Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones sooner or later face a mysterious partition in the system storage, which is marked as “Other” or “System Data.” This partition can grow to tens of gigabytes, causing a shortage of space for installing applications or shooting videos. Memory cleaning becomes a critical task when the device begins to slow down or block the operation of cameras due to a crowded buffer.
The problem is how the MIUI operating system or the new HyperOS classifies files, including app caches, temporary update files, streaming service data, and remnants of remote programs, and understanding the structure of that data is the first step to effectively managing your gadget’s free space.
In this guide, we will discuss safe ways to free up space without losing important photos or contacts. You will learn which folders can be manually deleted and which processes are best left alone so as not to disrupt the system. Up to 70% of the volume of the Other section is often the caches of messengers and video services that can be safely deleted.
What is hidden in the category "Other"
The system partition is not a single file, but a collection of disparate data that Android cannot uniquely attribute to photos, videos, music or documents. Most often, it accumulates cache files created by applications to quickly download content. For example, YouTube stores watched videos in temporary storage so that when they are re-started, they load instantly, but over time this volume becomes huge.
And a lot of that is done by logs and error reports, and if you're actively using a navigator or streaming service, offline maps and buffered music can also be classified here, and sometimes tails from remote applications that haven't been completely cleared by the uninstaller get into this section.
⚠️ Note: Do not attempt to delete files from Android system folders and MIUI through a file manager with root rights, if you're not sure what they're supposed to do.Removing critical libraries can lead to a cyclical smartphone reboot.
It is important to distinguish between system cache and user data. Cache can be cleared and the application will create it again if necessary. User data (save games, correspondence, settings) can be lost irretrievably during cleaning. So before radical measures, always back up important information to the Xiaomi Cloud or Google Drive cloud.
Analysis of storage with regular MIUI and HyperOS
Before you use third-party software, you should use built-in optimization tools. Xiaomi shells have a fairly powerful memory analyzer that allows you to visually assess what exactly occupies space. To access it, go to Settings → Memory or use the Security → Cleanup application.
The in-house analyzer shows the allocation of memory by category, but often does not detail the contents of the "Other" section. However, it allows you to quickly identify the leading applications for space consumption. When you click on a particular application, you will see a button "Clear Data" or "Clear Cache" The difference between them is significant: cleaning the cache is safe, and cleaning the data will reset the application to the "as after installation" state.
Sometimes, the system offers Deep Cleanup, which scans large files, duplicates and rarely used applications, a tool useful for primary sorting, but it is not worth relying on only this tool, since it often ignores the hidden folders of messengers, where the bulk of the garbage lies.
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Use the Full Cleanup mode in the standard Security app once a week to prevent temporary system files from accumulating.
It’s worth noting that new versions of HyperOS have made analytics algorithms smarter, and some file types that were previously included in Other now show up correctly in their respective media categories. If you have an older version of MIUI, a system update could solve the classification problem by itself.
Manual cleaning through the file manager
The most effective way to deal with an overblown “Other” partition is to manually check the file system, which requires a standard Explorer app or Google’s more advanced File Manager, and you need to go to the root folder of internal memory and look at directories with the names of popular applications.
Pay special attention to the Android/data and Android/obb folders. This is where the caches of games and heavy apps are stored. Inside the data folder, look for the directory com.tencent.mm (WeChat), com.whatsapp or com.google.android.youtube. These folders often contain cache subfolders or temps, the contents of which can be deleted.
- 🗑️ folder DCIM: Check the.thumbnails subfolder. It stores thumbnails of your photos and videos. If you delete the originals, the thumbnails can stay and take up gigabytes. The.thumbnails file can be safely deleted, the system will recreate it if necessary.
- 📂 folder MIUI: In the directory. MIUI/gallery/cloud/cache Cloud thumbnails and gallery cache can accumulate, and clearing them will make room, but when you first start the gallery, it will take a little longer to download.
- 📱 Tencent folder: If you use Chinese versions of apps or analogues, folder Tencent/MicroMsg It can weigh tens of gigabytes. It's a cache of correspondence and media viewed in messengers.
⚠️ Note: When manually cleaning folders Android/data Android 11 The system will request special permission to access this directory — confirm it to perform the deletion.
Don't forget the Download folder. Often users forget about downloaded installation files. APK, PDF-Sorting files by size in the conductor will help you quickly find forgotten gigabyte files.
☑️ Checklist for manual cleaning
Cleaning the cache of messengers and social networks
Messengers like Telegram, WhatsApp and Viber are the main culprits behind the “Other” expansion, which saves every photo, video and voice message you see into local memory even if you’ve already seen it. In Telegram, for example, cache can reach 10-20 GB if you don’t set up auto-clean.
