Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones often face the mysterious situation when the device’s internal memory is full, and specific applications, photos or videos occupy only a small part of the available space. In the Storage section, you see that the lion’s share of gigabytes falls on the “Other” or “System Files” category, which causes confusion and panic, since standard cleaning methods through “Cleanup” do not give visible results.
In fact, this section is not a system bug, but a specific feature of the MIUI and HyperOS shells: temporary files, messenger cache, remnants of remote programs, streaming services data and error logs fall into this section, and understanding the nature of this data is the first step to successfully optimizing your Android smartphone without losing important personal data.
In this article, we will go into detail about what exactly is behind this label, why the system does not show these files in a standard Explorer, and what are the safe methods for freeing up space, and how to distinguish systemically important data from digital debris that can and should be removed.
The Nature of the “Other” Category in Android
The Android operating system that powers Xiaomi phones uses a complex file structure. The Others category is not a single file, but a collection of data that the system cannot classify as standard photos, videos, audio, or applications. Memory analysis algorithms often fail to recognize cache formats or files created by third-party programs in a non-standard way.
Most often, this section gets data from messengers like Telegram or Viber. When you watch a video in a chat, it is stored in cache. If the app can not correctly tell the system about the size of its cache, these gigabytes go to Other. It can also store offline maps, downloaded tracks from Spotify or Yandex Music, and data from navigators.
- 📂 Browser and social media cache that grows over time.
- 💾 Residual files after deleting games and heavy apps.
- 📦 Archives and ZIP-files downloaded from the Internet but not recognized as documents.
- 🗑️ Gallery basket, if it is not automatically cleaned.
⚠️ Note: Do not attempt to delete files from system folders through third-party root file managers unless you are sure of their purpose.
It is important to understand that the volume of this category is dynamic, it can grow dramatically after a system update or installing a large application, and then slowly decrease as optimization algorithms work, but rely on auto-cleaning is not worth it, since Xiaomi often aggressively limits the background activity of cleaning processes.
Memory analysis: where are gigabytes hiding
To effectively combat overcrowding, you need to find the source of the problem. Xiaomi's standard settings menu gives only the big picture. For detailed analysis, you'd better use the built-in Security app or third-party utilities that can build a memory card, which visualize the file system by showing the largest directories.
It often turns out that the bulk of the Other is the Android/data folder, which stores app data. For example, if you play a heavy game like PUBG or Genshin Impact, the graphics and resources cache can weigh 5-10 GB. When you delete the game through the standard menu, these files sometimes remain “hang” in the system, continuing memory.
Why does the system hide the real size of folders?
Another hidden consumer is streaming services. YouTube, Netflix and TikTok cache watched videos for faster scrolling of the tape.This cache is rarely labeled "temporary" and often falls into the "Other Files" category. Regularly cleaning the data of these apps through settings can free up several gigabytes.
- 🎮 Cash games and graphic resources (OBB file).
- 🎵 Downloaded music and podcasts in offline mode.
- 📸 Photos and videos created by the gallery.
- 💬 Media files from working chats in messengers.
⚠️ Note: Before clearing messenger data (WhatsApp, Telegram), make sure you have a backup of important correspondence. Clearing the data through the application settings will delete all message history on this device.
Safe cleaning through standard Xiaomi tools
The first and safest way to deal with garbage is to use MIUI tools, which are standard tools. Security has a built-in Cleanup tool. However, standard start-ups are often superficial, and you have to click on the Cleanup button and then go to the Deep Cleanup section.
In deep cleaning mode, the system will offer to analyze large files, unused applications and duplicates. Here it is important to be careful. The system can mark as garbage files that you created yourself, such as downloaded documents or saved stickers. Manual check before deleting is mandatory.
☑️ Safe cleaning algorithm
You should also check the storage settings. Go to Settings → Memory. Here, the system will prompt you to clear the Recycle Bin in the gallery or delete old screenshots. The Clean Now feature on this menu is more aggressive than a regular cleaning, and may affect some hidden caches.
