How to Clean the Other Section on Xiaomi Phone: The Complete 2026 Guide

Have you ever looked into your Xiaomi’s storage and been surprised to find that the lion’s share of memory is occupied by the mysterious “Other” section? The screen can display 10 to 30 GB of “unknown” files, although you are sure that you have not downloaded anything extra, a problem familiar to owners of Redmi Note 12, POCO X5, Xiaomi 13 and other models on MIUI, the brand’s brand shell.

Unlike the obvious categories (Photos, Videos, Apps), the Other section hides system caches, temporary files, remnants of deleted programs, and even data from messengers who do not want to “give up” without a fight. According to service centers, up to 40% of requests for “cumulated memory” on Xiaomi are related to this section — and in 90% of cases it can be cleaned without resetting to factory settings. Let’s figure out how to do this correctly without risking the stability of the smartphone.

What is the “Other” section in Xiaomi’s memory and why is it growing?

In fact, the Other is not garbage, but the service data that the system and the applications create as they work, and this section includes:

• 📁 Application cache – temporary files that speed up the download of programs (for example, thumbnails in the gallery or map data in Google Maps).
• 🔄 Remnants of Remote Applications – Not all programs are removed “cleanly”, leaving behind folders with settings.
• 📱 System logs and dumps are debugging files that are created when crashes (especially relevant for beta versions). MIUI).
• 💬 Messenger data – Telegram, WhatsApp and Viber store media files, stickers and backups of chats here.
• 🎮 Game files – cache textures, saves, and updates (e.g. Genshin Impact or PUBG Mobile can hide gigabytes of data here).

Why does this partition grow? First, MIUI doesn't always clean the cache correctly after closing applications. Second, many programs (especially games) don't ask permission to save data in system folders. Third, after MIUI updates (for example, version 13 to version 14), old files can be duplicated, taking up additional space.

⚠️ Warning: Do not attempt to delete files from the Other section manually through a file manager (e.g. Mi File Manager) unless you are sure of their purpose. MIUI or loss of functionality (for example, notifications or camera will stop working).

Method 1: Clearing the cache of all applications (Safe method)

The easiest and risk-free way to free up 1-5 GB of memory is to clear the cache of all installed programs, which does not delete personal data (photos, messages, passwords), but can reset some settings (for example, login to games).

Instructions:

1. Open Settings → Applications → Application Management.
2. Slip on the three dots in the top right corner and select "Sort by size."
3. Turn to the apps that take up the most space (usually YouTube, Facebook, Telegram, games), and click “Clear Cache”.
4. To speed up the process, use the “Clear Cache of All Applications” button (available in some versions of MIUI).

Once cleaned, restart your phone to help the system recalculate the space you've taken, and if the Other partition has decreased slightly, move on to the next method.

Backup important data (e.g. game saves)

Close all background applications

Connect your phone to charge (the process can take 5-10 minutes)

Do not interrupt cleaning, even if the phone is “suspended”

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Method 2: Remove Remnants of Remote Applications

When you delete a program through Settings → Applications, MIUI doesn’t always clean the files associated with it, especially for games and heavy apps like TikTok or Instagram, which can take up to 10 GB of storage!

To find them:

1. Install a file manager with root permissions (such as FX File Explorer or Solid Explorer).
2. Go to /sdcard/Android/data/, where the application data is stored.
3. Pay attention to folders with the names of remote programs (for example, com.tencent.ig for PUBG Mobile).
4. Delete these folders manually. If the system requests superuser rights, grant them (but be careful!).

⚠️ Warning: Do not delete folders of existing applications - this will lead to their inoperability! Before cleaning, check if the program is installed on the phone.

Method 3: Cleaning system logs and dumps

MIUI maintains detailed logs that can take up gigabytes of memory, which are only used by developers to diagnose crashes, but are useless to the average user, and can be safely deleted.

For this:

1. Activate Developer Mode: Go to Settings → About Phone and tap on the MIUI Version 7 times.
2. Return to Settings → Additional → For developers and enable the option “Debug by USB”.
3. Connect your phone to your PC and use the adb command to clear your logs: adb shell su -c "rm -rf /data/log/*" If you don't have root rights, try an alternative command: adb shell pm trim-caches 1000G

This method requires minimal technical skills, but allows you to free up from 500 MB to 3 GB of memory. If you are not confident in your abilities, skip this step or contact the service center.

Once a week.

Once a month

Only when the place ends.

Never cleaned it up.

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Method 4: Resetting messenger data

Messengers are the main memory eaters in the Other section, for example, Telegram stores all media files in a hidden folder by default, and WhatsApp duplicates chat backups, and even after deleting messages, these files can remain on the device.

How to clean:

• 📌 Telegram: Open Settings → Data and memory → Storage. Select "Clear cache." Manually delete folder. /sdcard/Telegram/Telegram Images/ (If you are not afraid to lose your saved photos).
• 💬 WhatsApp: Go to Settings → Memory. → Memory management. Sort files by size and delete unnecessary media. Delete backups in the folder /sdcard/WhatsApp/Databases/ (last).

Viber:

1. Go to Settings → Account → Backup.
2. Delete old backups.
3. Clear the cache in Settings → Memory.

After cleaning, restart your phone and check the Other section – it should decrease by 1-4 GB.

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If you often share large files in messengers, set up autoclean the cache. For example, on Telegram you can limit the cache size in Settings → Data and memory → Memory Use (recommended value is 500 MB).

Method 5: Complete reset (last resort)

If all of these methods didn't work, and the Other section is still 10+GB, the last option is factory reset, a radical solution that will remove all of the data from the phone, including photos, contacts and apps.

How to do the reset correctly:

1. Create a backup through Settings → About Phone → Backup or Mi Cloud.
2. Go to Settings → Additional → Recovery and Reset → Resetting.
3. Select “Erase all data” and confirm the action.
4. After restarting, set your phone as new.

Reset is guaranteed to clear the Other, but it is only a last resort. 90% of memory problems on Xiaomi are solved in the first four ways.

⚠️ Warning: After reset, do not restore data from the backup created before cleaning - this will return the "garbage" back! Use only fresh backups or transfer files selectively.

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Regularly cleaning the cache and removing the residues of applications prevents the “Other” partition from growing, repeating the procedure every 1-2 months to avoid memory problems.

FAQ: Frequent questions about Xiaomi's "Other" section