Xiaomi’s ‘Other’ Storage Category: What’s Hiding and How to Make Space

Users of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones often face a mysterious situation: the internal memory is full, but when detailed analysis turns out that the lion’s share of space is occupied by an obscure category “Other” – not just a counting error, but a system mechanism that accumulates temporary files, logs and app cache. Understanding the nature of this data is critical to keeping the device running.

The MIUI or HyperOS operating system aims to optimize the gadget by storing a lot of intermediate data. However, over time, this buffer grows to tens of gigabytes, preventing the installation of new programs and saving photos. In this article, we will discuss in detail what this section consists of, why it should not be ignored, and what are the safe methods for releasing valuable megabytes.

There's a common misconception that cleaning the Other section requires a complete reset. It's not. A smart approach allows you to remove up to 80 percent of the garbage without affecting personal contacts or important documents. Let's figure out what's behind this system label.

The Anatomy of the Other Section: What is Stored There

The Other (or Other) category in a standard analyzer is a collection of files that the system cannot uniquely classify as images, videos, music, or applications, including archives, documents, installation packages. APK, and data messengers that do not have decrypted MIME-file manager.

The bulk of the volume is often cache files and remnants of deleted programs. When you delete an application, its temporary files and settings can remain in memory. In addition, error logs, geolocation data for offline maps and buffered streaming data from browsers and video services are recorded here. Android marks them as system or unknown to prevent accidental deletion of critical components for the OS.

⚠️ Note: Do not attempt to manually delete files from system folders through root rights without an accurate understanding of their purpose.This can lead to a cyclical smartphone reboot or loss of access to settings.

It is important to distinguish between system cache and user data. If your personal documents are downloaded from the Internet in the Other section, it is safe to delete them. If there are messenger databases, cleaning can erase the history of correspondence, so you need to segment the content before any manipulation.

Why does memory fill up so quickly?

Modern applications have become much heavier, social networks such as Telegram or WhatsApp cache the media they view to speed up re-downloading. 10-15 GB, but in the file manager it is often displayed as “Other”, since these are not original photos from the gallery, but copies of them in the application database.

Another reason is that MIUI works: it backs up settings and local application backups, which are stored in internal memory by default, and if you haven't reset or transferred backups to your computer in a long time, they keep accumulating, eating up space invisibly.

Users often forget about downloads. Browser-based files, PDF documents, presentations, and game installers, if not automatically recognized, fall into the category of other things. The lack of regular “digital hygiene” results in a smartphone overloading gigabytes of digital junk in a year of use.

Safe cleaning through built-in facilities

The first and most secure step is to use the regular Security app, which has access to system logs and knows which files can be deleted without compromising stability, run a scan and press the Clean button, which will remove the obvious debris but will not affect the deep cache of the applications.

For a deeper cleaning, go to the storage settings. On the Settings path → About Phone → Warehouse, you can see a detailed breakdown. By clicking on the Apps category, you can manually manage the data of each program. Here, it is important to find the leading memory-consumption apps and clear their cache individually.

Special attention should be paid to messengers. Telegram or Viber has its own memory settings. For example, Telegram on the Settings path → Data and memory → Memory use can clear the cache without deleting the chats themselves. This often frees up 2 to 5 GB of space instantly.

Radical methods: cleaning through PC and ADB

If the built-in methods don't work, you can connect your smartphone to your computer. When you select file transfer mode (MTP), you'll see internal memory as a network drive. Here you can safely delete folders with the names of remote applications or old archives. However, be careful: do not delete Android, MIUI or system folders.

For advanced users, there is an ADB tool (Android Debug Bridge) that allows you to delete files that are hidden from the average user, you need to enable debugging over USB in the Developer menu and install drivers on your PC.

The command to output a list of large files can look like this:

adb shell ls -lSh /storage/emulated/0/Android/data/

This command will show the contents of the application data folder. You can manually delete the contents of the cache folders (usually cache folders inside application directories), but do not touch files or databases folders unless you are sure of their contents.

⚠️ Attention: Use ADB Deleting system files through the command line is irreversible and can turn the phone into a brick that requires flashing through the Fastboot.

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Use the Mi PC Suite program or Xiaomi’s official backup tools before a radical cleanup via PC. This will create a rollback point in case of an error.

Analysis of disk space by third-party utilities

Xiaomi's standard analyzer doesn't always show the real picture. Third-party apps like DiskUsage or Files by Google build a visual memory card. They show which file or folder is taking up space, even if the system labels it as "Other."

With these slits, you can find forgotten folders with a cache of cards (Google Maps, Yandex Maps), which store offline maps of entire countries, and often you can find lost attachments from mail or leftovers after a system update. Visualization helps you understand what exactly takes up gigabytes of space.

When using third-party software, it is important to give only the necessary permissions, the application needs access to files, but does not necessarily give administrator rights or access to SMS.

Below is a table showing the typical space distribution in the Other category on the average smartphone after a year of active use:

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Third-party disk analyzers are the best way to find hidden files that Xiaomi’s standard explorer doesn’t display in detail.

Preventing and managing memory in the future

So that the Other problem doesn't come back too quickly, change your smartphone usage habits. Set up automatic cache cleaning in messengers. For example, on Telegram, you can set a limit to "Storage media for 3 days" or "1 week," which won't delete the correspondence, but will make room for old pictures and videos.

Check Download regularly, files you downloaded a month ago may no longer be needed, and transfer photos and videos to the cloud (Google Photos, Yandex.Disk) or to your computer using the Free Space feature.

It’s also worth disabling the automatic saving of gallery attachments for some channels or chats, if there is one, which will prevent duplicate files: they will remain in the application, but will not be copied to the phone’s shared memory, taking up double the volume.

⚠️ Warning: Don’t install questionable accelerator apps from the Play Market, often the ad and junk apps themselves, only simulating memory cleanup.