How to completely remove photos and videos from Xiaomi storage: 5 proven ways

Xiaomi’s smartphone storage quickly fills with photos and videos — especially if you’re actively using the camera or saving media from messengers. But simply clicking “Delete” in the gallery is often not enough: files can stay in the basket, duplicate in the Mi Cloud cloud or take up space in hidden folders. In this article, we’ll discuss all possible ways to delete, including cleaning the cart, deleting from the cloud, and even recovering accidentally erased files (if necessary).

Xiaomi devices feature built-in memory management tools such as Cleanup and File Manager, but they don’t always manage the junk files left over from editing photos or exporting videos, and we’ll show you how to find and delete even media that aren’t displayed in the standard gallery, and why some files are returned after deletion and how to fix them.

1.Remove through the standard Xiaomi gallery

The most obvious way is to use the built-in Gallery app, but there's a nuance here: deleted files go into the bin and take up space for another 30 days, and to free up the memory completely, you have to clear it.

Instructions:

• 📱 Open the Gallery app on the main screen.
• 🔍 Select an album (e.g. Camera, Downloads or Screenshots).
• 🗑️ Press and hold your finger on the file, then mark others (or tap Select All).
• 🚮 The Remove button will appear at the bottom of the screen. Press it.
• 🧹 For complete removal, go to the basket (inlay at the bottom) → Clean up.

⚠️ Note: If you use Google Photos or Mi Cloud for backup, files may remain in the cloud even after being deleted from your device.

2. Cleaning the basket and hidden folders

Many users forget that the Recycle Bin in Xiaomi is not automatically cleaned, files in it take up space on the internal drive until you manually delete them, and some media files are stored in hidden folders (for example,.thumbnails for previews or DCIM/.thumbs).

How to clean your cart and hidden files:

1. Open the Gallery → go to the basket tab.
2. Click Clean (or select files and delete them again).
3. For hidden folders, use File Manager:

Remove files from the gallery basket

Clear the.thumbnails folder

Checking Cloud Backups

Remove duplicates in Google Photos (if used)

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⚠️ Note: The.thumbnails folder can be recreated by the system. If it fills up quickly, try turning off preview generation in the gallery settings (if this option is available for your model).

3. Removal from cloud storage (Mi Cloud and Google Photos)

If your Xiaomi has Mi Cloud or Google Photos enabled, deleting files from your device will not cause them to disappear from the cloud.

• 📱 Files will remain available on other devices connected to the same account.
• 💾 They will take up space in cloud storage (especially relevant for Google Photos, where only 15GB is provided for free).
• 🔄 When you restore from backup, files can be returned to your phone.

How to remove media from the cloud:

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If you want to free up space in the cloud but are not sure which files you can delete, use the Google Photo Freeup feature, which automatically prompts you to delete blurred images, screenshots and duplicates.

4.Use of a file manager for deep cleaning

The standard Xiaomi gallery doesn’t always show all media files. For example, videos from instant messengers (Telegram, WhatsApp) or downloads from the browser can be stored in other folders. To find and delete them, use File Manager.

Step-by-step:

1. Open the Files app.
2. Go to the Category → Images or Videos tab.
3. Sort files by size (slip them by three points → Sort → by size) to first remove the largest ones.
4. To find duplicates, use the built-in function: Settings (⋮) → Analysis of the vault → Duplicate files
5. Delete unnecessary files, then clear the file manager basket (the Recycle Bin tab).

⚠️ Be careful with system application folders (for example, Android/data). Deleting files from there can cause malfunctions in the software. It is better to use the built-in Cleanup function in Security to remove the cache.

5. Removal via PC (for mass cleaning)

If you have thousands of files on your phone, it's not easy to delete them one by one, so it's easier to connect Xiaomi to your computer and use Windows Explorer or Mac Finder, which is also useful if the phone is buggy and you can't delete files through the interface.

How to connect and delete files:

• 🖥️ Connect your phone to your PC through USB-cable (use the original cable for a stable connection).
• 📱 On the smartphone screen, select the file transfer mode (MTP).
• 📂 Open this computer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) → Find the Xiaomi device.
• 🗂️ Go to folders: Internal storage/DCIM/ Camera Internal storage/Download/ Internal storage/Pictures/ Screenshots
• 🗑️ Delete unnecessary files (they will disappear from the phone immediately, without a shopping cart).

🔹 Advantage of the method: You can use search by extensions (for example,.mp4 for video or.jpg for photo) and delete files in packs.

🔹 Disadvantage: Some system folders can be hidden even when you connect to a PC. Root rights will be required to view them (not recommended for beginners).

6.Recovery of accidentally deleted files

If you delete important photos or videos, you can try to restore them for a limited time, both Xiaomi’s built-in tools and third-party apps will do.

Recovery methods:

• 🔄 Gallery basket: Files are stored for 30 days.Open Gallery → Basket and restore the necessary.
• ☁️ Mi Cloud or Google Photos: Check the cloud service cart (storage period – 30-60 days).
• 🛠️ Third-party utilities: Apps like DiskDigger or Recuva (for PC) can recover files if they haven't been overwritten with new data. The chance of success is higher if you haven't recorded new media after deleting it.

⚠️ Note: Do not install recovery software on the same disk where the deleted files were stored (in Xiaomi’s case, this is internal memory) and this will reduce the chances of successful recovery.

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The faster you start recovering from deletion, the more likely you are to succeed: Every new photo or video reduces the chances of returning old files.

7. How to prevent the reappearance of deleted files

Sometimes users are faced with files returning after deletion, for several reasons:

• 🔄 Cloud Sync: If you have automatic backup enabled in Mi Cloud or Google Photos, files can be restored the next time you connect to the Internet.
• 📱 App cache: Some messengers (e.g. Telegram) store media in the cache and can re-download them.
• 🔧 File system errors: Rarely, but it happens that the system recovers files after a reboot (usually a sign of a failure).

How to avoid returning files:

1. Turn off automatic synchronization in Settings → Accounts. → Mi Cloud/Google.
2. Clear the messenger cache in Settings → Apps → [App name] → Storage → Clear the cache.
3. If files are returned after resetting, check backups in Mi Cloud – they may be recovered from the cloud.

FAQ: Frequent questions about deleting media files on Xiaomi