How to find out how much RAM is occupied on the Xiaomi phone: expert analysis

Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphone owners often face the need to monitor system resources. Understanding how much RAM (RAM) is currently in use helps diagnose the causes of a device slowdown or sudden app reboots. The MIUI shell and its modern HyperOS counterpart provide enough tools for monitoring, but they are not always obvious to the average user.

Busy memory directly affects the multitasking of the system. As the free resource comes to an end, Android begins to aggressively unload background processes, which leads to the need to reopen applications. In this article, we will examine in detail all available methods of verification, from regular funds to hidden engineering codes.

To start with, not all of the megabytes you see in the specs when you buy are usable, some of them are reserved by the system to ensure stable kernel performance and mission-critical services, which is why the actual amount of free memory is always less than the manufacturer claims.

Checking through the standard “Security” application

The fastest and most affordable way to get information about the current state of RAM is to use a pre-installed system application, which is called “Security” on Xiaomi smartphones and has a characteristic green icon with a shield, which is integrated deep into the system and shows the most reliable data without distortion.

To start the analysis, you need to open the application and find the Memory widget, which is usually displayed on the main screen of the program as a pie diagram or a text pointer with a fraction (for example, 4.5GB/6GB).

⚠️ Attention: The "Clear Memory" function in the Security application often just restarts processes, rather than freeing them forever.The system itself quickly returns the necessary services to RAM to speed up their re-start, so do not fanatically chase 100% free memory.

If the widget doesn't appear on the app's home screen, try swiping left or right inside the Security menu. In some versions of MIUI, the functionality is spread out by tab. You can also use the desktop widget: a long tap on an empty area of the screen will allow you to add a Memory plaque that will show real-time employment.

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For continuous monitoring, add the Memory widget to your desktop, which will allow you to see the load on RAM without opening unnecessary applications.

It's important to understand the difference between cached and active processes. Security applications often show aggregate data where app cache takes up a significant portion. This is normal Android behavior that is designed to speed things up, but users often mistake this for a memory leak.

Real-time monitoring through the developer menu

For a deeper analysis and real-time view of detailed statistics, the developer menu is ideal. This hidden part of the system is designed for debugging, but contains extremely useful tools for ordinary users who want to know what exactly “eats” their RAM.

To activate this mode, go to Settings → About Phone and find the MIUI Version (or OS Version). You must quickly click on this item 7-10 times in a row until you notice that you have become a developer.

Inside the developer menu, we're interested in "Running Services," which shows you an accurate list of all active processes, sorted by memory, and you'll see not only custom apps, but also Google Play Services, MIUI Daemon, and more.

Using this partition, you can identify a particular application that is not working properly and consuming resources. If you see that an unsolicited process takes hundreds of megabytes, you can force it to stop right from that menu, which is more efficient than a standard cleaning.

⚠️ Warning: Be careful when shutting down system processes in the developer menu.Forcing critical Android services to shut down can lead to system instability or temporary loss of communication.

Also on the developer menu, you can find a memory usage schedule if your firmware version supports this feature, which shows how resources have been consumed over the past hour or day, which is useful for identifying voracious updates.

Engineering menus and hidden codes for diagnostics

There's another layer of access to information, the engineering menu, which is a specialized interface for testing devices, and on Xiaomi smartphones, it's often accessed through a set of special codes in the Phone app.

The most universal code for checking information is ##4636##. Once the last character is typed, the menu should open automatically, and if that doesn't happen, then your firmware version (especially the global version) may have limited access to that code by the manufacturer.

In the menu that opens, select Statistics or Statistics, and you can find sections related to memory usage, although more often this code is used to check Wi-Fi and cellular statistics. Viewing detailed RAM information sometimes requires you to click on the Usage statistics tab.

If the codes don’t work, you can try installing a third-party app to call the engineering menu, as newer versions of Android often block access to hidden features through dialing for security reasons.

Using third-party utilities for detailed analysis

When built-in tools are scarce, Google Play Market apps come to the rescue, providing more flexible display settings, graphics and memory history, but only using proven solutions to avoid overloading the system.

One of the best utilities is DevCheck Device & System Info, which provides comprehensive information about all components of a smartphone. In the Memory section, you can see not only the current boot, but also the type of memory (LPDDR4X, LPDDR5), the frequency and number of channels.

Another popular option is CPU-Z. Although the program was originally designed for processors, the "Device" or "System" tab perfectly shows the amount of total and free RAM. The data here is updated in real time, which is convenient for testing performance in games.

⚠️ Note: Avoid installing "memory accelerators» (RAM Boosters) with aggressive advertising. They often create the illusion of acceleration by simply forcibly shutting down processes that the system will immediately start again, while consuming battery power.

For advanced users with access to a computer, an excellent tool is ADB (Android Debug Bridge), connecting the phone with USB and debugging enabled, you can enter the command adb shell dumpsys meminfo, which will give a detailed report in text form about how many bytes each process takes.

adb shell dumpsys meminfo | grep"Total PSS"

This command will output the total value of physical memory used (PSS), which is a more accurate indicator of the real load on the system than simple numbers from the settings.

Analysis of memory consumption of different types of applications

Understanding which apps are consuming resources is critical to optimization: Social media and messengers in the MIUI shell are often aggressive, trying to constantly update content in the background.

Modern games require a significant amount of RAM to load textures and game engines. If a phone with 4 GB of memory runs a heavy game, the system can allocate up to 70-80% of the total resource for it, which will lead to the unloading of other applications.

• 📱 Social media: Telegram, VK Instagram and Instagram often take 200 to 500MB in active mode due to media content caching.
• 🎮 Games: PUBG Mobile, Genshin Impact and Call of Duty can consume 1.5 to 2.5 GB of RAM while playing.
• 🌐 Browsers: Chrome and Yandex.Browser create a separate process for each tab, which quickly adds up to hundreds of megabytes.

Android.system is the process that controls the basic functions of the OS, and if it's consumed soaring, it could indicate a failure in some Google service or the MIUI shell itself.

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The main users of RAM are always browsers with multiple tabs and social networks that work in the background, and their periodic cleaning gives a tangible increase in performance.

Optimization and Expansion of Virtual Memory

Xiaomi’s new models with MIUI 12.5 Enhanced Edition, MIUI 13, 14 and HyperOS have a Memory Extension feature that allows you to reserve a portion of the embedded storage (ROM) and use it as additional RAM.

This technology works like a swap on Linux, where when physical RAM is filled, the least-used data is moved to the phone's fast drive, which helps keep more applications in the background, but doesn't increase the actual CPU speed.

You can turn this on by Settings → Additional → Expansion of memory. Here you will be asked to select the amount of memory you add (usually from 2 to 5 GB).

However, it’s worth remembering that using ROM as RAM has its downsides: even fast UFS 3.1 speeds are lower than LPDDR5, and constant data recording can theoretically shorten the life of the drive, although for modern smartphones this risk is minimal.

⚠️ Note: On older models with a slow type of eMMC memory, turning on the memory expansion function can, on the contrary, slow down the interface.

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