How to clean SMS on Xiaomi: effective ways to free up memory

Modern Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones running MIUI or HyperOS shells accumulate huge amounts of data during operation. One of the most subtle yet bulky “junk” layers is the old text messages that are stored by default in the system database. Clearing SMS on Xiaomi is not just a matter of contact list aesthetics, but also an important procedure to optimize the performance of the device and free up precious internal space.

Users often ignore a crowded inbox until they are notified of a memory shortage or a slowdown in their messaging app. In this article, we will take a look at all the methods available to delete correspondence, from standard manual cleaning to hidden engineering menus and third-party utilities, and learn how to delete messages selectively, en masse, or set up automatic deletion of old data.

Manual removal of individual messages and dialogues

The easiest and most affordable way to clean up your conversation is by manually deleting. The standard Messages app in the MIUI shell provides a flexible toolkit for working with individual threads of dialog, and to remove a particular dialog, you need to run an application and find the right sender or group of messages in the list.

Click on the dialog icon and hold your finger for one to two seconds until the action menu appears or the screen interface changes. In the option list that opens, select Delete. The system will request confirmation of the operation, as this action is irreversible. Once confirmed, the selected dialog will disappear from the list and the memory it occupies will be released.

• 📱 Press and hold your finger in the dialogue to activate the selection mode.
• 🗑️ Use the "Delete" button in the lower menu or the basket icon that appears.
• ✅ Confirm the action in the pop-up window to complete the process.

It's important to understand that this method removes all of the correspondence with a particular contact in its entirety. If you need to save some of the history, this method will not work without first creating a backup. For selectively deleting messages within a single dialog, the algorithm of actions is slightly different and requires a more detailed approach, which we will talk about in the next sections.

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Before mass deletion, make sure that there are no bank confirmation codes or important addresses in the correspondence that cannot be restored.

Mass deletion of correspondence and sampling of communications

When you want to free up a significant amount of memory, deleting one dialog becomes inefficient. Xiaomi shell allows you to conduct mass operations, which significantly saves user time. To go into multiple choice mode, you need to pinch any dialog in the message list, and then tap to mark the remaining unnecessary threads.

Once you've highlighted all the targeted dialogs, a toolbar will appear at the bottom of the screen, and you'll click on the cart icon, and the system will show you the number of items you've selected and request final confirmation, and this is ideal for clearing out the emails or messages from services you're no longer using.

It is also possible to delete individual messages within an open dialogue without deleting all correspondence.

1. Open the right chat room.
2. With a long press, select the first message.
3. Shortly click the rest of the messages in the same window.
4. Press the delete button in the top or bottom menu (depending on the MIUI version).

Multimedia content is a special focus. Photos and videos sent via MMS or saved from SMS mailings often take up more space than the text itself. When you delete the dialogue, the system can suggest clearing the associated media files, which is a great way to quickly optimize the gallery.

Use of the "Cleaning" function and filtering by type

Xiaomi’s built-in Android tools and add-ons allow for deeper cleaning by analyzing the content of messages. Some versions of the firmware in the Messages app offer a filtering feature that groups messages into categories: personal, notification, transactional and spam.

To access advanced cleaning features, the app’s settings menu is often used. Go to Messages → Settings (three dots or gear) → Clear all messages. Here, the system can suggest that you delete all dialogs at once or select a time period, such as “over 3 months.”

The table below shows a comparison of removal methods and their effect on the system:

The use of filters is especially important for users who receive many notifications from delivery services, banks and stores. Automatic sorting allows you to remove the entire category of “Transactional” with one touch, without affecting personal correspondence, which makes the process of maintaining a smartphone less time-consuming.

Cleaning the cache and data of the message application

Sometimes the problem is not the number of messages, but the bloated cache of the application. If the Message interface is slow or freezes, it is recommended to clean the technical data, this will not delete your texts, but reset the display settings and temporary files.

To do this, go to Settings → Apps → All apps. Find Messages. In the menu that opens, select Memory. Here you will see two buttons: Clear cache and Clear all data.

⚠️ Warning: The Clear All Data button can cause the app to reset and, in rare cases on older versions of Android, to lose the database. SMS, If it's not synced to the cloud, use only Clear Cache for safe acceleration.

Once the cache is cleared, the app will run again, as it was for the first time, helping to eliminate indexing errors where deleted messages continue to show up in the unread counter or take up a place in memory statistics. Regular cache prevention is useful for any Xiaomi system services.

Automatically delete old messages

To avoid future memory overflows due to SMS, it is advisable to set up an automatic limitation of correspondence history, which is built into many versions of the standard application and allows you to set a limit on the number of messages saved in one dialog.

You can set it up through the app settings menu, and you need to find the SMS settings or the additional section, and you'll find the message limit, and you can activate it, and you can set a limit, like 200 or 500 messages per dialog, and once you reach that limit, the oldest message will automatically be deleted when you get a new one.

• 🔧 Go to the settings of the application "Messages".
• 📜 Find the item "Limiting the number of messages".
• 🔢 Set the desired limit (recommended) 200-500).
• 💾 Save Changes to Activate Autocleaning.

This approach provides a constant balance between preserving history and free space, so you no longer have to manually control the inbox, but the system itself will maintain an optimized database size, removing archival data that is unlikely to be needed in the future.

Use of third-party apps and Google Messages

The standard MIUI app isn’t always convenient for everyone, and many Xiaomi owners prefer to install Google Messages from the Play Market, which has a more modern interface and improved memory algorithms.

Google Messages cleans up the same way: you tap the dialogs and then you delete them through the menu, but you also have Archive, which allows you to hide the dialogs from the main list without permanently removing them, which is useful for messages that are rarely needed but may be needed later.

There are also specialized clout tools, such as CCleaner or Files by Google, that can scan a device for junk files, including remnants of deleted SMS attachments, but be careful: these programs sometimes request excessive permissions.

⚠️ Warning: Don't install questionable SMS cleaning apps from unknown sources; they can access your bank confirmation codes and personal data. Use only proven tools from Google Play.

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Replacing a standard app with Google Messages often solves problems with slow SMS performance and offers more flexible storage settings.

Recovery of Accidentally Deleted Messages

There is always a risk of removing important information during active cleaning. If you accidentally erase the right dialogue, the only hope for recovery is if you have a backup. Xiaomi has a built-in sync function with Mi Cloud, but it often requires manual activation.

Check for backups in Settings → Mi Account → Mi Cloud → Messages. If sync is enabled, you can restore messages by simply logging into your account on your device or via the i.mi.com web interface. If sync has been disabled, it is almost impossible to restore data using standard system tools.

There are specialised PC software (like Dr.Fone or Tenorshare) that can recover data from your phone, and their effectiveness varies depending on the phone model, the Android version, and whether or not memory sectors have been overwritten with new data, and the less you use your phone after deleting, the better the odds.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)