Owners of Xiaomi Redmi 8T often face a paradox: you seem to have deleted all the unnecessary photos and applications, but the memory of the device is still crowded. In the system storage, a mysterious section “Other”, which can take up tens of gigabytes, appears. This is not a system error, but accumulated technical debris that is removed by standard means reluctantly. Solving the problem requires understanding what is hiding under this tag.
The Other section is a system folder where MIUI folds application cache, temporary files, logs, and remnants of deleted programs. Over time, this dump grows, slowing down the processor and causing interface lags. It's important to understand that simply deleting files through a standard Explorer often doesn't help here, because the system instantly recreates the temporary data it needs. The most effective way to clean up is a comprehensive approach that involves working with the messenger cache and using USB debugging.
In this article, we'll look at proven ways to free up space on your Redmi 8T. You'll learn how to safely remove system debris without damaging important data. We'll look at both the regular shell tools and more advanced techniques for power users. Get ready to free up gigabytes of valuable space.
What's Hiding in the Other section on Redmi 8T
Before we take any drastic measures, we need to identify the source of the problem. In most cases, the lion’s share of the Other section on Xiaomi is occupied by messenger data. Telegram and WhatsApp have a habit of saving all the media files viewed in their own cache, which the system sees as system data, not as a gallery, which is why the storage volume does not decrease when cleaning the gallery.
The second reason is system logs and error reports. If your device has experienced frequent crashes or forced application closures, MIUI stores technical information to be sent to developers. These files can weigh several gigabytes, and includes remnants of remote system updates and temporary browser files that were not cleaned automatically.
⚠️ Warning: Before you start a deep cleaning, make sure you have an up-to-date backup of important contacts and documents.
You can use the built-in storage analyzer to analyze the content. Go to Settings → Memory and wait for the scan to be completed. The system will show a file allocation schedule. If you see the Other taking up more than 10-15 GB, it's a signal to action. Don't ignore this metric, because filling up internal memory is more than 90% critically slowing down the data writing speed.
Basic cleaning through settings and conductor
Start with secure methods that don't require a connection to a computer, and the first step is to use the Explorer app built-in, open it up and go to Files, which often hides uploaded documents, APK installation packages and archives, and remove those files safely and immediately frees up space.
Next, you need to clear the cart. On Redmi 8T, deleted photos and videos don't disappear instantly, but are stored in the "Recently Deleted" album for 30 days. Go to the Gallery, find this album and select "Clean" -- a similar shopping cart is found in the Files app and Google Photos cloud service. Ignoring this step negates any previous cleanup attempts.
The third step is to clean the cache through the application settings, which is the most effective standard method, so you have to manually go through heavy applications, and the algorithm is simple, but it requires care.
- 📱 Go to Settings. → Annexes → All applications.
- 🔍 Find the most extensive applications in the list (usually social networks).
- 🗑️ Click “Clean” and select “Clean Cache” (not to be confused with “Clean Everything»).
- ✅ Repeat the procedure for the browser and the Play Market store.
☑️ Checklist of basic cleaning
After you do this, restart the device. Reboot is necessary to ensure that the Android system recalculates the file index and correctly displays the space that has been released. If the volume of the Other partition has decreased slightly, then move to deeper methods.
Clearing the cache of messengers Telegram and WhatsApp
Messengers are the main culprits behind the Other section bloat. They cache every photo and video they've viewed to load faster when they're reopened. However, on Redmi 8T with its 64 or 128GB of storage, that becomes a problem. Standard cleaning through Android settings here often doesn't work fully, as apps store data in their secure directories.
For Telegram, the situation is solved within the app itself. This is the safest and most efficient way. Open Telegram, go to Settings → Data and memory → Memory Use. Here you will see the exact size of the cache. Press the button "Clear cache." Importantly, your photos and correspondence will not be deleted, they will simply stop taking up space on the device and will be downloaded as needed from the cloud.
