How to Clean a Gallery on Xiaomi: The Complete Guide

Modern Xiaomi and Redmi smartphones allow you to take pictures of incredible quality, but it has to pay for quickly filling memory. When internal storage is overflowing, the device starts to work slower, and applications can fly out or freeze, especially critically affects the system gallery, which indexes thousands of files, putting a strain on the processor.

Users often experience a situation where standard deletion methods do not produce visible results, and the space magically returns or is released in meager quantities, this is due to the peculiarities of the MIUI shell and HyperOS, which hide many system folders and cache from the eyes of the average user. To really free gigabytes, you need to understand where the "heavy" files are hiding.

In this article, we’ll explore not only basic deletion, but also advanced cleaning techniques, including cloud services and system directories, and learn how to find hidden debris, remove duplicates, and set up automatic optimizations to make your phone fly like the first day after you buy it.

Memory Analysis: What Takes Place in a Gallery

Before you start mindlessly deleting everything, you need to audit the contents of your smartphone. Xiaomi gallery is able to group files, but often hides the real volume of folders with video and serial shooting. Go to the storage settings to see a detailed memory card.

Usually, the majority of the time is not the photos themselves, but the high-resolution videos and instant messenger files, and the system automatically stores all media files that have come to WhatsApp, Telegram or Viber, creating copies of them in a shared gallery, which leads to the fact that the same meme can take place three times: in the application folder, in the shared gallery and in the cloud buffer.

⚠️ Warning: Before a mass cleanup, be sure to check the folder "Recently deleted" files are stored there for 30 days and continue to take up space on the disk, even if you think they are already deleted.

To get a good idea of the situation, use a built-in analysis tool to show you which apps generate the most media debris, and it often turns out that old chats or forgotten downloads weigh more than your personal photo archive for a vacation.

Basic cleaning through built-in MIUI and HyperOS tools

Xiaomi shells are equipped with a powerful built-in cleaning tool that users often ignore, preferring third-party software. However, it is the system Cleaner that has access to the file system and can safely delete the cache of the gallery, you can find it in the Tools folder or through settings.

Launch the app and select Cleanup. The system will analyze the device and suggest removing temporary files, cache and remnants of deleted applications. Pay special attention to the "Big Files" section, which often contains forgotten videos or archives that can be safely transferred to the computer.

It is important to regularly clean the cache of the Gallery app itself. Over time, the thumbnail database grows and can weigh several gigabytes. Go to Settings → Apps → All Apps → Gallery and click Clear Cache. Don't confuse it with the Clear All button, which will reset the app settings.

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Use the Deep Clean feature in the Security app once a week to prevent hidden debris from accumulating from remote applications.

Manual removal of duplicates and similar photos

One of the most common reasons for space shortages is duplicates, HyperOS and newer versions of MIUI have a smart feature for finding similar shots, algorithms analyze frame content and suggest leaving only the best option by removing blurred or repetitive photos, which is especially true for fans of serial shooting.

To use this feature, open the gallery, go to the Albums tab and scroll down to the "Similar Photos" or "Recommendations" section, and the system will group the images taken at the same time, all you have to do is select the ones you want to save and delete the others.

If the automatic search does not find all the duplicates, you can use third-party applications from Google Play, but be careful with access to your personal data. It is better to double-check the result manually, since algorithms can find different angles of the same object similar.

Working with folders of messengers and social networks

Messengers are the main memory eaters on any Android smartphone. Telegram, WhatsApp and Viber by default store all received photos and videos in the general gallery of the phone. To clean the gallery on Xiaomi, it is not enough to just remove them from albums, you need to configure the applications themselves.

On Telegram, go to the settings, select "Data and memory" and find "Memory Use" where you can clear the cache, and your files will not disappear from the chats, but simply stop taking up space on the phone, downloading as needed, this is the most effective way to free up space without losing your correspondence history.

On WhatsApp, the situation is more complicated: files deleted from the gallery can return the next time you update the media content of the chat, you better go to the chat settings of a particular contact or group, select Media, Links and Documents, and turn off visibility in the gallery, and then delete old files.

Setup cloud synchronization Xiaomi Cloud and Google Photos

The ideal solution to memory overload is to move the archive to the cloud. Xiaomi Cloud is deeply integrated into the system and allows you to free up space on the device. Once synchronized, you can delete the originals from the phone, leaving them in the cloud available for viewing in low resolution or on request.

The alternative is Google Photos, which offers unlimited (c) storage. Enable the "Free space" function in the app settings. It will analyze which photos have already been uploaded to the cloud and delete local copies from your Xiaomi.

When you set up sync, it's important to choose the right mode. If you choose Original, the quality will be maximum, but the space in the cloud will run out quickly. Save space mode allows you to store thousands of photos for free, slightly reducing the detail that is almost invisible on the smartphone screen.

⚠️ Note: Deleting photos from the cloud (Xiaomi Cloud or Google Photos) will cause them to be deleted on your phone if sync is enabled. First, make sure that the files are safely saved on another medium.

Using File Managers for Deep Cleaning

For advanced users who want to make the most of the cleanup, file managers are indispensable. Xiaomi's standard Explorer is good, but third-party solutions like Total Commander or Files by Google give more flexible control over folder structure, allowing you to see the real size of directories.

Special attention should be paid to the DCIM/.thumbnails folder, which stores sketches of your photos for quick display in the gallery. Over time, this file can inflate to several gigabytes. Its safe removal will force the system to recreate thumbnails, which temporarily loads the processor, but frees up a lot of space.

Also check the MIUI/Gallery/cloud/cache folder, which can have temporary cloud gallery files, and if you don't use the Xiaomi cloud, you can clean the folder completely.

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Regular manual check of the DCIM folder and system caches through the file manager gives a better result than automatic cleaners.