How to Clean Android from Rubbish on Xiaomi Phone by Hand: Expert Guide

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and Poco smartphones face a slowdown sooner or later, a natural process of accumulating temporary files, remnants of deleted apps and social media cache. The Android operating system over time becomes a clutter of digital junk that occupies a precious place in internal memory.

Unlike automatic cleaners, manual cleaners give you complete control over the process. You know exactly what files are being deleted, and you don't risk erasing important data by mistake. In this article, we'll look at proven methods that will help free up gigabytes of space without installing third-party software.

Regular maintenance of the gadget extends its life and keeps the interface running, especially for models with a small amount of internal memory, where every megabyte counts. Let's move on to specific steps.

Memory Occupancy Analysis and Large File Search

Before you delete anything, you need to know what's taking up space, and the MIUI shell, or the new HyperOS, has a powerful analyzer built in, which is often more efficient than third-party software, and it scans the internal storage and gives detailed statistics by category.

To start the analysis, go to Settings → Memory. Here you will see a color diagram showing apps, images, videos and system files in different colors, and clicking on any category, you can detail the viewing and find heavyweights.

• 🗑️ Often the most voluminous are the caches of messengers, such as Telegram and WhatsApp, where the videos and photos viewed are stored.
• 📸 Gallery can inflate due to serial shooting and duplicates that the system does not automatically remove.
• 📱 Applications you haven’t used in a long time can take up hundreds of megabytes in the Documents or Downloads section".

Note the Download folder. Browsers and files from messengers are often saved there, creating chaos from the installations. APK-file PDF-Deletion of documents securely and instantly frees up space.

Cleaning the cache of applications and system services

Cache is temporary data that apps save to make things faster, can take up gigabytes over time, especially in browsers and video services, and cache cleaning doesn't delete your logins, passwords or correspondence, but it resets temporary files.

To clean the cache selectively, go to Settings → Apps → All apps. Select a heavy app (like YouTube or Chrome), click Memory and select Clear Cache. Don't confuse it with the Clean All button, which will reset the app to factory settings.

⚠️ Note: Do not clear the cache of Google Play system services or MIUI System, if you don't have any problems with their work, this can lead to a temporary increase in traffic consumption when you reload data.

There's also a hidden way to clear the cache of all applications at once, but it requires caution. In the Apps menu, you can sort the list by the size of the memory you take and go through the top of the list.-10 It's gonna take a lot of time. 5 minutes, but will give a tangible result.

Working with Android folder and deleting residual files

The hardest part of manual cleaning is working with the Android system folder. This is where game data, card cache and error logs are stored. New versions of Android 11 and higher have limited access to this folder, but Xiaomi's File Manager Explorer gives the necessary rights.

Inside the Android/data folder are folders with the names of the application packages (e.g. com.whatsapp), you can only delete folders that belong to already deleted games or programs, and if you delete the folder of the active application, it will reset to the “just installed” state.

It’s also worth checking the root of internal memory for folders with remote program names, and developers often forget to prescribe paths for complete deletion, leaving “tails” as empty or log-filled folders.

Removal of duplicates and similar photos

Xiaomi has a built-in tool to find similar images. Artificial intelligence analyzes images and suggests removing blurred frames, screenshots or duplicates, one of the quickest ways to make room.

Open the Gallery app, go to the Albums tab and scroll down to the Similar Photos section, and the system will group the serial shots together, and you just have to pick the best shots and send the rest to the basket.

Remember to check the video album. Even short, high-resolution videos can weigh hundreds of megabytes. Formatting a memory card also helps if the gallery is slow, but make sure to back up before you do.

Cleaning messengers: Telegram and WhatsApp

Messengers are the main memory eaters. Telegram, for example, by default caches all the media files viewed to open them faster when re-watched. This cache can grow to 5-10 GB or more.

In Telegram settings, go to Data and Memory → Memory Use. You can see the cache volume and clear it with a single button. You should also turn on the Media Autodelete feature, setting a storage period of, for example, 3 days or 1 week.

• 💬 WhatsApp cleansing is done through Settings → Data and storage → Storage management.
• 📂 There you can select specific chats that take up the most space, and delete only videos or GIFs, leaving the text.
• ⚙️ Turn off auto-save to the gallery so that media files don’t duplicate in the Camera system folder.

⚠️ Note: When clearing the Telegram cache, your correspondence and contacts will not be affected.However, if you delete the Telegram data folder manually through the file manager, you may lose secret chats and sticker cache.

Use of the built-in "Security" application

Every Xiaomi smartphone has a Security app preinstalled, and despite some users' skepticism, the built-in optimizer works corretically and has deep access rights to the system. APK-Files and Remnants of Remote Applications.

Start the app, click Clean. After scanning, the system will prompt you to delete temporary files, and you should also look in the Deep Clean section, where you can find large files that you forgot to download or look at.

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Use the "Accelerate" function in the Security app before launching heavy games. This frees up RAM, closing the background processes, which can boost FPS.

Regular use of built-in tools is preferable to installing cleaners from the Play Market, which consume resources and display advertising. The system tool knows the features of the MIUI shell better than a third-party developer.

Radical measures: Resetting to factory settings

If manual cleaning doesn't work and the phone is slow, the last resort is a complete reset, which puts the device back out of the box, removing all data, settings and applications.

Before the procedure, be sure to back up in the Mi Cloud or on your computer. Go to Settings → About Phone → Reset → Erase all data. The process will take 5 to 15 minutes.

Path to reset: Settings -> About Phone -> Reset -> Erase all data

Once reset, the phone will fly like a new one, but if you install the same 50 apps and fill up the memory with photos, the problem will come back six months later, so it's important to maintain digital hygiene regularly.

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A complete reset is not a panacea, but a way to start with a clean slate, and it is only effective when combined with changing smartphone usage habits.