WhatsApp doesn't have a built-in cache cleanup function without removing media. You have to use a file manager. Find an Android/media/com.whatsapp folder or just WhatsApp/Media. You're interested in WhatsApp Images and WhatsApp Video folders inside. The Private folder has thumbnails that you can delete.
⚠️ Note: When you delete files from WhatsApp folders through Explorer, you will lose access to these photos and videos in correspondence.
Automatic cleanup is recommended. Telegram can set autodelete the cache (for example, store files for 3 days). WhatsApp in Storage and data settings, disable autoload media on the mobile network and Wi-Fi for group chats, this will prevent the accumulation of garbage in the future.
Why is Telegram's cache so big?
Using ADB to Remove System Garbage
If the standard methods do not help, Android Debug Bridge comes to the rescue (ADB). It's a powerful tool for developers to control a smartphone file system from a computer. 8T This is often the only way to delete the stuck system logs (Windows/Mac/Linux) and USB-cable.
The first step is to activate the developer mode. Go to Settings → About Phone and quickly press 7 times on the MIUI version. You will notice that you have become a developer. Then in the Additional → For developers, turn on the USB debugging switchboard. Without this step, the computer will not see the phone in command mode.
After connecting your phone to your PC and installing ADB drivers, open the command prompt on your computer. To clear the system logs, which often inflate the Other section, the following command is used:
adb shell pm trim-caches 999999999This command compels the Android system to delete all the temporary cache it considers safe to delete. You can also try to clear specific directories if you know their path, but the command above is versatile and secure for user data. It won't delete your photos or apps, only temporary files.
| ADB Team Team | Function | Risk of data loss | The need for a Root |
|---|---|---|---|
| adb shell pm trim-caches | Clearing the cache of all applications | No. | No. |
| adb shell rm -rf /data/local/tmp | Deletion of temporary files | Minimum | No. |
| adb shell logcat -c | Clearing the log buffer | No. | No. |
| adb shell pm clear com.android.browser | Complete browser cleaning | High (history, passwords) | No. |
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Use the original. USB-Cheap cables often only support charging and don't transmit data, so the computer won't see the commands. ADB.
Analysis of storage using third-party utilities
Xiaomi's standard analyzer doesn't always show the real picture. For deep analysis, specialized analysis applications like DiskUsage or Storage Analyzer, these utilities visualize the file system as a block map, where the block size corresponds to the file or folder size.
When you run DiskUsage on Redmi 8T, you'll see which file takes up the most space, and it often turns out that the "Other" section contains a forgotten memory dump file or a huge log file from a Google service, and it lets you go straight to the source and delete the offending file.
However, be careful. Some system files displayed by these utilities are critical to MIUI operation. Do not delete files from system partitions unless you are 100% sure of their purpose. Delete only what is in the user partition or clearly relates to the application cache.
- 📊 DiskUsage – a classic tool with a memory card.
- 🧹 Files by Google – smart cleaning and duplicate search.
- 📈 Storage Analyzer - detailed statistics on file types.
Using these tools helps you find hidden folders that are not visible in standard Explorer, such as crash report error folders that some applications create at the root of internal memory.
Radical measures: Resetting to factory settings
If neither method helped reduce the Other partition and it continues to grow, it is possible that Redmi 8T's file system has errors or accumulated a critical amount of system debris that cannot be removed without superuser rights, in which case the only reliable solution is a complete reset.
Hard Reset will put your phone back out of the box. All data will be destroyed, including the Other section. Before you do that, make sure to back up your computer or the Mi Cloud. Don't just rely on synchronizing contacts, take photos of important settings screens.
⚠️ Warning: After the reset, the phone will be completely clean. Make sure you remember the password from your Mi Account and Google account, otherwise activation of the device will not be possible (protection is not possible). FRP).
To perform the reset, go to Settings → About Phone → Settings Reset → Erase all data. The process will take 10-15 minutes. Once turned on, you will get a device with a clean file system, where the Other partition will take up the minimum possible 1-2 GB allocated for the system needs.
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A complete reset is not a sign of a breakdown, but an effective way to “rejuvenate” the file system of a smartphone, eliminating data accumulation errors over the years of use.