly download content when you re-watch.

⚠️ Note: Do not attempt to delete files from system folders through root-righted file managers unless you know the exact purpose of each file. MIUI and cyclical reboots.

This section also includes remnants of remote applications, error logs, offline navigation map data and temporary update files, sometimes including files downloaded from the browser if they have a non-standard extension or were saved to a hidden download directory.

Analysis of storage built-in MIUI and HyperOS

Before you use third-party heavy artillery, you need to use the built-in shell tools. In Xiaomi smartphones, the memory management app is the Security app, which can scan the device for duplicates, large files and unused applications.

To start the analysis, you need to go to the Settings menu → Memory or run the Security application → Cleanup. The system will scan and suggest removing obvious debris. However, the built-in analyzer is often too conservative and does not show a detailed breakdown by folder within the Other category.

You can do a deeper analysis by opening up storage management. Here you'll see a visualization of occupied space. If you click on the app category, you can see how much space each program cache takes up. Often, cleaning up the cache of heavy applications like TikTok or Instagram allows you to instantly free up 1-2 GB of space.

• 📱 Open the Security app on the home screen.
• 🧹 Click the Clean Up button to remove temporary files.
• 📊 Go to Memory for detailed analysis by category.
• 🗑️ In the list of applications, find the ones that consume the most resources and clear their cache.

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Use the built-in Deep Clean feature in the Security app, but carefully check the file list before you delete so you don’t lose important screenshots or documents.

Manual cleaning through the file manager

If automatic tools don’t work, you’ll need to manually clean up, and you’ll need to use an advanced file manager like Total Commander, Solid Explorer, or Files by Google. The standard MIUI Explorer is also good, but it can hide some system folders.

First, look at the Android/data folder, which is where apps store their data. Inside, you can find messenger folders (like com.whatsapp or org.telegram.messenger), and inside these directories, they often contain cache and files folders that can weigh gigabytes.

Special attention should be paid to the Download folder, users often forget about downloaded installation files. APK, PDF-- I'll take the files and files that I don't need anymore. DCIM/.thumbnails — It's where you store thumbnails of your photos. If you have thousands of photos in a gallery, that file can grow to a few gigabytes.

Use of the Files app by Google

One of the most effective and safest tools for cleaning up memory is the Files by Google app, which is officially supported by the search giant and integrates perfectly with Android. Unlike standard cleaners, it can intelligently analyze content and suggest removing duplicates, blurred photos and old screenshots.

Once installed, the app will ask permission to access the files, it will do a deep analysis and divide the files into categories, and of particular interest is the Cleanup tab, where the program itself will suggest removing files from applications you haven't used in a long time or finding large files that occupy space.

Files by Google’s main advantage is its ability to safely delete the contents of the Download folder and find duplicate files.The app also has an offline file transfer mode, making it a useful tool not only for cleaning, but also for data management.

⚠️ Note: When deleting files through third-party managers, always check if they contain important information. It will be impossible to recover data deleted through the file manager without special software.

The garbage cleanup feature in this app works softer than aggressive Chinese cleaners.It doesn't remove the system logs needed for debugging, but it does effectively combat ad cache and residual files.

Specialized utilities: DiskUsage and analogues

When standard methods are exhausted, disk space visualizers come to the rescue. DiskUsage (or its modern Storage Analyzer) builds an interactive memory card, which shows files in blocks that are proportional to their weight.

This allows you to instantly find the culprit for the space shortage, you can see a huge block that turns out to be a forgotten movie in the browser cache folder or a log archive that the app has been writing for months, and visualization helps you understand the structure of the Other category better than any number.

And using these gates requires care, and you'll see real paths to the files. log_2023.txt weight 5 GB in the folder of the system application, it can be deleted. However, files with the extension.obb are often data for games, and their removal will force the game to download resources again.

• 🔍 Download DiskUsage or Storage Analyzer from Play Market.
• 📈 Start scanning the internal memory.
• 👀 Look for the largest rectangles on a memory card.
• ❌ Only delete files that you are sure of.

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Disk space visualizers are the most effective way to find hidden files that inflate the Other category, as they show the real size of each folder in the hierarchy.

Radical measures: Resetting settings

If neither method worked, and the Other category continues to take up absurd volume (e.g. 30-40 GB on an empty phone), it may be that the file system has accumulated critical errors or corrupted file table indices, in which case the most reliable way is a complete reset to factory settings.

Before the procedure begins, you need to create a complete backup of all important data. Reset will delete absolutely everything: contacts, photos, correspondence and installed applications.

To perform the reset, go to Settings → About Phone → Settings Reset → Erase all data. The device will reboot and begin the cleanup process. Once set up initially, the Other category usually takes up a minimum volume (2-4 GB), which is the norm for the system to work.

⚠️ Warning: Full reset is irreversible. Make sure your photos are synced to Google Photos or copied to your computer and your contact list is saved to your Google account.

After reset, don't be in a hurry to install all the apps at once. Try using a clean phone for a couple of days. If the memory problem doesn't come back, then the culprit was one of the apps installed earlier that created the wrong files.

Prevention of memory overflow

To keep the problem from returning with the category “Other” it is worth introducing a few useful habits: Regular cleaning of the messenger cache is a guarantee of free space. In Telegram settings, for example, you can set the cache autodeletion: Settings → Data and memory → Memory Use → Maximum cache size. Set a limit, for example, 512 MB or 1 GB.

It is also recommended to disable auto-save the received media files to the gallery for work chats, this will prevent duplicate files: they will remain inside the messenger, but will not take up space in the system folder of images and will not be indexed as “Other”.

Use cloud storage to archive old photos and videos. Services like Google One, Yandex.Disk or Cloud Mail.ru allow you to set up automatic uploading of photos and then delete them from the device’s memory.

• ☁️ Set up autodelete the cache in messengers.
• 📸 Check the Downloads and Recycle Bin folder of the gallery regularly.
• 📲 Remove apps that haven’t been used for more than a month.
• 🔄 Periodically reboot your smartphone to reset temporary system files.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)