Xiaomi smartphones are famous for their excellent price-performance ratio, but over time, even the most powerful models start to work slower. This is the inevitable process of accumulating digital “junk” that arises from the active operation of the MIUI or HyperOS operating system and installed applications. Users often notice that the memory is full and the phone “brakes”, although there are few visually significant files on it.
Cleaning your device completely isn’t just about removing photos or videos, it’s a complex process that involves system files, app cache, and hidden folders. Properly doing this procedure allows you to extend your life, free up gigabytes of valuable space, and restore the speed of your interface. In this article, we’ll look at all the steps in deep cleaning your smartphone.
Before we start taking drastic measures, it’s important to understand what exactly occupies space in your Redmi or Poco memory. System debris accumulates unnoticed, but it can reach tens of gigabytes. We’ll look at safe methods to delete excess data that will not cause the device to break.
Analysis of occupied space and built-in cleaning tools
The first step to a clean smartphone should always be diagnostics. MIUI’s operating shell has powerful built-in tools that users often ignore in favor of third-party software. However, it is native tools that best know the structure of the system’s files and can safely delete temporary data.
To get started, you need to go to Settings → Memory or run the Security app, which is pre-installed on each device of the brand. Here you will see detailed statistics: how much space is occupied by applications, images, videos and system files. The built-in analyzer will show which categories are eating away your memory.
Using a standard cleaner allows you to remove cache, remnants of deleted applications and temporary Android files at a single click. App cache is temporary data that speeds up programs but over time inflates to unthinkable sizes. For example, a browser can store hundreds of megabytes of images from visited sites that you no longer need.
- 📱 Launch the Security app from the Tools folder».
- 🧹 Click on the “Cleaning” button to scan the system.
- 🗑️ Select “Clean” to remove the garbage found.
- 📊 Go to the Deep Cleanup section to analyze large files.
It's important to note that embedded tools don't always find everything superfluous, especially in messenger folders. So after an automatic cleaning, it's recommended that you do a manual audit of the storage. The Android file system is designed so that many programs create their own folders, which are not deleted when you uninstall the application itself.
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Before you start a deep cleanup, be sure to check the Recycle Bin folder in the gallery and cloud services, as deleted photos often still take up space in the cloud or locally for 30 days.
Manual cleaning of cache and application data
Automatic scanners often bypass social media cache and messengers because they are afraid to delete important authorization data. Telegram, WhatsApp and Viber are known for their gluttony: they store every photo and video you view in memory of the device. If you are in dozens of chat rooms, the volume of such garbage can reach 10-20 gigabytes.
To manually clean this data, go to Settings → Apps → All apps. Find the most heavy programs (usually social networks) and click on them. Inside the app menu, select Warehouse. Here you will see two buttons: Clear cache and Clear everything (or Erase data).
⚠️ Caution: Clicking the Clear Everything or Erase Data button will cause the app to be completely reset as if you had just installed it. You will log out of all accounts and correspondence may be lost if you do not make a backup copy.
The safest way to clean the cache is to keep your logins and passwords intact, but in some cases, such as Google Maps or Yandex.Maps, the cache can take up several gigabytes of loaded areas, and clearing it will force the cards to reload data from the network, which can be inconvenient if there is no Wi-Fi, but will free up a lot of space.
The gallery is worth a special attention. Often, in the folders of screenshots and edited photos, you save source files that you no longer need. The built-in Gallery tool has a concealment function, but does not always remove duplicates. It is better to use third-party utilities to find the same images or manually go through the recent album.
Why can’t cache be removed for all applications?
Delete hidden files and folders of messengers
The largest amount of invisible trash is hidden in the root folder of internal memory. To get to them, you'll need a file manager. On Xiaomi smartphones, it's simply called Explorer. Unlike a computer folder system, here the structure may seem chaotic, but it's logical.
First, check the Android/media folder (or Android/data on older versions of Android). This is where messengers store the received media files. Inside the com.whatsapp or com.tencent.mm (WeChat) folder, you can find gigabytes of video and voice messages that you haven't even opened.
