Xiaomi and Redmi smartphone owners often face a nasty notification of a lack of space in the Mi Cloud service. When the 5GB limit is exhausted, no backups of contacts, notes and, most offensively, new photos are created. For users of the Redmi Note 10 model, this problem is relevant, since the device’s camera creates high-resolution images that quickly fill the available space.
Cleaning the cloud is not just about deleting redundant files, it's about managing your digital life. Wrong actions can lead to the loss of important data, so you need to be clear about the difference between deleting a file from your phone and deleting it from the cloud. In this guide, we'll look at all the safe ways to free up space.
You don't have to be a tech person to clean up the storage, but we'll look at the MIUI tools and the web interface that allow you to manage content flexibly, and the key is to act consistently and check what you delete.
Analysis of occupied space in Mi Cloud
Before you start deleting, you need to understand what exactly takes up precious gigabytes. Xiaomi’s cloud storage system is structured by data types, and it often turns out that the bulk of the weight is not documents at all, but forgotten videos or old app backups. On the Redmi Note 10, it is convenient to conduct initial diagnosis through settings.
To start, open the Settings menu and find Mi Account, which is where you see the general summary of storage usage, and click on the Occupancy Scale, you'll be taken to a detailed menu that shows the distribution of space between the gallery, the recorder, the contacts, and the backups.
- 📸 Gallery – usually takes up to 80% of the space due to photos and videos.
- 📱 Backup copies - data on the layout of the desktop and installed applications.
- 📝 Notes and Recorder – Text files and audio can weigh unexpectedly much.
- 📂 Documents – files saved from messengers or browser.
Note that synchronization can work in the background, downloading new files immediately after they appear, so it is better to free up memory by temporarily turning off Wi-Fi or mobile data transfer so that the process is not interrupted by new intakes.
⚠️ Note: Before mass deletion, make sure important files are saved to an external hard drive or other cloud service.Deletion from Xiaomi's cloud often means removing the original from the device if sync is enabled.
Understanding the data structure is half the success, and if you see video as the bulk of the effort, it makes sense to re-evaluate the camera's recording quality settings or migrate the archived videos to the computer.
Gallery management and photo removal
The fastest way to free up space is to work with media files. On Redmi Note 10, albums sync automatically if Mi Cloud Gallery is activated. When you delete a photo in the Gallery app on your phone, you delete it from the cloud, freeing up space at both ends.
But there's a caveat: if you want to leave a photo on your phone but remove it from the cloud, it's hard to do it with standard tools without turning off sync for a particular album, so you'd better use the web version of the service through your computer's browser.
To make it easy to work with large volumes of photos, use the highlight mode. Hold your finger on one image, then swipe your finger across the screen or select "Select all" from the menu, which will send the unnecessary stuff to the basket en masse.
- 🗑️ Recycle Bin: Deleted files enter the Recycle Bin for 30 days, continuing to take up space.
- 🔄 Sync: Changes apply to all devices that sign in to your Mi Account.
- 📹 Video files: Check the video folder separately, as they often don’t make it into the shared photo feed.
Remember to clear the "Recently Deleted" folder. While the files are there, they are considered part of your quota, and cleaning the cart completely is the final step, after which it will be impossible to recover data using standard methods.
Cleaning through the web interface i.mi.com
The mobile app is easy to view, but deep cleaning is better with a computer. The web interface at i.mi.com provides more functionality for managing files, which is especially useful if you need to delete thousands of photos at once or disassemble folders.
Log in to your account using the same data as you used on Redmi Note 10. The interface is divided into logical blocks: Gallery, Contacts, Notes, Recorder and Cloud Storage. Going to Cloud Storage, you will see a file structure similar to that on your computer.
☑️ Web-based action plan
You can delete entire albums or specific files without fear of accidentally swiping, like on a touch screen, and the web version allows you to download selected files to your PC before deleting, which is a great insurance policy.
| Section | What's stored | Recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| gallery | Photos and videos | Delete blurred pictures and screenshots |
| Contacts | Phone book | It does not take up much space, you do not need to clean. |
| Notes | Text and lists | Check the attachments and pictures in the notes |
| Dictaphone | Audio recordings | Remove long dictations without value |
Using a browser also allows you to sort files faster by date or size.If you see a file that weighs several gigabytes, chances are it's a mistakenly uploaded video or WhatsApp backup.
Deletion of application backups
Special attention should be paid to backups of settings and applications. MIUI can create backups of installed programs and their data by default. Over time, these copies become irrelevant, especially if you update the application or delete it, but the copy remains in the cloud.
To manage them, go to Settings → Advanced Settings → Reserve and Restore. Here you can see a list of stored data. Often, old backups take up hundreds of megabytes that you can safely release.
You'll see the dates you made copies on the list. If you see a backup from a month ago for an app you use every day, chances are the actual copy was created later, and the old one can be deleted.
Can I delete the WhatsApp backup?
Also worth checking is the settings of the Mi Cloud itself. The storage management section often has a "Device Backups" item. If you ever had another Xiaomi phone, a copy of it could stick to your account and take up space.
- 📱 Older Devices: Remove Backups of Phones You No Longer Own.
- 📦 System settings: take up little space, but it is better to keep them up-to-date.
- 📲 Third-party apps: check if they make duplicate copies in Mi Cloud.
Regularly auditing backups helps keep the cloud clean without losing any important data, and it's enough to look at this section once a month to remove outdated casts of the system.
Disabling synchronization for heavy files
If you don't want to delete files, but the space is running out, you can change the sync strategy, so you can leave the sync for contacts and notes, but turn it off for the gallery or video, and that stops the new content from automatically uploading to the cloud.
To do this, in the Mi Account → Mi Cloud menu, find the switches opposite each data type. By disabling the gallery, you will stop spending quotas on new photos, but the old ones will remain in the cloud until you manually delete them.
This is a useful option for Redmi Note 10 users who shoot a lot of video in 4K. Video files weigh a lot, and it is better to store them locally on a memory card or transfer them to a computer without downloading the cloud limit.
💡
Use third-party clouds for photos. Set up automatic download in Google Photos or Yandex.Disk with compression, and leave Mi Cloud only for system settings and contacts.
Remember that turning off sync doesn't delete files that have already been downloaded; it only prevents new ones from appearing; you'll still need to manually clean or use Optimize to free up space.
Use of the storage optimization function
MIUI has a built-in tool that helps save space, called Storage Optimization (or Originals in the Cloud), which is that the phone has smaller copies of the photos, and the originals are stored in the cloud.
However, if your cloud is crowded, this mechanism works against you, and in such a situation, it makes more sense to do the opposite: store the originals on your phone (or SD-You can use the map to keep nothing heavy in the cloud, or buy extra volume if the Xiaomi ecosystem is critical to you.
To activate or adjust, go to Settings → Gallery → Settings → Sync with Mi Cloud. Here you can select the option "Save space on the device." If the quota is exhausted, the system will prompt you to clear the place or expand the tariff.
⚠️ Attention: With optimisation enabled, removing a photo from the cloud will cause even a smaller copy on your phone to disappear. Always check whether you are looking at a local gallery or a cloud album.
Using these settings correctly balances the quality of your on-screen shots with free space. With its excellent screen, it’s important for the Redmi Note 10 to be able to view photos in good quality, so removing the originals from the cloud completely may not be the best solution if there’s no local copy.
💡
The most effective way to free up space is by combining manually cleaning the video through the web interface and turning off sync for heavy media files.