Redmi and Poco smartphone owners often face a shortage of internal memory when the system notifies them of a storage overflow. In such situations, the Mi Cloud cloud service comes to the rescue, which automatically saves copies of images, freeing up space on the device. However, not all users understand the difference between deleting a file from a phone and erasing it from the cloud, which sometimes leads to the loss of important data or, conversely, the inability to vacate space.
The process of managing a gallery in the Xiaomi ecosystem has its own peculiarities, which depend on the synchronization settings. If you just delete a photo in the Gallery app on the smartphone screen, it can disappear everywhere, including the company’s servers. Understanding the logic of cloud synchronization is critical for those who want to store archives only online or, conversely, completely clean up a cloud account.
In this guide, we will look at all the possible ways to manage media files in the Mi Cloud service, learn how to safely delete photos without losing the originals, and how to configure the system to work exactly as you need it, and we will also look at the nuances of working with the web version of the service and answer frequent questions that arise when cleaning the storage.
Principles of synchronization Mi Cloud
To properly manage the space, you need to be clear about how the sync mechanism works in the MIUI or HyperOS shell. When the Cloud Sync function is activated for the Gallery, your phone and Mi Cloud server are in constant contact. Any change made to one of these sources automatically applies to the other unless special exceptions are configured.
Many users mistakenly believe that the cloud is just a separate folder where you can fold extra, but it's actually a mirror image of your local gallery. If you delete a file on a device with sync enabled, the deletion command is sent to the server, and the photo disappears from the cloud too, and this is the default behavior designed to maintain the identity of the data on all your devices.
There is also the concept of “storage optimization”: When optimizing enabled, the original high-resolution photos are uploaded to the Mi Cloud, and the phone remains a smaller copy (sketch), which saves gigabytes on the smartphone itself, leaving the full versions available for viewing with the Internet.
⚠️ Warning: Before mass deletion of photos, be sure to check the sync status. If the cloud icon next to the photo is crossed out or missing, the file can only be saved locally or only online, which changes the deletion strategy.
It is important to distinguish between deletion through account settings and deletion through Gallery app. The first method allows you to manage cloud storage, while the second primarily affects local device files. Understanding this difference is key to successfully managing your Redmi memory.
Delete photo through the Gallery app on your smartphone
The most common scenario is to quickly free up space on your phone by deleting images that are already stored in the cloud, using the standard Gallery app built into the system, which looks simple but requires attention to detail so as not to delete the desired ones.
Open the app and go to the Albums tab. Find an album called "Recent" or "All Photos." This shows all the images on the device. You can select individual images with a long press or click "Select" in the top corner to mark multiple files for the operation.
- 📸 Click on the basket icon to initiate deletion of selected photos.
- ☁️ Note the pop-up notification: the system will ask if you need to delete files from the Mi Cloud or only from the device.
- 🗑️ If you want to leave a copy in the cloud, select the option “Delete only from your device” (if available in your version of the software).
- 🔄 When you select “Delete Everywhere”, the photo will disappear from all synchronized locations, including the web interface.
☑️ Pre-deletion check
Once deleted, the files are moved to the Deleted folder, where they are stored for another 30 days, which gives you time to recover the accidentally erased frames. However, if the sync was active, those 30 days are counted for the cloud copy, and cleaning the Deleted folder will lead to the final erasure of the data.
In some versions of the MIUI shell, the algorithm may be different, so if you don't see the source selection when you delete, then there's a full sync rule, so if you want to save the photo in the cloud but delete it from your phone, you'd better use the web interface or temporarily disable sync before deleting local files.
File management via i.mi.com web version
The most reliable way to remove photos from the cloud without affecting (or controlling) local files is to use the official Mi Cloud website, which is especially useful if you need to audit the archive from your computer or if the phone is already sold but the account remains active.
Go to i.mi.com and log in with your Mi Account and password. The web interface replicates the folder structure on your smartphone, but manages the server storage, and here you see all the photos that have been uploaded to the cloud, whether or not they are currently stored on any device.
Select the Gallery section from the menu on the left. You can view photos by date or album. To mass delete, use the Shift key on the keyboard (range allocation) or Ctrl (selective selection), clamping them and clicking on thumbnails. After highlighting, press the delete button in the top panel.
| Action. | Results on the server | Results on the phone (when synchronized) |
|---|---|---|
| Removal in the web interface | File removed from the cloud | The file will be deleted from the phone automatically. |
| Recovery on the web | File returned to the cloud | The file will be downloaded to the phone (if synchronization is enabled) |
| Cleaning the web basket | File destroyed permanently | Recovery is impossible anywhere |
What if the web version doesn’t upload a photo?
The web interface also allows you to manage albums. You can create a new album right in the cloud and move important pictures there, and then delete the unnecessary ones. However, remember that the structure of albums in Mi Cloud is often dynamic and depends on tags or dates, so manual movement can work differently than in the file manager.
