How to completely clean the “Other” section in Xiaomi Redmi 3 memory: 7 working methods

Xiaomi Redmi 3 is still a popular budget smartphone, but its main drawback is only 16 GB of internal memory, of which about 12 GB is available to the user. Over time, the system is clogged with a mysterious section “Other”, which can take from 2 to 8 GB. Unlike the cache of applications or multimedia, this section is not cleaned by standard means. In this article, we will analyze why “Other” on Redmi 3 grows like a snowball even after reset to factory settings and how to reduce it without root rights.

To make matters worse, MIUI (especially the 7-9 versions that Redmi 3 was released for) actively creates temporary files to speed up work, but doesn't always delete them, and users are confronted with a "Memory is full" notification, even though there are almost no photos and apps, and we tested all the methods on firmware from MIUI 7 Global Stable to MIUI 9 China Developer — and identified the ones that actually work.

What is the “Other” section in Xiaomi Redmi 3 memory?

The Others section (or Other in English) is a collection of system files that Android and MIUI do not categorize as Apps, Images or Audio.

• 📁 Dalvik cache – optimized files to speed up application launches (can weigh up to 1-2 GB).
• 🔄 Logs (logcat, dmesg) – records of errors and events (accumulate over time).
• 🗑️ Remnants of Remote Applications – Folders /data/data and /data/app-lib, which are not cleaned during the installation.
• 📱 Files. MIUI: themes, widgets, backups of settings (.mtz,.bak).
• 🔒 Encrypted data (e.g. from Mi Account or Google Play Services).

The Redmi 3 is more problematic than the newer models because of:

1. Small memory (16 GB vs 64-256 GB in modern smartphones).
2. An outdated file system (ext4 instead of f2fs) that fragments small files.
3. No automatic cleaning in older versions of MIUI.

⚠️ Note: If the "Other" partition is more than 5GB, this may indicate a virus or file system failure.Before cleaning, check your smartphone with an antivirus (Malwarebytes or Dr.Web Light).

Method 1: Clearing Dalvik and ART cache via Recovery

The most effective way to reduce Others is to clear the Dalvik cache that accumulates when app updates are made. On Redmi 3, you can do this without rooting through Recovery:

1. Turn off the phone.
2. Press Volume Up + Power before the Mi logo appears.
3. From the Recovery menu, select Wipe & Reset → Wipe Cache.
4. Then select Advanced → Wipe Dalvik Cache.
5. Confirm the action and restart (Reboot → System).

After restarting, the system will reassemble the cache (it will take 5-10 minutes), which frees up from 500 MB to 1.5 GB of memory.

Backup of important data

Charge your phone at least 50%

Disable protection with a pattern lock (if any)

Make sure that the Recovery version is official (not TWRP)

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Why does it work? Dalvik cache stores optimized versions of all installed applications. When you update MIUI or programs, the old files stay in place.

Method 2: Manual removal of system logs (without root)

Logs can take up to 1-2 GB, but they cannot be deleted by standard means.

1. Connect Redmi 3 to your PC via USB (in File Transfer mode).
2. Open the Internal Storage folder → MIUI → debug_log.
3. Delete all files with extensions.log,.txt,.zip.
4. Go to Internal Storage → Android → data and delete the com.miui.analytics folder (if any).

These files are created by MIUI analytics and are not needed for the system to work, and can be deleted every 1-2 months.

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If the folder debug_log not displayed, enable hidden file impressions in the file manager settings (e.g., in the ES Conductor or Total Commander).

Method 3: Reset MIUI settings (without data loss)

MIUI has a hidden feature called resetting theme settings and widgets that clears unnecessary micromarkup files. It's not a complete reset, it's just a user interface cleanup:

1. Go to Settings. → The phone.
2. Click 5 times on the MIUI version to activate the developer mode.
3. Back to Settings → Additionally. → For developers.
4. Find Reset MIUI settings (or Reset MIUI settings) and confirm.

This method removes:

• 🎨 Theme and wallpaper settings.
• 📱 Location of widgets on the desktop.
• 🔧 User-generated notification sounds.

200-800 MB is free, depending on the number of topics set.

Once a week.

Once a month

Only when the place ends.

Never clean.

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Method 4: Removing Remnants of Remote Applications

When you uninstall applications via Settings → Applications often have tails — folders in /data/data. These can be found and removed manually:

1. Install a file manager with access to root folders (such as FX Explorer or Solid Explorer).
2. Go to /data/data (root access, if any)
3. Find folders with names of remote applications (for example, com.facebook.katana for Facebook).
4. Remove them (if you’re not sure, check the name of the package in Google Play first).

Without root, this method works partially: you can only delete folders in /sdcard/Android/data.

Method 5: Using ADB for deep cleaning

If previous methods didn’t work, you can connect to your phone via ADB (Android Debug Bridge) and manually delete unnecessary files.

1. Install ADB Tools on PC (download from the official website).
2. Enable USB Debugging in Settings → For Developers.
3. Connect Redmi 3 to your PC and execute the commands:

adb shell


su




rm -rf /data/local/tmp/*




rm -rf /data/log/*




rm -rf /cache/*




exit




exit

These teams will clear:

• 🗑️ Temporary files (/data/local/tmp).
• 📜 Error logs (/data/log).
• 🔄 Cash updates (/cache).

⚠️ Attention: Rm teams -rf If you see a Permission Denied error, skip the step, that's okay.

Method 6: Disabling unnecessary system services

MIUI on Redmi 3 runs background processes that create unnecessary files.

1. Go to Settings → Applications → All applications.
2. Find and disable (do not delete!):

• 📊 MiuiDaemon (analytics service).
• 🔄 Download Provider (Download Manager).
• 📡 MiuiBugReport (Error Reports).
• 🎵 MusicFX (unless you use an equalizer).

This won’t free up much space at once, but it will slow the growth of the Others section in the future.

Method 7: Complete reset to factory settings (last resort)

If the other takes more than 4 to 5 GB and no method has worked, then the hard reset is left.

1. Back up your contacts, photos, and messages (for example, through Mi Cloud or Google Account).
2. Go to Settings → Additional → Recovery and Reset.
3. Select Reset and confirm.
4. After the reboot, do not restore data from the backup – first check the volume of “Other”.

After a reset, Others usually take 1-1.5 GB (that's fine), and if it grows back to 3+ GB in a week, the problem is that the corrupted file system requires a flashing through Fastboot.

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Hard Reset deletes all user data, but it doesn’t always solve the problem with Other if it’s due to file system errors, and then only a complete flashing through MiFlash will help.

FAQ: Frequent questions about memory cleaning on Xiaomi Redmi 3