How to delete all messages on Xiaomi Redmi: The Complete Guide

Owners of Xiaomi and Redmi smartphones often face a situation where the memory of the device is filled with invisible files, and one of the main “eaters” of space are old SMS and MMS. Although one text message takes up negligible space, thousands of dialogues with nested images, geolocations and confirmation codes can “eat” gigabytes of internal memory, which leads to slowdown of the system, problems with installing updates and simply makes it difficult to find the necessary information in the notification stream.

Clearing correspondence is a process that may seem trivial at first glance, but there are some nuances in the MIUI or HyperOS shell. Standard deletion of a single message is time-consuming if your archive has years of correspondence. Moreover, some system messages from telecom operators or banks can be blocked by antivirus or hidden in spam, remaining on the device even after manual cleaning. Complete removal requires a comprehensive approach that includes working with standard tools and hidden system functions.

In this material, we will discuss in detail all available methods: from the banal selection of all dialogues in the Messages app to the use of the app. ADB-You'll learn how to avoid accidentally losing important two-factor authentication codes and why simply cleaning a shopping cart doesn't always make room instantly. Before performing any mass data cleanup actions, we strongly advise you to back up important dialogs, if any.

Standard cleaning through the “Messages” app

The most obvious and safe way to free up space is to use the built-in functionality of the Messages application. In modern versions of MIUI, the interface allows you to perform group operations, which greatly speeds up the process. However, many users limit themselves to removing individual dialogs, without knowing about the Clean All feature or mass allocation.

To start, open a standard messaging app. In the dialog list, click and hold your finger on any of them to activate the highlight mode. At the top of the screen, a toolbar will appear. It's important not just to poke each dialog separately, but to use the option menu, which is often hidden behind three dots or a menu icon.

In the menu that opens, select Remove or Recycle Bin icon. The system will request confirmation of action. Importantly, if you have Mi Cloud sync enabled, deletion may affect the cloud copy, if you do not pre-disable this option. Once confirmed, the dialogs will move to the Recycle Bin or be permanently deleted, depending on the shell version.

• 📱 Press and hold one dialog to enter the highlight mode.
• 🗑️ Select the “Select All” icon in the top corner of the screen (if available) or manually mark unnecessary chats.
• ✅ Press the delete button and confirm the action in the pop-up window.

It’s worth noting that some regions pre-installed Google Messages instead of the standard MIUI Messaging.The way it works there is similar, but the path to the menu may differ: Three dots → Choose all → Delete.The difference is that Google uses cloud-based history storage more often, so deleting on the device may not free up space unless the app’s cache is cleared separately.

Using the “Security” application for deep cleaning

There's a powerful built-in tool in Xiaomi's ecosystem called Security, which not only looks for viruses, but also analyzes memory contents to find junk that you can't see when you're browsing files, and it's one of the most effective ways to remove not only text, but also heavy MMS attachments.

Run the Security app and select Cleanup. After scanning, the system will suggest removing temporary files. However, we are interested in a deeper analysis. Click on Garbage Cleanup or go to Memory Management (if available in your version of MIUI), which often displays the Messages or SMS/MMS category, where you can choose in detail what to delete.

⚠️ Attention: The Security app may flag messages with confirmation codes as trash. Before clicking the Clear button, carefully review the list of files that will be deleted to avoid losing access to important services.

Deep Clean allows you to view large files sent through messages. Often users forget that the video or photo sent to the MMS is stored in the phone's memory even after the dialog itself is deleted, unless the cache has been completely cleaned. The security tool finds these "orphaned" files and suggests that they be deleted.

• 🛡️ Open the Security app on the home screen.
• 🧹 Select the Cleanup item and wait for the scan to be completed.
• 📂 Go to the “Big Files” or “Messages” section for a detailed view of attachments.

Delete messages through storage settings

An alternative method that allows you to delete all of your app data at once, including your messaging database, is through Android system settings, which is more radical because it resets the Messages app to factory status, and all of the dialogs will be lost, so it's only suitable for those who want to delete everything.

Go to Settings → Apps → All apps. Find Messaging app in the list. Select Memory or Storage from the app menu. Here you will see two buttons: Clear cache and Clear everything (or Reset).

Pressing the Clear Everything button will delete the local SMS/MMS database. Unlike conventional dialog deletion, this method ignores any protections against accidental deletion and obliterates the data by force, and then the first time the application is launched, the list of messages will be empty, like on a new phone.

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Cleaning the application data through settings is the only way to guarantee that you will delete all messages, including those that may have been stuck in system errors.

Cleanup SIM-maps and hidden messages

Many users forget that some of the messages can be stored directly on the Internet. SIM-This is true for old contacts, service messages of the operator or if you recently changed your phone and imported messages to the SIM. Deleting through the Android interface often does not affect this memory sector.

To access messages on SIM-map in some versions MIUI You need to use the dial menu. Enter the code ##4636## (not working on all Android models and versions) or go to the settings. SIM-maps through settings → The phone. → Status SIM-If the item "Reports to the SIM-Map available, you can see the list and delete them.

Also worth checking is the Spam and Blocked folder. MIUI has a powerful spam filter that automatically collects suspicious SMS. They don't show up in the shared list, but take up space. Go to the message settings (three points in the app → Settings → Antispam) and clear the blacklist and lock log.

• 📟 Check the settings. SIM-Maps in the menu "On the phone».
• 🚫 Open the Security app» → Antispam → Blocked.
• 🗑️ Clear logs of blocked calls and messages.

⚠️ Attention: Deletion of messages from SIM-The card is irreversible and does not affect cloud backups. Make sure there are no credit card activation codes among them if you plan to use this SIM on another device without a phone.

Radical method: reset via ADB (for advanced)

If standard methods don’t work, or messages are deleted but memory isn’t freed (which means the database file system is damaged), you can use USB debugging and the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) tool, which requires a computer connection and minimal technical skills.

First, activate Developer Mode. Go to Settings → About Phone and quickly click on MIUI build number 7 times. Then, in advanced settings, turn on USB Debugging. Connect the phone to your PC, install ADB drivers, and enter a command to access the device shell.

adb shell pm clear com.android.mms

This command compulsorily clears the data of the com.android.mms packet that handles messages, and Google Messages can be cleaned by replacing it with com.google.android.apps.messaging, which is equivalent to the "Clear Everything" button in the settings, but is done at the system level, avoiding possible interface errors.

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If the ADB team issues a “Permission denied” error, make sure that on the phone in the permission request window you have allowed debugging from that computer and ticked the “Always Allow” box.

Frequent questions and problems with removal

The process of clearing messages on Xiaomi and Redmi can be accompanied by a number of typical problems: users often face the fact that the space is not immediately vacated, or the messages appear again, this is due to the peculiarities of the Android file system and synchronization mechanisms.

One common problem is the “bloating” of the database mmssms.db. Even after deleting messages, the database file may not decrease in size automatically, since the OS marks the space as free, but does not compress the file. In such cases, only a complete reset of the application or the use of third-party gates to defragment the base (root is required), but most often the problem is solved by restarting the phone after cleaning.

To sum up, the best way to clean up your messages on Xiaomi is to use a combination of methods: first, standard dialog removal, then clearing through the Security app and, if necessary, resetting the app’s data. Regularly cleaning up your SMS not only frees up space, but also improves the speed of your smartphone, eliminating the need to index thousands of unnecessary entries.