Owners of the popular budget smartphone Xiaomi Redmi 8 often face the need to control the space occupied on the device. Model, released in 2019, originally offered modest by modern standards, the volume of the drive, so the issue of free gigabytes remains relevant even after several years of operation. Understanding how the file system of your gadget, allows you to significantly extend its comfortable life.
Not only does space shortage make it impossible to install new apps or take a photo, it also causes noticeable "brakes" in the interface. Android, running under the shell of MIUI, requires a free buffer to perform background processes correctly. If you ignore the fullness of storage, you can face sudden crashes of programs or even a cyclical reboot of the device.
In this article, we will take a look at all the available ways to monitor resources, from standard menus to the use of engineering codes, learn how to distinguish system files from user debris and understand what data can be safely deleted without risking loss of important information.
Standard MIUI interface for vault verification
The easiest and safest way to know the current state of the drive is to use the built-in operating system tools, which requires unlocking the screen and finding the desktop icon of the Security app, which is preinstalled on all Xiaomi devices and has a characteristic green lightning shield.
Once you run the utility, you'll see a Cleanup button on the home screen, and clicking on it will start a system scan that will reveal temporary files, remnants of deleted applications, and advertising debris. However, to get detailed information about the space allocation, you need to click on the Memory (or Storage) icon, which is usually located just below or in the toolbar.
Here, the system will show a pie chart, where the color is highlighted different categories of data: applications, images, videos, documents and system files, which allows you to instantly assess what exactly is eating up precious gigabytes. For example, you can find that messengers like WhatsApp or Telegram take up more space than all installed games combined.
⚠️ Note: Do not delete files from Android folders, MIUI Or the System manually through the file manager if you're not sure what they're supposed to do, and that could cause the interface to malfunction or you might lose your settings.
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Use the built-in Deep Cleanup feature in the Security app only after manually viewing the file list so you don’t accidentally delete important working documents.
Use of the About Phone Menu and Engineering Codes
More technical information can be accessed through the standard settings menu. Go to Settings → About Phone. This section shows the total amount of internal memory and the approximate amount of free space. This also shows the MIUI firmware version and the Android version, which is important when looking for compatible applications.
For a deeper analysis, which is available to advanced users, there is a special engineering code. Open the Phone app and type the combination ##6484##. This will launch the CIT (Customer Interface Test) menu, designed to diagnose hardware components.
In the test list, you need to find an item related to Internal Storage or Memory, which will not only show logical volume, but can also provide data on the health of the drive, although on the Redmi 8 model the functionality can be limited to basic indicators. Using codes is a quick way to check whether the system sees the entire declared volume after flashing.
What if the code doesn't work?
Analysis of RAM (RAM) of the device
Besides permanent storage, the critical parameter for the speed of Xiaomi Redmi 8 is RAM. The device is equipped with a module of 3 or 4 GB, which for modern heavy applications may not be enough.
Go to Settings → About Phone and find the Memory bar (not to be confused with storage). Click on it quickly 5-7 times in a row. This action activates the hidden switch Advanced Memory or simply opens detailed statistics of real-time RAM usage.
In the window that opens, you'll see a graph showing how many megabytes are occupied right now and how many are available, and here's a list of the most voracious processes, and if less than 15-20% of the total amount of free memory is left, the system will force the background applications to close, as you'll notice by constantly rebooting tabs in the browser.
- 📱 System Processes: Basic Android Services That Cannot Be Disabled Without Root Rights.
- 🌐 Background apps: Social media and messengers waiting for messages often consume up to 500 MB.
- 🎮 Heavy gaming: After launch, memory may not be released even after closing.
Detailed analysis through Settings and Storage
For those who prefer the classic Android interface, a more detailed view is available. Go to Settings → Memory. Unlike the Security app, here the data is presented as a list of categories, sorted by the amount of space occupied.
Clicking on the App category will get you into the full list of installed software, and you can see not only the size of the installation file itself (APK), but also the amount of data that the application has accumulated during operation. Often the cache of navigation maps or offline translators grows to several gigabytes.
The other section is a category that MIUI often places files that it couldn't automatically classify, which can be remnants of deleted programs, logs of errors or downloaded files from messengers, and cleaning this partition through standard system tools is usually safe, but it's better to double-check the contents through the file manager.
| Data category | Description | Cleaning recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| Annexes | Installation files and program data | Remove unused, clean up heavy cache |
| Images | Photos and screenshots in the gallery | Move to PC or cloud |
| Video | Camera footage and uploaded videos | The most extensive section requires regular cleaning |
| Audio. | Music and recordings of the recorder | Check for duplicates |
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Regular cleaning of the application cache (not data!) can free up to 2-3 GB of space without losing logins and program settings.
Hidden folders and junk files in the system
Xiaomi’s Android file system is designed to hide many temporary files in hidden directories, requiring a file manager with hidden file rights, such as Xiaomi’s standard Explorer or a third-party Total Commander.
At the root of internal memory, you often find folders called.thumbnails, which store thumbnails of your photos for quick display in the gallery, and over time, this folder can grow to incredible sizes (sometimes 5-10 GB), although you won't notice it visually in the gallery. It can be cleaned, the system will create it again.
It's also worth checking the folder. MIUI → debug_log. This is where you collect system error reports, and unless you're a developer and you send error reports to Xiaomi, you don't need that data. Deletion is safe and often frees up a lot of space.
⚠️ Attention: Folder Android/data It contains game and application data, and if it's cleaned completely, it'll cause you to reset your game progress and lose your offline maps.
Optimize and expand memory with the help of SD-map
The Redmi 8 has a separate microSD card slot, which is a great solution to the space problem, but just inserting the card is not enough, you need to set up the system to work with it properly.
In modern versions MIUI The default option of installing apps on a memory card is hidden or limited. However, you can migrate media files. Go to the camera settings and select saving photos and videos to the camera. SD-This will prevent the internal memory from filling up quickly.
Also, many applications, such as Spotify, Telegram or Yandex.Music, allow you to choose a path in your internal settings to save cache and downloaded files. Change this path to an external map to free up internal storage for system operations.