How to Clean Place on Xiaomi: A Step-by-Step Guide

Xiaomi’s smartphones, including the Redmi and POCO series, are known for their excellent price-performance ratio, but even the powerful hardware eventually stumbles over the lack of space. When MIUI or its modern version of HyperOS signal a memory overflow, the device starts to run slower and new applications stop being installed, a familiar situation for many owners who have been accumulating gigabytes of unnecessary data for years.

The user often does not even realize that hidden messenger folders and forgotten downloads occupy the lion’s share of precious gigabytes. In this article, we will examine not only standard cleaning methods, but also advanced techniques available through the developer menu and file managers. You will learn to find “heavy” files that are hidden from the ordinary view and safely delete them without fear of damaging system settings.

There are many ways to free up resources, from built-in utilities to manual folder analysis. Regular cleaning helps extend the life of the drive and keeps the interface running at a high level. Let's look at what tools the shell itself offers and where to look for hidden reserves.

Use of the built-in "Security" application

The first and most obvious tool that is already installed in your smartphone is the system application Security, which was developed by Xiaomi engineers specifically to optimize the operation of MIUI and HyperOS. Unlike third-party counterparts, this utility has deep permissions to access system partitions, which allows it to clear the cache more efficiently without violating the integrity of the operating system.

To start the process, you just need to open the application and press the Cleanup button, and the system will automatically analyze the storage, find temporary files, remnants of deleted applications and other digital debris, but it should be understood that a standard scanner does not always find everything, especially if it is a specific folder of messengers or a cache of streaming services.

⚠️ Attention: The Acceleration feature in this application often closes the background processes, which can temporarily speed up work, but with active use of heavy games or navigation, the system will again start the necessary services.

There's a Memory section inside the app where you can see detailed statistics, and it's useful to use Deep Clean, which offers you to delete old screenshots, large files, and rarely used apps, and it's a safe method for beginners to quickly free up a few gigabytes without risking removing something important.

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Turn on automatic garbage cleaning in the Security settings when unlocking the screen to maintain order without unnecessary effort.

Storage analysis and search for large files

Often, it's not thousands of small pictures that fill the space, but a few forgotten high-resolution videos or archives of games. Modern versions of the HyperOS and MIUI 14 shells have a built-in storage analyzer that visualizes the occupied volume. You can find it in the Settings menu → About the phone → Storage or through a search by settings.

The system will show you the distribution of space by category: apps, images, videos, documents. Clicking on any category, you will be placed in a detailed list, sorted by size. This is the best way to find the "culprits" of space shortage. For example, you may find that the video editing app has saved several projects weighing 5-10 GB, which you have long forgotten about.

For more subtle control, you can use third-party but proven utilities like Files by Google or built-in Explorer, which allow you to sort files by date, type and size. Particular attention should be paid to the Download folder, which often includes APK installation files that are no longer needed after installing programs.

Remember to check the Bluetooth folder if you've ever taken files over the air, and you can have old videos or music that friends shared years ago, and deleting those files is the fastest way to get free space.

Clearing the messenger cache: Telegram and WhatsApp

Messengers are the main memory eaters on any modern Android smartphone. Telegram and WhatsApp by default store all received photos and videos in the memory of the device. Over time, this leads to the fact that the folder with media files of these applications grows to tens of gigabytes, occupying space that could be used for more important purposes.

In Telegram, the situation is handled in the most elegant way. Inside the app settings, go to Data and Memory → Memory Use. Here you will see a "Storage Media" slider. Set a value for example, "3 days" or "1 week." After that, click Clear cache. This action will delete all temporarily stored files, but will not affect your correspondence. When you reopen the photo or video, they will be re-uploaded from the cloud.

WhatsApp is a little bit more complicated, because it doesn't have this aggressive auto-delete cache. You'll have to go to Settings → Data and Storage → Storage Management. You can see the chat rooms that take up the most space and remove attachments selectively. Often, these chat rooms have hundreds of times sent "cards" or videos that have no value.

⚠️ Warning: Before clearing the messenger cache, make sure that important documents or photos are stored in the cloud or on your computer.

Also, you should disable autosave in the gallery. In the settings of both applications, find the option "Save to the gallery" and turn it off. This will prevent duplicate files: they will lie inside the messenger, but will not take up space in the system folder of images, which is often synced by Google Photos.

Working with Android folder and duplicates

With the release of new versions of Android, access to the Android/data and Android/obb folder has been restricted for security reasons, but that's where game caches and some application data are stored. The standard guide may not be suitable for these directories, you can use file managers with extended rights or special utilities to analyze the disk.

A common problem is duplicate files. Photo editing apps, document scanners, and instant messengers often create copies of the same images in different folders. For example, a photo sent to WhatsApp is copied to a shared gallery, then to the WhatsApp Images folder, and if you took a screenshot, it can also be copied to the Screenshots folder.

You can use specialized applications like Remo Duplicate Photos Remover or some "cleaners" built-in features to find duplicate files, and they compare checksums of files and suggest you delete copies while leaving the original, which is especially true for those who take a lot of serial shots or screenshots.

When working with a file system, always double-check what exactly you are deleting. Deleting system libraries can cause the phone to stop booting or basic features such as the camera or sound to stop working.

Removal of unused applications and their residues

Xiaomi smartphones often have a lot of apps pre-installed that the owner may never use. Some can be removed and some can only be disabled. Go to Settings → Apps → All apps and sort the list by size or date of last use.

If you see an application that hasn't been used in six months, you can delete it, but there's a caveat: once you delete the program, it often has its tails on the disk, folders with settings, logs and temporary data, and you can use the Cleanup function in the application menu or third-party uninstallers that find the remnants of the deleted programs to remove them.

Also worth paying attention to games: Modern mobile games can weigh 5-10 GB or more. If you've played a game and you don't plan to return, removing it is the most efficient way to get a lot of free space instantly. Remember to check your Android/obb folder after you delete heavy games, sometimes there are data files left in there.

Use of cloud services and memory cards

If internal memory is crowded and you don’t want to delete anything, consider transferring data to external storage. Although modern Xiaomi smartphones often lack a memory card slot, the use of cloud services becomes the standard. Google Photos, Yandex.Disk or Mi Cloud allow you to store media files on the Internet.

Google Photos has a handy "Free Space" feature that finds photos and videos that have already been successfully uploaded to the cloud and deletes local copies of them, which is a safe way to clean the gallery by keeping the archives online, and you can configure it to "Saving Space" or "Original."

Xiaomi ecosystem users benefit from the Mi Cloud, which allows you to synchronize contacts, messages, notes and photos. In the cloud settings, you can enable the option of optimizing storage, when the phone only has thumbnails and the full versions are stored on the server. This requires a stable Internet connection, but solves the problem of space shortage dramatically.

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Cloud storage is not a backup in the full sense of the word, but a way to expand the available space. Always have a local copy of critical data on your computer or external drive.

If your model supports microSD cards, be sure to use them to store photos, videos and music. In the camera settings, you can specify saving new images immediately to the card, which will keep the system partition free for applications and updates.

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