Telegram itself has a built-in memory management tool. Go to Settings → Data and memory → Memory usage. Here you will see the exact size of the cache. Set an automatic cleanup, for example, "3 days" or "1 week", which will allow the application to store only fresh media files, and the old ones will be deleted automatically.
For WhatsApp, the situation is similar, but it's managed through chat settings. In Settings → Data and Storage → Storage Management, you can see which chats take up the most space. Often these are group chats where you constantly send videos. Deleting media from specific dialogues through this interface is more effective than manually cleaning folders.
| Annex | Cache location (pathway) | Is it safe to remove? | Recommended method |
|---|---|---|---|
| Telegram | Android/data/org.telegram.messenger/files/cache | Yes (via app settings) | Settings within the application |
| Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Media | Yeah (selectively) | Managing Vault on WhatsApp | |
| YouTube | Android/data/com.google.android.youtube/cache | Yes. | Cleaning the cache in Android settings |
| TikTok | Android/data/com.zhiliaoapp.musically/cache | Yes. | Cleaning the cache in Android settings |
It is important to understand that clearing the cache through the Android settings (under the Apps section) for instant messengers can result in logging out of your account or losing notification settings. It is better to use the built-in tools of the apps themselves where possible.
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Automatically clearing the cache in Telegram and setting the cache size limit is the most effective way to prevent memory overflows in the future.
Use of specialized utilities
If manual cleaning seems too difficult or you're afraid to remove too much, you can use proven tools to analyze disk space. One of the most effective and safe is Files by Google, which does not require root rights and can find duplicates, blurred photos and forgotten downloads.
Another powerful tool is DiskUsage, which visualizes the contents of memory in a diagram where the square is the size of a file or folder, and it allows you to instantly find the culprit for the space shortage, even if they are hiding in the back of the system directories, and you can see immediately which folder has grown to unimaginable sizes.
There are also clinch apps like SD Maid (SE version). Unlike aggressive accelerators that only create the appearance of work, SD Maid does a deep analysis and removes the corpses — the remnants of remote applications and empty folders. However, a paid version may be required for full functionality.
- 🚀 Files by Google: Perfect for basic cleaning and duplicate search. Safe for beginners.
- 📊 DiskUsage: The best visual analysis tool to find hidden large files that a standard explorer can't see.
- 🧹 SD Maid: Professional system debris removal tool.Take care when using the "CorpseFinder" feature».
Be careful with apps that promise to “speed up the phone in one click.” Often they consume a lot of resources in the background and show intrusive advertising. It is better to use one quality analyzer than a set of questionable utilities.
Radical measures: Resetting to factory settings
If neither method has helped to reduce the Other partition and it continues to grow even after cleaning, it is possible that the file system has accumulated errors or corrupted system indexes, in which case the most effective solution is a complete reset to factory settings (Factory Reset).
This procedure completely erases all data from the internal drive and returns the phone to the “out of the box” state, after which the “Other” partition usually takes up the minimum possible amount (a few hundred megabytes) necessary for the system to work, which is guaranteed to solve the problem, but requires careful preparation.
Settings → About the phone → Reset settings → Erase all dataBefore you reset, make sure to create a full backup. Use the Local Backup feature in the Advanced Settings menu or sync your data with your Google and Mi Cloud account. Remember to transfer important photos and documents to your computer or external hard drive.
⚠️ Note: After resetting, the process of optimizing the system and indexing files can take from 15 to 30 minutes.
What if the "Other" section returned immediately after resetting?
After reset, don't restore all apps from Google Play backup. Install them gradually, watching the memory behavior. Often, one particular application with an error in the code can quickly fill up the storage again with garbage.
Prevention of memory overflow
To prevent the problem with the “Other” section from returning in a month, it is worth introducing several useful habits in the use of the smartphone. Regularly restarting the device (every 3-4 days) helps the system correctly complete background processes and clean temporary files that may have “hang”.
Avoid storing huge music and video libraries directly in your phone’s memory. It’s much more efficient for media files to use cloud storage or microSD cards (if the smartphone model supports installing them), which will not only make room, but also speed up the gallery.
Keep an eye out for system updates. Xiaomi engineers regularly release patches that fix memory management errors and optimize the file system. If you use custom firmware or early beta versions, the risk of encountering memory bugs is higher.
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Turn on Virtual RAM only if you really don’t have enough RAM for games, which uses a portion of permanent storage, which can theoretically increase memory wear and space in the system partition.
Check your app auto-update settings periodically. If you have a lot of heavy games installed, turn off auto-update over your mobile network and configure the Wi-Fi-only update so that temporary download files don't accumulate in the background.