Xiaomi, Redmi and Poco smartphone owners often face a paradoxical situation: storage is crowded, but detailed analysis of folders reveals that photos, videos and apps occupy only a small fraction of the available space. The remaining volume disappears into nowhere, turning into a mysterious category “Other” or “Other”, which the standard system analyzer often can not detail, which leads to reduced performance, inability to install updates and constant notifications of space shortages.
The problem lies not in the hardware defect of flash memory, but in the features of the MIUI and HyperOS shell. Aggressive media caching, system logs, remnants of remote applications and specific data compression formats create the illusion of “missing” gigabytes. In this material, we will conduct a deep diagnosis so that you can regain control of your device and free up valuable space.
To make matters worse, standard cleaning tools often mask the problem by removing temporary files that are regenerated an hour later. To effectively combat overcrowding, you need to understand the structure of the Android file system and know where the heavyweights are hiding. We'll look at methods ranging from safe manual cleaning to advanced computer analysis.
System category "Other": what is hidden inside
When you go into the storage settings, the lion's share of the space can be marked as "Other" or "Other" -- not a counting error, but a hoard of heterogeneous data, including app cache (especially messengers and streaming services), offline navigation maps, temporary system update files, and data that the system has failed to classify automatically.
And you should pay special attention to messengers like Telegram or WhatsApp, which can take up tens of gigabytes, storing all the videos and pictures you've watched in hidden folders, and the system sees it as "Other" until you open the settings of the app itself, and then you get files that are left over after you delete the programs, so-called "digital garbage."
Why can't the system see the files?
It’s important to understand that the system partition also has its own weight, which can grow over time: debugging logs, error reports, and backups created by the shell gradually “eat” the free space. Without regular hygiene, this process can become uncontrollable, especially on models with a base storage capacity of 64 or 128 GB.
Diagnostics with a storage analyzer
Before you blindly delete files, you need to do a good diagnostic. The built-in cleaning tool in MIUI is useful but superficial. For deep analysis, you better use specialized tools that visualize the structure of folders. One of the most effective is Files by Google or DiskUsage.
These apps build a memory card, where each rectangle is the size of a file or folder, and it instantly reveals bloated directories, often half the space is taken up by a forgotten folder with the cache of a browser or offline movie on Netflix.
When using third-party analyzers, be careful: do not delete files from Android/data or Android/obb system folders unless you are 100% sure of their purpose. Deleting critical libraries can lead to the crash of applications or the system itself.
Hidden folders of messengers and social networks
The biggest memory eaters on Xiaomi smartphones are social networks. Telegram, for example, is set to unlimited caching of media files by default. You can watch a video once, but it will stay in the phone's memory forever, taking up space in the hidden cache.
To fix this, you go to the settings of the app itself. In Telegram, the path looks like this: Settings → Data and memory → Memory use. Here you can see the total size of the cache and clear it with a single button. It is also recommended to limit the auto-save media to the gallery.
- 📱 Open the messenger settings and find the item "Data and memory».
- 🗑️ Click “Clear Cache” – it is safe and will not delete your correspondence.
- ⚙️ Set a cache size limit (e.g. 1 GB) or storage period (3 days, 1 week).
- 🚫 Turn off auto-save photos and videos to the phone gallery for all chats.
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Turn on the “Fast Video” function in Telegram – it is not saved to the cache completely if you have not watched it to the end, which saves space.
Similar to WhatsApp and Viber, they back up locally before sending it to the cloud. Check the Android/media/com.whatsapp folder, which often contains old databases that can be safely deleted if cloud sync is set up.
Analysis of DCIM, MIUI and Thumbnails folders
The standard DCIM folder stores your photos and videos, but it has hidden threats inside it. Often users are unaware of the.thumbnails folder (the point at the beginning makes it hidden), in which the system stores thumbnails of all your images for quick display in the gallery.
Over time, this folder can be as big as 5-10 GB. If you delete thousands of photos, but the space is not free, it's probably the thumbnails that have bloated, and you can safely remove them, and the system will recreate them again, but it's the actual size.
| folder | What's inside | Can be removed |
|---|---|---|
| DCIM/.thumbnails | Photo and video miniatures | Yeah (recreate) |
| MIUI/debug_log | Logs of system debugging | Yes. |
| Android/data | Cash and application data | Careful (cache only) |
| MIUI/Gallery/cloud | Local copies of the cloud | Yes (if there is in the cloud) |
It's also worth checking the MIUI/Gallery/cloud folder. If you're syncing with Mi Cloud, local copies of the originals can be stored here, and make sure you don't need these files locally before you erase them.
Work with the "System" section and debugging logs
The System section on Xiaomi may grow due to logs. Engineering menu or active debugging USB They can generate huge text files of reports, and you can find them along the way. MIUI/debug_log These files are useless to the average user and are subject to deletion.
⚠️ Note: Never delete files from the folder MIUI/dex Or manually through a file manager, which can lead to a phone bootloop.
Another source of system debris is update residues. Sometimes, after a new version of MIUI is successfully installed, the installation package is not automatically deleted. Check the root of the internal memory for files with the.zip extension or folders called update.
☑️ Systemic debris check
For advanced users, there is a way to clean up through Recovery Mode. When you load into recovery mode (press the power button and volume up), you can select "Wipe Cache" to clear the system cache without affecting personal data.
Duplicate files and “heavy” content
Often, the memory is filled with duplicates. You could download a file, forget, download again, or the app created a copy when exported. Xiaomi has a built-in function to find duplicates in the Security app → Clean up → Delete duplicates. It works well, but third-party apps find more.
Pay attention to the format of video shooting. Many Xiaomi models are able to shoot in 4K or 8K. One minute of such a video can weigh 400-600 MB. If you do not plan to edit videos, switch to FullHD (1080p) - the difference in quality on the screen of the smartphone is minimal, and space is saved many times.
Also check the Download folder. Browsers and instant messengers often drop everything downloaded there: PDF-document, APK-This folder rarely cleans automatically and can store gigabytes of junk for years.
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Regular manual check of the Downloads folder and disabling autosave in messengers solve 80% of memory problems.
Radical measures: resetting and formatting
If nothing helps and the Other category continues to grow, it may be that the file system is corrupted or has indexing errors, in which case the way is to reset completely to the factory settings (Wipe Data).
Make sure to make a full backup before you do it. On Xiaomi, it's convenient to do it via the Mi Cloud or locally on your computer. Once reset, the phone will be as new as it is, and the bloated memory will disappear as the file system will be formatted clean.
⚠️ Warning: Full reset deletes ALL data, including contacts, photos and apps. Make sure your sync with your Google account is successful and you remember your password.
There is a less radical method of formatting the internal drive as an external drive (not recommended for ordinary users), but on modern versions of Android this option is often hidden or absent.
Using ADB for deep cleaning
For experts, a computer-based cleaning method using the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) toolkit is available, which allows you to delete files that are hidden from the average user even with superuser rights in some system partitions.
You'll need a PC, USB-cable and on-line debugging USB If you plug in the device, you can get a list of the heaviest folders by using the adb shell du command. -a /storage/emulated/0 | sort -n. This will show the exact weight of each directory in text form.
adb shell pm clear com.android.browserThis command, for example, can completely clear the system browser if it is stuck and does not delete the cache by standard methods, but using ADB requires caution: one wrong command can disrupt the system.