Remember the Advanced Cleanup feature in the memory management menu, which allows you to remove the cache of specific applications, and if you see a social network that takes up 2 GB and the clean cache in the app settings shows 50 MB, then the volume is just in the category of Others.
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Use the “Free Space” feature in the Security app regularly, at least once a week, to prevent the accumulation of large amounts of fragmented temporary files.
Manual Deletion through File Manager
For advanced users, a method of manual cleaning through the standard File Manager is available, which allows you to get to those folders that are ignored by automatic scanners. You will need to enable the display of hidden files in the Explorer settings (three-point menu → Settings → Hidden files).
First of all, pay attention to the folders at the root of internal memory with the names of popular applications: Tencent (for games and games). QQ), Alibaba, Baidu. They often contain logs and temporary update files. Also check the Download folder, which is where installations often accumulate. APK-Files that are no longer needed after installing programs.
| Folder/Directory | What's inside | Can I remove it? | Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| MIUI/debug_log | Logs of system debugging | Yes. | Low (log will be created again) |
| Android/obb | Game data (maps, textures) | Only if the game is deleted | High (the game will stop running) |
| DCIM/.thumbnails | Photo and video miniatures | Yes. | Medium (the gallery will be slower to open at first) |
| Download | Downloaded files from the Internet | Selectively | Medium (you can delete the necessary documents) |
Pay special attention to the.thumbnails folder inside DCIM, which can grow to huge sizes if you take a lot of photos and videos, and deleting this folder is safe, the system will recreate it when you open the gallery, but it will free up space instantly.
When working with the file system, remember: if you are not sure what the file does, you should leave it. Deleting the system config can cause some functions of the smartphone to work incorrectly, for example, the alarm clock or vibration will stop working.
Using ADB for deep cleaning
The most powerful tool in the Android owner’s arsenal is USB debugging (ADB), a method that allows you to delete files that are not accessible even through a file manager with superuser rights, which requires a computer and a minimum set of ADB drivers.
First, activate Developer Mode. Go to Settings → About Phone and press 7 times on MIUI Version (or OS Version). Then, in the advanced settings, turn on “Debugging over USB.” Connect your phone to your PC and select File Transfer Mode.
adb shell pm trim-caches 999999999999This command compels the system to clear all available cache of applications, and the numbers indicate the limit in bytes, which we put extremely high to clear everything, and it's secure and doesn't delete personal data, only temporary files.
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Use of the ADB-Trim-caches commands are the most effective way to clean the Other without losing application data and system settings.
You can also delete remnants of remote applications via ADB. The adb shell pm list packages will show you a list of all packages. If you find a remote game package, you can delete the name packet by adb uninstall. Be careful: removing system packages (com.android...) can brick the device.
Overcrowding prevention and radical measures
To prevent the problem of Other Files from returning too quickly, change your smartphone usage habits. Check your messenger settings regularly: you can set the cache autodeletion on Telegram (Settings → Data and Memory → Memory Use → Maximum cache size). Set a limit, for example, 500 MB.
Avoid installing the Play Market cleaners with dubious reputations. Often they themselves are a source of garbage, intrusive advertising and data collection. Xiaomi's built-in tools are enough to maintain order. It is better to manually check large files once a month than to keep the background process running constantly.
- 🔄 Update apps regularly via Google Play or GetApps.
- 📸 Use cloud storage (Google Photos, Yandex Drive) with the function “Free space».
- 🚫 Turn off auto-save media from chat rooms to gallery.
⚠️ Note: If the Other category takes up more than 50% of the memory and does not decrease after all the cleanings, the system may have crashed the file table, in which case only a full reset to the factory settings (Hard Reset) with a pre-backup will help.
The radical measure is resetting, and before that, make sure to back up to your PC or the cloud, and when you reset, the phone will look like new, and the Other category will take up the smallest possible amount of system-related needs.