How to Clean a Recycle Bin in a Gallery on Xiaomi: 5 Ways + File Recovery

The shopping cart in Xiaomi’s standard gallery is a temporary storage for deleted photos and videos that is automatically released after 30 days. However, many users are faced with a situation where the phone’s memory is full and the basket takes up gigabytes of data. In this article, we will discuss how to forcefully clear the cart on Redmi, POCO and Mi smartphones (including models on MIUI 14), and what to do if files are missing from the cart ahead of time or need to be restored.

It's important to understand that simply deleting files from the gallery doesn't free up space on the device, they move to the trash can and continue to take up memory, and the system doesn't always show the actual amount of junk in the storage. We tested all the ways on the Redmi Note 12 Pro+, POCO X5 Pro and Mi 11 Ultra to provide up-to-date instructions for different versions of the firmware.

Why Xiaomi Gallery Recycle Bin Won’t Clean Automatically

By default, the MIUI gallery cart should self-clean after 30 days, but in practice users face several problems:

• 📅 Resetting timer: when manually viewing files in the basket, their storage period is reset (for example, if you opened a photo on the 29th day, the countdown will begin again).
• 🔄 Sync errors: If the gallery is tied to Mi Cloud, the cart can be duplicated in the cloud and on the device, which blocks automatic cleaning.
• 📱 Optimization MIUI: on some of the scalings (especially MIUI 12.5 and below) the auto-clean function is unstable due to background activity limitations.
• 🛠️ Manual settings: in some regional versions MIUI Automatic cleaning option disabled by default.

Also, the recycle bin can freeze after a system update or reset, and in such cases only a forced cleanup through the gallery menu or file manager helps, if you notice that the recycle bin takes up more than 1-2 GB and files in it are older than a month, this is a direct signal to action.

Method 1: Cleaning the basket through the standard MIUI gallery

The easiest method is to use the built-in gallery tools, which works on all Xiaomi smartphones with MIUI 11 and later, including HyperOS (for models of 2026).

1. Open the Gallery app (flower icon).
2. Slip on three horizontal lines in the lower right corner (menu).
3. Select the Recycle Bin (or Recently Deleted in Older Versions).
4. In the upper right corner, press Control (or three dots → Clear the basket).
5. Confirm the action by choosing Delete Everything.

If there is no button to clean the cart, try:

• 🔍 Keep your finger on any file in the basket → choose to delete everything.
• 📂 Go to the Albums → Basket → swipe left on file and press Delete Forever.

Check if there are any important files in the cart|Connect your phone to charging (for large volumes)|Close background annexes|Make a backup copy (optional)-->

Important: On some devices (e.g. Redmi 10C), the recycle bin may appear empty after cleaning, but the files will remain in memory.

Method 2: Remove via Mi Cloud (if the cart is synchronized)

If your gallery is tied to Mi Cloud, the files in the Recycle Bin can be duplicated in the cloud and on your device to clear them completely:

1. Open the Settings. → Mi Account.
2. Go to Mi Cloud. → gallery.
3. Slip on the basket in the bottom menu.
4. Select Control. → Clean the basket.
5. Confirm the deletion on the device and in the cloud (if required).

⚠️ Attention: Deletion from Mi Cloud is irreversible! Files can't be recovered even after 30 days.If you use the cloud for backup, pre-save important data to your PC or external drive.

Method 3: Manually clean through file manager (for power users)

If standard methods fail, you can manually delete the cart files through the system folders, which requires caution, as incorrect actions can damage the data.

1. Open the Files app (or any file manager, such as Solid Explorer).
2. Go to the Inner Memory → MIUI → Gallery → Cloud (or trash in older versions).
3. Select all files (hold your finger on one file → select all).
4. Click Delete and confirm the action.

Critical information: The MIUI/Gallery/cloud folder can be hidden. To see it, turn on the hidden files in the file manager settings (usually in the menu → “Show hidden files”).

If there is no trash or cloud folder, try the following:

Internal memory/DCIM/.thumbnails/trash

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Before manually deleting the files of the cart, check if the memory is occupied by the gallery cache. To do this, go to Settings → Apps → Gallery → Memory and clear the cache.

Method 4: Cleaning the Recycle Bin via ADB (for advanced users)

If the cart is “hung” and is not cleaned by any of the above methods, you can use Android Debug Bridge (ADB), which is suitable for devices with unlocked debugging over USB.

Instructions:

1. Turn on Developer Mode (go to Settings → About Phone and tap on MIUI version 7 times).
2. Return to Settings → Additional → For developers and enable USB debugging.
3. Connect your phone to your PC, install ADB Tools, and open the command line.
4. Enter the command to check the connection: adb devices (should display your device).
5. Execute the command to clean the cart: adb shell content query --uri content://media/external/images/media --where "is_trashed=1" --delete

⚠️ Attention: Misuse of the right ADB It can cause data loss or system failure. If you're not sure what you're doing, skip this method.

How to recover files if the cart is cleared ahead of time

If files are missing from the bin before 30 days have elapsed, you can try to recover them, and success depends on whether the data has been overwritten by new files.

Recovery methods:

• 🔄 Recovery software: DiskDigger, Recuva (requires root rights for deep scanning).
• ☁️ Cloud Backups: Check Google Photos or Mi Cloud – Files may have been synced automatically.
• 💾 Local backups: if you used Mi PC Suite or Xiaomi Backup, try recovering data from there.
• 📧 Emails and instant messengers: sometimes photos are sent to Telegram, WhatsApp or email – check chat history.

To recover via DiskDigger:

1. Install the app from Google Play.
2. Select Full Scan (requires root).
3. Mark the file types: JPG, PNG, MP4.
4. Wait until the scan is completed and save the files found.

The chances of recovery are higher if:

• 📉 The phone memory was not filled after being deleted.
• 🔋 The phone has not restarted (this can overwrite data).
• ⏱️ Less than 7 days have passed since the removal.

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If files were deleted from the shopping cart less than a day ago, do not write new data to your phone (do not take photos, do not install apps) – this will increase the chances of recovery.

How to turn off the cart in the Xiaomi gallery (and whether it is worth it)

Some users prefer to completely disable the cart so that files are deleted immediately, but this risks losing important data.

1. Open the Gallery → Settings (three dots in the upper right corner).
2. Go to the basket.
3. Turn off the option to Save Deleted Files (or Enable Recycle Bin in older versions).

⚠️ Warning: Once you turn off the Recycle Bin, all deleted files will be permanently erased. If you accidentally delete a photo, it will be extremely difficult to restore it.

An alternative is to reduce the storage period:

• In the same settings of the basket, select the Shelf Term.
• Set the minimum value - 1 day or 7 days.

This will reduce the memory load, but will preserve the chance of recovering files in case of an error.

FAQ: Frequent questions about the cart in the Xiaomi gallery