How to Clean the “Other” folder on Xiaomi: The Complete Guide

Owners of Xiaomi, Redmi and POCO smartphones often face an unpleasant situation: the device’s internal memory suddenly becomes crowded, although there are few photos and applications installed. The culprit of the celebration usually becomes a mysterious category in storage, which in different versions of the MIUI or HyperOS firmware can be called differently, but most often it is a folder “Other” or a section “System data” that can grow to tens of gigabytes, eating precious space and slowing down the gadget.

Understanding what’s hidden inside this digital black box is the first step to freeing up memory, accumulating temporary application files, remnants of deleted programs, error logs, messenger cache and system logs that the Android operating system doesn’t consider important for instantaneous removal, but doesn’t forget, ignoring this problem can lead to the smartphone becoming unstable and new applications simply stop installing.

In this detailed guide, we will discuss safe and effective cleaning methods, not using questionable cleaners, which are often the source of garbage themselves, but using proven system tools and manual methods, you will learn how to find hidden files, clear the cache of specific applications and prevent the re-proliferation of system debris, returning your device to speed.

What is hidden in the “Other” section really?

Before we take radical action, we need to understand the nature of the files that occupy space. The Other section is not a single file, but a collection of various data that the system classifies as not belonging to either photo, video, or audio. Most often, the lion's share of the volume is cached data from social networks and messengers. For example, Telegram or Viber can store gigabytes of watched videos and images that are not formally part of the application, but are not deleted automatically.

The second big category is system logs and error reports. If an application crashes or malfunctions frequently, Android can create detailed reports of each error. Over time, these text files can take up a significant amount of time, and they also include remnants of remote applications, temporary system update files, and offline map data from navigators.

⚠️ Before you start deep cleaning, make sure you have an up-to-date backup of important data.While the methods described are safe, accidental deletion of system files can cause individual applications to malfunction.

And the important thing to note is that this folder is dynamic, and it can grow dramatically after you upgrade or install a heavy application with lots of graphics, and understanding the data structure helps you choose the right cleaning strategy without removing the extra one.

Basic cleaning through standard MIUI tools

The easiest and safest way to start the fight for space is to use built-in optimization tools. Xiaomi has a powerful security tool that can find and remove obvious debris. To start the process, you need to open the Security application and select the Cleanup point. The system will scan and suggest removing temporary files, but often this is not enough to deep clean the Other partition.

A more efficient method is built into the storage settings. Go to Settings, then select About Phone and click on Storage. Here the system will provide a more detailed breakdown by category. By clicking on the Clean button in the recommendations section, you can delete large files, duplicates and rarely used applications. This method is good for its simplicity, but it is superficial.

Keep in mind the Deep Clean feature, which sometimes appears on the storage menu, which analyzes the contents of application folders and can find forgotten APK installation files or screenshots that the user no longer remembers. Regularly using these tools once a week will help keep the Other partition volume within reasonable limits, preventing it from becoming critically proliferation.

💡

Use the built-in “Accelerate” function in the notification curtain before starting the cleanup – this will close the background processes and allow the system to more accurately assess the amount of memory available for cleaning.

Manual cleaning through the file manager

For those who want to get the most out of it, the standard File Manager Explorer will be an indispensable tool. It allows you to look into hidden corners of the file system where automatic cleaners do not get. First of all, look at the Android folder, namely the data and obb subfolders. This is where many applications store their caches and additional data. Deleting the contents of specific application folders (for example, com.telegram.messenger) will free up space, but require re-authorization or downloading data in the application.

Also worth checking are the root folders named after popular apps. Often at the root of internal memory are Tencent folders (for WeChat and QQ), Download, DCIM (if video is lost there), and folders from remote games. Careful analysis of the contents of these directories allows you to find files that the system somehow did not classify correctly.

Pay special attention to the.thumbnails folder inside the DCIM directory, which is a hidden folder that stores thumbnails of your photos and videos, and over time, it can be as large as a few gigabytes. Deleting files from this folder is safe, and the system will recreate them the next time you open the gallery, but the space will be freed instantly.

When working with a file manager, it is important to be careful not to delete files whose purpose you do not know, and it is better to move suspicious files to a computer or cloud storage than permanently delete the system component.

Cleaning the cache of messengers and social networks

The main source of garbage in the Other category are messengers. Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber and Instagram store every photo and video you view in the device’s memory. Standard cache cleaning through the phone’s settings often doesn’t affect the internal databases of these applications, so you need to use their built-in memory management tools.

In Telegram, the situation is solved in the most elegant way possible: go to the Settings of the application, then to Data and memory, and select Memory Use, and here you will see the exact amount of space you occupy and the "Clear Cache" button. Moreover, you can set up automatic deletion of media files, for example, set a rule that photos and videos are deleted 3 days or a week after viewing, this will prevent the accumulation of garbage in the future.

WhatsApp is a little bit more complicated. You go to Settings → Data and Storage → Storage Management. Here, the app will show files larger than 5 MB and let you select the chats that take up the most space. Deleting media from specific dialogues is the most efficient way to free up gigabytes without losing text.

⚠️ Note: Clearing the cache in messengers only deletes temporary files (photos, videos, voice), but does not affect text messages. However, if you did not back up, deleted media files will not be recoverable.

Social networks like Instagram and TikTok also aggressively cache content. These apps often don’t have a built-in cache clearing button, so you have to go through the settings of Android itself: Settings → Apps → All apps → Select social network → Storage → Clear cache. Don’t confuse it with the “Clean All” button, which will reset the app to the initial installation state.

Using Developer Mode and ADB for Advanced Users

If standard methods didn’t help and the Other folder continues to bloat, you can use more powerful tools. Developer mode in MIUI is hidden by default. To activate it, you need to go to Settings → About phone and quickly click on the MIUI version 7 times. After that, a new option will appear in the menu “Additional” or “Extended settings”, where the “Developers” menu is located.

You can find the option of forced service shutdown or debugging resets in this menu, which sometimes helps to clear up the system's hanging processes. But the power is hidden in using ADB (Android Debug Bridge) debugging from your computer. By connecting your phone to your PC and installing drivers, you can remove system debris through the command line that is not available through the interface.

To clean the Dalvik cache (which can also take up space), you can use the command:

adb shell pm trim-caches 999999999

This command instructs the system to trim cache files to free up space. You can also use commands to delete temporary files in the /data/local/tmp folder. Be careful: working with ADB requires accuracy, and one incorrect command can lead to unstable system operation.

💡

Use of the ADB-Commands are the most effective way to remove “unremovable” system debris, but it requires a computer and basic command line knowledge.

Radical measures: Resetting and formatting

When nothing works and the Other partition takes up half the memory, the last but most effective method is a complete factory reset, which completely clears the internal memory by removing all applications, photos, contacts and most importantly, all accumulated system debris. Before this step, be sure to create a full backup of data in the Mi Cloud cloud or on your computer.

Reset the phone, then press the power button and the volume button at the same time, select the language (usually English or Chinese if there is no Russian) from the menu that appears, and select Wipe Data → Wipe All Data. The process will take a few minutes, after which the phone will turn on as new.

Alternatively, less radical option is to create a new user. In the system settings, find the section "Advanced settings» → «Second space" (or just create a new user in the "Users" section). Switching to a clean profile will give you a garbage-free system. Then you can transfer the data you need to the new profile and delete the old one, along with all the accumulated junk.

Cleaning the Other folder on Xiaomi is a complex process, from simple built-in utilities to manual file management, you can get your smartphone back to performance, and the main thing is regularity and understanding which files can be deleted and which ones should not be touched.