How to Clean up the Waste on Xiaomi: A Complete Guide to Accelerating Your Smartphone

Xiaomi’s current smartphones, which are powered by MIUI shells or the new HyperOS, have powerful tools to maintain the system. However, even the most productive device eventually becomes slower when digital debris accumulates in its memory, an inevitable process: apps create temporary files, caches images, and save error logs that occupy precious space.

Users often experience a system that notifies them of a space shortage and the interface starts to slow down, and garbage cleaning is not just about removing old photos, it's a comprehensive file system maintenance procedure, and it allows you to free up gigabytes of memory and return the device to its previous responsiveness without having to reset completely.

In this guide, we will discuss all effective cleaning methods, from built-in tools to advanced file system techniques. You will learn which folders can be deleted without fear of damaging the system, and how to properly configure automatic maintenance. Deleting the Android/data folder on modern versions of Android requires special rights or using a file manager with SAF support. Let's figure out how to return your gadget to speed.

Use of the built-in "Security" application

The easiest and safest way to start maintenance is to use a regular tool that is preinstalled on every Xiaomi device.The Security app is deeply integrated into the system and has access to system partitions where third-party programs often can’t get into, it analyzes the structure of files and suggests removing what you really don’t need.

To start the procedure, you need to open the application and click on a large green button "Speed" or "Clean up." The system automatically scans the memory, finds temporary files, remnants of deleted applications and advertising debris. It is important to note that MIUI algorithms are smart enough not to touch important user data, but periodic manual verification will not interfere.

Inside the cleaning section, you can detail your search, like analyzing large files or duplicate photos separately, which helps you find what's hidden from the surface. Don't ignore the "Recommendations" section, where the system often suggests removing APK installation packages left over after updating programs.

Be careful when using Deep Clean. It may suggest removing files from the Download folder or attachments from messengers. Always check the file list before final confirmation so you don't accidentally delete an important document or work photo.

Manual cleaning through File Explorer

For more advanced users who want to control each remote byte, manual cleaning through standard Explorer is a good way to do this, which requires understanding the folder structure, but allows much more space than automatic scripts, and the first thing to look at is the Download folder, where documents and installers can accumulate for years.

Special attention should be paid to the folders of messengers such as Telegram and WhatsApp, which are applications that tend to save copies of all the images and videos viewed in a separate cache, which can grow to tens of gigabytes, the path to them usually looks like Android/media or the root folder with the name of the messenger.

• 🗑️ folder MIUI/debug_log — Here are stored logs debugging system, which are useful only to developers and take up a lot of space.
• 🗑️ folder DCIM/.thumbnails — a hidden folder with thumbnails that often inflates to huge sizes after viewing the gallery.
• 🗑️ folder Tencent/MicroMsg — WeChat cache storage and sometimes other Chinese apps that can be cleaned safely.

When manually cleaning, it is important not to delete system folders whose names do not tell you anything. If you are in doubt about the purpose of the directory, you should use a search on the Internet by name of the folder. An error can lead to malfunctioning of some applications or loss of settings.

After removing the extra files, it is recommended to restart the device, which will allow the Android system to recalculate the file index and correctly display the freed up space in the memory settings, sometimes without restarting the space counter may show incorrect data.

Cleaning the cache of applications and data

App cache is temporary data that speeds up programs, but can take up an unnecessarily large amount of space over time. Unlike junk files, the cache often has a structure, and deleting it can cause the application to load a little longer the next time it runs, but it will free up a significant amount of memory.

To clear the cache of a particular application, go to Settings, select the App section, and find the service you want (like YouTube, Instagram, or Chrome). Inside the app menu, look for Memory or Storage, and you'll see two buttons: Clear Cache and Clear All Data.

⚠️ Note: The Clear Data button completely resets the application to a post-installation state.You will lose logins, saved passwords within the application, settings, and game progress if it is not synced to the cloud. Use this feature only if you want to completely redesign the application.

The most voluminous are usually browsers, social networks and navigators. For example, offline maps in navigators can take several gigabytes. If you rarely use navigation, maps can be deleted through the interface of the map application itself, rather than through Android settings.

Regularly cleaning the cache of heavy applications helps reduce the load on the memory storage, which is especially important for models with the type of eMMC memory, which wear out faster when writing and reading. For modern UFS drives, this is less critical, but still useful for performance.

Removal of duplicates and large files

Over the years of smartphone use, duplicate photos, videos and forgotten downloads inevitably accumulate in memory. Often users take multiple identical pictures to choose the best one, forgetting to delete the defect, and messengers can save the same images in different folders.

To find these files, it's convenient to use the built-in Explorer tool or the Cleanup function, which can find similar images, but to find really large files, you better sort the contents of the memory by size, so you can instantly see that, for example, a forgotten video in 4K resolution takes up 2 GB of space.

The files in the Bluetooth folder deserve special attention, and if you often accept files over bluetooth, they are stored there forever, and checking this directory often comes as a surprise to users who find old movies or archives there.

Use the Recycle Bin feature in the gallery or file manager. Often deleted files continue to take up space for another 30 days, waiting for final removal. To make room instantly, you also need to clean the Recycle Bin.

Cleaning up garbage in messengers

Messengers have become the main memory eaters on Xiaomi smartphones. Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber and Discord store all the media you've ever viewed in cache.Without regular cleaning, Telegram alone can take up more than 10-15GB of space.

Telegram has a built-in and very user-friendly memory management feature. Go to Settings → Data and Memory → Memory Use. There you will see a "Storage Media" slider. Set a value for example, "3 days" or "1 week." After that, click "Clear Telegram cache".

⚠️ Note: Once you set the time limit (e.g., 1 week), the app will automatically delete old media files from the phone’s cache, but they will remain in the chat cloud.You can view them again if necessary, but they won’t take up space on the device permanently.

WhatsApp is more complicated because it doesn't have this aggressive cache auto-reset. Go to Settings → Data and Storage → Storage Management, and you can see which chats are taking up the most space, and delete the media selectively or completely.

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Enable the “Do Not Save to Gallery” feature in WhatsApp settings, which will prevent duplicate photos from chats to the main gallery of the phone, saving space and removing visual noise.

Remember to check the Documents folder inside the messengers. PDF-files, presentations and archives that were only needed once, and deleting them through the file manager within the application is the safest way to do so.

Using ADB for deep cleaning

For users who aren’t afraid of the command line, the ADB tool (Android Debug Bridge) provides features that are not available through the normal interface, which can remove the system cache, remnants of remote applications, and even disable the built-in Xiaomi services that generate garbage.

For the work, it is necessary to include “Debugging of the USB" You can use the developer menu to connect your phone to your computer, and after you have installed the drivers and platform tools on your PC, you can execute commands, like, for example, a command to clear the cache of a particular package looks like this:

adb shell pm clear com.package.name

This command is equivalent to clicking Clear Data in the settings, but it is instant and can be automated by scripting, and ADB can also remove system applications (bloatware) that cannot be removed by standard means, thereby freeing up space and resources of the processor.

⚠️ Attention: Use ADB Removing critical system components (e.g. com.miui.securitycenter) can lead to a device building or endless restart (bootloop.

There are also graphical shells for ADB, such as Xiaomi ADB/Fastboot Tools, which simplify the process.They allow you to clear /data/local/tmp and delete logs in one click, which is especially useful for advanced users who want to make the system as easy as possible.

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ADB is a powerful tool for experts to remove “unremovable” system debris, but requires a PC connection and knowledge of the exact packet names.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)