You should also look at the DCIM folder, and in addition to your photos, there may be a folder called.thumbnails (hidden, visible only when you turn on the hidden files), which stores thumbnails of your photos for quick viewing in the gallery, and the folder can weigh up to several gigabytes.
| folder | What's stored | Can I remove it? |
|---|---|---|
| MIUI/debug_log | Logs of system debugging | Yes, it's safe. |
| Android/data | Cash of games and apps | With caution (only inside the messenger folders) |
| Download | Downloads from the browser | Yeah, after the check. |
| Tencent/MicroMsg | Garbage from WeChat | Yeah, unless you need old correspondence. |
When deleting files from system folders, be careful. Android is sensitive to the absence of mission-critical configs. If you are unsure of the purpose of a file with the.db or.ini extension at the root of the system, you better leave it alone. Only delete what you are 100% sure of, such as old.apk installation files or forgotten videos.
☑️ Checklist for manual folder cleaning
Use of specialized cleaning software
When embedded tools are scarce, third-party apps come to the rescue, but the market is oversaturated with virus killers and accelerators, which are viruses themselves and only slow down the system, and it’s important to choose proven solutions that really help clean up Xiaomi, rather than show ads.
One of the best tools for advanced users is SD Maid (SE version or 1/2), which can find “orphaned” files — the remnants of remote applications that lie dead weight.
It is not recommended to install apps with names like “Clean Master” or “Super Booster” unless they are from well-known developers, they often embed their ads into the notification system and consume battery power in the background, negating the entire effect of cleaning.
DiskUsage is a great tool for deep disk space analysis, which visualizes your smartphone memory as a diagram where the squares are the size of the files, and allows you to instantly find the heavyweights that are hiding in unexpected places, such as a forgotten movie in the download folder of a torrent client.
- 🛡️ SD Maid – to search for remnants of remote programs.
- 📁 Files by Google – to find duplicates and large files.
- 📊 DiskUsage – for visual analysis of the occupied place.
- 🧹 Clean Master – (not recommended) often contains ads.
Using third-party software requires permissions to access all files, and data security depends on the developer’s reputation, and always read reviews and check the number of downloads on Google Play before installing.
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Third-party cleaners are useful for finding duplicates and tails of remote programs, but the built-in MIUI/HyperOS cleaner copes with the base cache no worse and safer.
Radical measures: full reset to factory settings
If no method works and the phone continues to run unsteady, the final argument is a full reset, which will return the smartphone to a store-like state by completely removing all user data, accounts and apps, the only way to guarantee that all viruses and hidden system debris accumulated over the years of use are removed.
Before starting the procedure, it is critical to back up. Xiaomi smartphones have a built-in Mi Backup app (or simply Backup and Recovery in the settings), which allows you to save contacts, SMS, call log and even desktop layout to a memory card or to the cloud.
To perform the reset via the menu, go to Settings → About Phone → Reset. Select Erase All Data. The system will ask you to enter the screen unlock password and the Mi Account password to verify your identity. After that, a process that can take from 5 to 15 minutes will begin.
⚠️ Warning: Make sure the battery is at least 50-60% Interrupting the process due to battery discharge can damage the bootloader and turn the phone into a brick».
There is also a way to reset via Recovery Mode if the phone is not turned on or on the menu. To do this, turn off the smartphone and press the combination of the buttons Volume Up + Power before the Mi logo appears. In the recovery menu (Chinese or English), you need to select Wipe Data → Wipe All Data.
Once you reboot, you get a clean system. Don't rush to restore all the apps from the backup. You'd better install only the essentials and watch the phone work. Often the problem lies in one particular application, which you'll immediately return with a backup.
What is FRP Lock and Why is it Important?
Prevention: How to maintain order in the future
Once cleaned successfully, it's important to prevent recluttering. Digital hygiene should become a habit. First of all, turn off automatic media storage in messengers. WhatsApp and Telegram settings can prevent you from saving photos to the gallery, leaving them only available inside the app.
Check Download regularly. Browsers default to save all downloaded files there, and in a month there may be a landfill of installers, PDF-Make it a rule to remove the extra stuff once a week.
Use cloud storage. Google Photos, Yandex.Disk or MI Cloud allow you to set up automatic upload of photos and videos and then delete them from your phone's memory, which frees up gigabytes of space without losing access to the archive.
- 🔄 Turn off auto-save media in the messenger gallery.
- ☁️ Set up sync photos with the cloud.
- 📅 Check the download folder once a month».
- 🚫 Remove unused applications immediately.
Also, you should limit the background activity of applications. In the battery settings, you can prevent programs from working in the background if you do not need them all the time, this will not only save memory from bloating the cache, but also prolong the life of the smartphone from a single charge.
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Install the Memory Cleanup widget on your desktop, which will allow you to quickly clear RAM and cache with a single touch, without digging into the menu depths every time.