How to clean the RAM on Xiaomi Redmi 8A: Full instructions

Owners of budget smartphones like the Xiaomi Redmi 8A often face slowing interfaces and app freezes, which are directly related to the limited amount of RAM that is lacking for today’s heavy-duty programs. Understanding how to manage RAM resources wisely is key to extending a device’s comfortable life without buying a new gadget.

The MIUI Android operating system has its own resource allocation features that differ from pure Android. Simply closing applications does not always give the desired effect, since background processes can be instantly restarted. In this article, we will discuss proven methods that will help free up memory and speed up your smartphone.

There are several levels of cleaning, from basic actions available to every user to deeper customizations for advanced ones. Systematic cache cleaning and auto-start management give you a greater performance boost than periodic tab closure. Let's look at each method in detail so you can choose the most suitable one for your situation.

Use of the built-in Security application

The easiest and most affordable way to free up resources is to use Xiaomi’s standard tool, which is pre-installed on all of the brand’s devices and optimized specifically for hardware, which allows you to quickly scan the system for temporary files and force you to close inactive processes.

To start the procedure, you need to find a green shield icon on your desktop. Once you open the application, click on the large Cleanup button or go to the memory management section. The system automatically analyzes the current state and suggests removing debris. This method is safe and requires no special knowledge.

But you have to understand that standard cleaning is often superficial, closing down visible applications, but it can leave system services or Google services hanging in the background, and you have to go to advanced memory settings to get a detailed allocation of resources.

Regular use of the built-in optimizer helps keep the system on track. Don't ignore the RAM occupancy notifications that periodically appear in the notification curtain. Reacting to them in a timely manner prevents the interface from critically slowing down when you really need the phone.

Manual control of running applications

Many users are used to swiping apps, but MIUI has more effective tools, and the recent task menu allows you not only to close programs, but also to block them from being automatically cleaned by the system, which is good for messengers, but bad for heavy games that you're not using right now.

To force a voracious application to stop, go to Settings → Applications → All applications. Find a program that consumes a lot of resources in the list and click on it. In the menu that opens, select the Stop option. This action will completely unload the process from RAM.

⚠️ Warning: Forced shutdown of system applications can lead to unstable phone operation or loss of unsaved data in open documents.

And you should pay special attention to social media and browsers, and these programs are known for their gluttony and their tendency to cache, and if you rarely use a particular social network, it's better not just to close it, but to completely disable or delete it, and this will make room not only in RAM, but also in internal storage.

There's also an app lock feature in the recent task menu, so if you pull the app card down, it'll have a lock on it, which will prevent the system from clearing the app when you press the "Clear Memory" button, and use this feature only for important programs so that they don't crash when you switched to another task.

Set up advanced options in the Developer menu

For owners of Redmi 8A with 2GB or 3GB of memory, hidden settings are especially relevant. The developer menu allows you to limit the number of background processes, which significantly saves resources. It is an advanced method that requires caution, but gives excellent results.

To activate this mode, you need to quickly click seven times on the build number in the About Phone section, and after the message "You became a developer" appears, a new item will appear in the settings menu, and you need to find the section related to the background processes and limit their number.

Settings → Advanced settings → For developers → Limit of background processes → No more than 2 processes

Changing this parameter causes the system to more aggressively unload old applications from memory, which can cause the application to restart when it returns to the application, rather than opening from the last place, but it ensures that the active application will work smoothly, without jerking.

And here's the animations, which are also the ones that you should look at. Reducing the animation of windows, transitions, and animator duration to 0.5x visually speeds up the interface. While this doesn't free up bytes of memory directly, the subjective sense of smartphone performance increases significantly.

Analysis of memory consumption by different applications

Not all applications have the same impact on performance. Some programs are written inefficiently and consume disproportionate amounts of resources even in simple ways. To identify these parasites, you need to do a detailed analysis of usage statistics.

In the Settings Memory section of the phone, you can see a graph and a list of apps sorted by the amount of RAM you've been using. If you see a program that hasn't been used for hours, but it takes hundreds of megabytes, that's a cause for concern, and often it's news aggregators or heavy advertising apps.

A special category is the so-called “Lite” versions of the apps. For Xiaomi Redmi 8A, it makes sense to replace the main versions of Facebook, Instagram or Messenger with their lightweight counterparts, which take up less space and consume significantly less RAM when working.

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Use versions of apps with the prefix Lite or Go. They are specially designed for devices with limited RAM and run on Redmi 8A much more stable than the full versions.

Also, check which apps have autorun permissions. MIUI has a separate menu to manage this setting. Turn off autoruns for all programs that don't have to run all the time, such as online stores or food delivery services.

Cleaning the cache and temporary files of the system

Temporary files are one of the main reasons for space shortages and slowdowns. Cache speeds up the loading of frequently visited pages, but over time its size can become disproportionate to the benefits. Regular cleaning of cache is a necessary hygiene procedure for Android.

Cleaning can be done either through the Security app or manually through the settings of each application. The second method is more time-consuming, but allows you to save important data by removing only temporary debris. Go to the properties of the application and find the Clean Cache button.

It's important not to confuse cache cleaning with data cleaning. If you choose Clear Data, the app will return to a state immediately after installation: you will lose logins, settings and progress in games. Always choose to clear the cache if you just want to make room.

⚠️ Attention: Data cleanup of system applications such as Google Play Services or Media Storage can cause malfunctions in the entire phone.

Cache cleaning is especially important for browsers. Over months of use, browser cache can grow to a gigabyte, delete your history and cache regularly in your browser settings, or use incognito mode to visit sites you don’t need all the time.

System restart and maintenance

The oldest and most proven way to clean up RAM is to completely reboot the device, and when you turn off the phone, everything stops, and RAM is completely reset, and once you turn on, the system starts from scratch, which often solves problems with small bugs.

Reboot Redmi 8A at least once a week, which is especially useful after installing new apps or updating the system, and you can find the "Reboot" option on the off menu, which will perform this operation safely for all data.

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Regular restart (1 time per week) is the most effective way to prevent the accumulation of errors in RAM and ensure stable operation of the system without installing third-party software.

There is also a "Second Space" or guest mode that can be used to isolate heavy tasks, but on low-volume RAM devices, using it can make things worse, as the system will share the already modest resources between the two spaces.

If the phone is slow even after a reboot, it may not be the RAM that is the problem, but the internal storage that is crowded: When the disk space is running out, the system has nowhere to deploy the paging files, which leads to severe brakes. Make sure that the disk always has at least 15-20% of the space available.