How to Clean Up Lots of Space on Xiaomi: The Complete Guide

Xiaomi’s current smartphones have impressive specs, but even they aren’t immune to a lack of internal storage. Crowded memory isn’t just a status bar warning, it’s a real interface braking, inability to install app updates, and camera failures. Device owners often face a situation where a standard 64 or 128 GB disappears faster than expected.

The reason lies in the peculiarities of the Android operating system and the proprietary shell MIUI (or HyperOS), garbage files accumulate for years, and messengers turn into “eaters” of space, saving every photo and video sent. Memory cleaning requires a systematic approach, not just removing a couple of applications.

In this guide, we will not only break down standard methods, but also covert tools that will help you recover gigabytes of free space, learn how to find hidden folders, delete remnants of remote programs and optimize storage without losing important data.

Storage analysis: search for the largest files

Before you start taking drastic measures, you need to understand what exactly is taking up space on your device. Xiaomi's standard storage analyzer provides basic information, but for deep cleaning, you better use specialized tools. Data visualization allows you to instantly see which folders have "blown" to giant sizes.

Xiaomi’s built-in Security app has a Cleanup feature that automatically scans the system. However, it often misses large files in download folders or streaming services cache. For more detailed analysis, you can go to the storage settings via the Settings → Memory menu, where the system will show the categorization.

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Use third-party GUI analyzer applications (such as DiskUsage) to see the memory card as blocks, which helps you instantly find hidden folders with logs or cache that you can’t see in a standard conductor.

Telegram and WhatsApp, by default, store all the files they receive in your phone’s memory. If you are in dozens of channels and groups, their cache can take up tens of gigabytes, leaving you undetected until you have a critical shortage of space.

Deep cleaning of cache and system debris

Cache is a temporary file that speeds up applications but grows to inadequate sizes over time. Cache cleaning is a secure procedure that doesn't delete your logins, passwords or correspondence. MIUI has a built-in maintenance mechanism in it, but sometimes manual intervention is required to achieve maximum results.

For manual cleaning, go to Settings → Apps → All apps. Select a “heavy” app (like your browser or YouTube), click on “Storage” and select “Clear Cache.” It is important not to confuse this with the “Clean All” button, which will reset the app to factory settings.

• 🗑️ System cache: deleted via Recovery menus or special scripts, secure for user data.
• 📱 App cache: temporary files of social networks and browsers, occupying up to 40% of the space.
• 📂 Residual files: Remote program folders that you need to manually search at the root of memory.

⚠️ Note: When cleaning data through ADB or file manager be careful with folder Android/data. Removing the contents of this directory can result in resetting progress in games or loss of offline maps in navigators.

There is also a hidden feature in the engineering menu, not available on all models, but useful for advanced users. Entering code ##6484## opens the testing menu, where some firmware versions offer the option of resetting counters and time logs of the system.

Optimization of gallery and work with media files

Photos and video are the main consumers of space. Xiaomi cameras are high-resolution, and one minute of 4K video can weigh hundreds of megabytes. Media optimization is a key step in memory release.

The first thing you need to do is turn on the "Free Space" feature in the Gallery app, and MIUI algorithms can find similar images, blurred photos and old screenshots, and it's worth checking the "Recently Deleted" folder, which stores files for 30 days, taking up space in vain.

Use cloud services like Google Photos or Xiaomi Cloud with Save Space. Once you upload your originals to the cloud, the app replaces them on your phone with compressed copies, freeing up to 80 percent of the space, ideal for archives that are rarely needed.

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Regular cleaning of the Recycle Bin folder in the gallery and the trash can in the conductor returns an average of 5-10 GB of space, which users often forget about.

Management of messengers: Telegram and WhatsApp

Messengers have long since ceased to be just a means of texting. Telegram and WhatsApp have become multimedia platforms. Without the right setup, they save every ad video from the channels and every good morning from group chats.

On Telegram, settings are in the Settings menu → Data and memory → Memory usage. You need to set a cache size limit (e.g., 200 MB or 1 GB) and enable automatic cleaning. This is a critical step, as the default limits are often not set at all.

WhatsApp is similar, but it is managed through the application’s built-in file manager. Go to Settings → Storage & Data → Storage Management. Here you can massively remove files larger than 5MB or media from specific chats that have grown to giant sizes.

• 🚫 Autoboot: Turn off automatic media downloads on mobile networks for all chats.
• 📅 Storage period: set up autodelete messages after 90 days or 1 year.
• 📁 Export: save important files to a separate folder outside the messenger cache before cleaning.

Remember that after cleaning the messenger cache, the history of the correspondence remains, but the pictures and videos will only be re-uploaded when the chat is reopened, which allows you to keep the phone clean, keeping access to information.

Removal of duplicates and residual files

When you delete apps in Android, you often have folders with settings and temporary files, and over time, these tails accumulate, and they don't affect the speed directly, but they take up valuable space.

You can use the built-in Cleanup tool in the Security app to find duplicate files (the same photos downloaded multiple times or the same documents), which scans memory and suggests removing copies. However, file managers with hash search function are better for deeper searches.

⚠️ Note: Before mass deleting files with the.obb or.data extension, make sure they do not belong to the games you continue to play.

Also worth checking is the Download folder. Browsers and apps often save APK installation files there after updating, and these files are no longer needed if the application is already installed and can be safely deleted.

Use of cloud technologies and external drives

If internal memory is crowded and you don't want to delete anything, you should consider expanding storage, and external storage and cloud services are the best solution for archiving data.

Modern Xiaomi supports connectivity USB-flash drives and external SSD Type-C port (technology) OTG). You can transfer the photo archive and the movies to an external drive and plug it in only as needed.

Cloud storage (Google Drive, Yandex Disk, Dropbox) allows you to automatically sync folders with photos. After successfully downloading files are deleted from the device, which creates the illusion of infinite memory on your smartphone.

• 💾 USB OTG: allows you to connect the format flash drives FAT32 or exFAT without root rights.
• ☁️ Google One: Subscription gives you extra space on Google Photos and Drive.
• 📲 NAS: Home network storage for automatic backup over Wi-Fi.

Don’t ignore the possibility of using a microSD card if your Xiaomi model supports this format. Although modern flagships do not have a slot, in the budget and mid-range segment (Redmi Note, Poco M) this is still relevant.

Radical measures: resetting and reflashing

If no methods help and the system is unstable, the last resort is a complete factory reset, which completely clears the memory by removing all applications, settings and user files.

Before the procedure, make sure to make a full backup of the data. In MIUI, this can be done through the Settings menu → About the phone → Backup and Restore. Save the backup to your computer or to the cloud.

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

Once reset, the phone will look like new. Don't rush to restore all the apps at once. Install only what you need to do so you don't clog the system again. Often, it's the data that's bloated over the years that cause errors in the system.