Cleaning up memory through account settings
If your goal is not just to delete a few photos, but to completely free up space in the cloud or, conversely, turn off the download, you should consult the system settings. This section allows you to manage quotas and sync status for the entire device globally.
Go to Settings → Mi Account → Mi Cloud. Here you will see detailed statistics of memory usage: how many photos, contacts, voice recorder and other data are occupied. By clicking on the Gallery section, you will be placed in a list of all uploaded images, sorted by size or date.
This menu has a "Clear Cloud" feature that allows you to delete all photos from cloud storage, leaving them on your device (provided you have previously disabled sync or selected the appropriate item), which is a powerful tool that requires extreme caution.
- 💾 Check the amount of free space: if 99% is occupied, sync new photos will stop.
- 🔓 Disable the Cloud Sync slider before radical action to break the connection between your phone and server.
- 📉 Use size-sorting to find and remove the heavy videos that take up the most space.
- 📤 If necessary, download the data archive through the "Data Export" function to save a copy to your computer.
⚠️ Note: Clear the Cloud in your account settings may work irreversibly. Make sure you have a backup of important files on an external hard drive or other service before you start a mass deletion.
You can also change the quality settings of uploaded photos in this section, switching from Original to Compressed (if available in your area) will save space in the future, although this will not apply automatically for files that are already uploaded.
Disconnection of synchronization and its consequences
A common reason for wanting to delete a photo from the cloud is to stop automatically downloading new images. Disabling sync is not deleting data, it's breaking the communication channel. Understanding the consequences of this action will help avoid confusion in the future.
When you turn off gallery sync in your Mi Account settings, new photos stop uploading to the Mi Cloud server. Old photos that have already been uploaded stay in the cloud, but stop updating. If you delete them in the cloud after you turn off sync, they will stay on your phone because the connection is interrupted.
However, if you delete photos on your phone after you turn off sync, they just disappear from the device without affecting the cloud archive, which creates a situation where the data on the phone and in the cloud begin to differ, the system no longer tries to bring them to a common denominator.
Occupied space will remain reserved for your old photos until you manually delete them through the web interface or account settings as described in the previous sections.
For users who often change devices, it is recommended not to turn off sync completely, but to use the mode "Traffic Savings" or upload photos only via Wi-Fi. This will save a backup copy without consuming mobile Internet.
Working with the folder "Remote" and recovery
Xiaomi’s security system provides a buffer zone for deleted files. The Removed (or Recycle Bin) folder stores deleted photos for 30 days, which is valid for both local storage and cloud storage if sync is active.
You can see all the files that are tagged for deletion in this folder, they take up space in the cloud, even if you think they're already erased, and to make room in Mi Cloud, you have to go to that folder and select the "Clean All" option or delete specific files permanently.
If you accidentally delete an important image, the recovery process is simple. Go to Deleted, select the photo you want, and click Restore. The file will return to the original album and be visible again in shared tape. In the cloud, this process will also start re-uploading the original to all synchronized devices.
- ⏳ The shelf life in the cart is strictly 30 days, after which the deletion automatically becomes irreversible.
- 📉 Files in the Recycle Bin Continue to Take Place in Your Cloud Storage Quotas.
- 🔄 Recovering a large number of photos can take time and require a stable Wi-Fi connection.
- 🚫 After manual cleaning of the basket recovery through standard means is impossible.
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Tip: Check the Deleted folder periodically, and screenshots of documents or photos of checks that you have impulsively deleted, but which may be needed in a couple of weeks, may get stuck there.
Alternative methods of backup
If the built-in Mi Cloud (usually 5GB free) isn’t enough for you and you don’t want to pay for the expansion, consider alternatives. Removing photos from the Xiaomi cloud is often motivated by a desire to move to a more spacious service or local storage.
One of the best solutions is to use Google Photos, which is pre-installed on all Redmi smartphones and offers 15GB of free space (shared with Gmail and Drive) and backup setup in Google Photos allows you to automatically upload new images there, after which they can be safely deleted from the Mi Cloud.
Third-party cloud storage, such as Yandex.Disk, OneDrive or Dropbox, is also popular, and many of them offer a feature to autoload photos from the camera. Using these applications, you create an independent copy of the data. Once you confirm the download to an alternative service, removing from the native Xiaomi cloud becomes secure.
⚠️ Warning: Don’t rely on just one storage service. The three-copy rule states that data must be stored on your device, in the same cloud, and on an external medium (such as a computer.
For those who prefer local storage, connecting your smartphone to your computer regularly and copying the DCIM folder to your hard drive remains the most reliable and free way to archive, after which you can safely delete photos from your phone and from the cloud.
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The use of alternative services like Google Photos or Yandex.Disk allows you to bypass the 5 GB limit from Xiaomi and save access to the archive even when changing the smartphone brand.