Managing the digital space on modern smartphones is becoming a critical skill, especially when it comes to popular messengers. Owners of Xiaomi devices often face the need to free up space in memory or simply clean up correspondence accumulated over the years of use. Clearing chats in Telegram is not only a way to return precious gigabytes, but also an effective method of protecting personal information from prying eyes.
The process of deleting correspondence on the MIUI or HyperOS shell has its own nuances that distinguish it from standard procedures on other Android devices. The memory optimization system can react differently to the removal of large amounts of data, and the integration of system cleaning functions can affect the operation of the application. Understanding these mechanisms will help you to act as efficiently and safely as possible.
In this article, we will take a look at all the methods available for deleting messages, from the banal erasure of individual dialogues to deep cleaning of the cache and using a self-destruct timer, you will learn how to permanently delete correspondence from all participants or only yourself, and how to set up automatic garbage cleaning.
Basic removal of dialogues and messages
The most obvious way to clean up your mess is to manually remove unnecessary dialogs. When you delete a chat in Telegram on a Xiaomi smartphone, the system suggests you choose between two options: delete only yourself or everyone else. It's important to understand the difference: choosing to delete from everyone will hide the correspondence on all the interlocutor's devices, but only if less than 48 hours have passed since sending.
To perform this operation, you need to pinch your finger on the desired dialog in the chat list before the menu appears. In the window that opens, select the basket icon. Before the final confirmation, a pop-up box will appear with the tick "Also delete for...." If you put this mark, the correspondence history will disappear for both users.
⚠️ Attention: Deleting chat for all is irreversible and it is impossible to recover messages deleted through standard Telegram tools, even if you have a backup copy.
If your goal is to delete a particular message within the dialogue, the algorithm changes a little: open the chat, click and hold a particular message (or select several in a row), click on the basket icon at the top of the screen, and you also get a choice: delete only yourself or everyone, which allows you to manage content flexibly without affecting the rest of your correspondence history.
Deep cleaning of cache and media files
The bulk of memory on Xiaomi smartphones when using Telegram is not text messages, and media files: photos, videos, voice messages and documents. Over time, the cache of the application can grow to several gigabytes, which significantly slows down the device and fills the internal storage.
To clean up this data, you don’t have to delete the chats themselves. Telegram provides a built-in memory management tool that allows you to selectively delete downloaded files. Go to Settings → Data and Memory → Memory Use. Here you will see detailed statistics on the location.
In this section, you can set up automatic cache cleanup, such as setting a setting where media files will be deleted from the phone’s memory if they have not been accessed for more than 3 days, while the files will remain in the Telegram cloud and re-download if necessary, freeing up disk space without losing data.
☑️ Memory checks
Also worth paying attention to the Telegram folder in the file manager MIUI. Sometimes files saved to the gallery remain there even after cleaning the cache in the application. Storage/DCIM/Telegram Internal Storage/Pictures/Telegram manually.
Use of a self-destruct timer
For those who value privacy and don’t want to waste time on manual cleaning, Telegram offers a feature called autodelete messages, which allows you to set a timer, after which messages will be automatically deleted from the chat, which is the perfect tool for temporary correspondence or discussion information.
You can set the timer for a single dialog or for all new chats at once. In the first case, open the profile of the interlocutor or group, click on the three dots in the upper right corner and select Autodelete. There are intervals from 1 second to 1 year. Once the timer is set, all new messages will disappear after a predetermined period of time after reading.
| Time interval | Use case scenario | Impact on memory |
|---|---|---|
| 1 minute - 1 hour | Sharing codes, passwords, and fast coordination | Minimum |
| 1 day - 1 week | Work tasks, temporary projects | Average |
| 1 month | Active personal correspondence | Highness (short-term) |
| 3 months - 1 year | Long-term projects, history storage | Requires cache control |
There's also a global setting called Auto Delete Period in the basic privacy settings, which applies to all new chats you create after you turn on this feature, which provides a basic level of digital space hygiene without having to manually customize each dialogue.
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If you have turned on a self-destruct timer, screenshots in the chat will notify the interlocutor (on Android this works unstable, but on iOS the notification always comes).
Cleaning through Xiaomi system settings
The MIUI shell and the new HyperOS have powerful built-in tools for managing applications. Sometimes standard methods inside Telegram don’t work, and operating system intervention is required, especially if the application is not working properly or the cache is not being cleaned by the usual means.
To do a deep cleanup, go to Settings of the phone → Apps → All apps. Search in the Telegram list and click on it. Select Memory. Here you will see two buttons: Clear cache and Clear everything.
Using the Clean Everything (or Reset) feature will completely delete all application data, including logs, temporary files and, most importantly, a locally stored correspondence database, after which you will have to re-upload your message history from the server when you log in to your Telegram account.
⚠️ Warning: Before using the Clean All feature in system settings, make sure you remember your account password and have access to the SIM-A card to get the confirmation code. You'll be completely logged.
This method is useful if you want to start with a clean slate or if the application consumes an abnormally large amount of resources due to errors in the database, but for regular cleaning, it is better to use the built-in tools of the messenger itself, so as not to load the servers with rebooting the history.
Deletion of the account and complete deactivation
A radical way to clear all chats is to completely delete your Telegram account, which permanently erases your entire correspondence history, contacts, channels and groups you have created, and on Xiaomi devices, this process can be initiated through both the app and the web version.
Inside the app, the path looks like: Settings → Privacy → Delete your account. The system will suggest selecting a period of inactivity (from 1 month to 1 year) after which the account will be deleted automatically.
When you delete your account, all your messages will disappear from your interlocutors, replaced by the words "Account deleted", which is the only way to ensure that the entire story will be destroyed without the possibility of recovery even by Telegram technicians.
What happens to the data after deleting the account?
Remember, deleting your account is a last resort, and if your goal is to free up space, just use the cache cleanup methods described above, and deleting your account will deprive you of access to all cloud chats and stored messages.
Recovery of Remote Chats
The issue of data recovery after cleaning is a concern for many users. Telegram’s storage architecture is designed so that the main story lies on the server. If you delete the chat only “in your own”, you can always restore it by finding the interlocutor in the contacts and opening the dialogue again – the story will be downloaded from the server (if you do not delete it “in everyone”).
However, if you have used a “delete all” or self-destruct timer, you can’t restore messages in the standard way. Telegram does not have a remote messaging basket available to the user. The only chance is that you have a local backup, but Telegram by default does not create them as actively as, for example, WhatsApp.
On Xiaomi smartphones, you can try to find traces of media files in the system folders if they were saved to the gallery before being deleted. Check the File Manager/MIUI/Gallery/Cloud/Recents folder or the gallery system basket, which stores deleted photos for 30 days.
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Local backup in Telegram is not an automatic and reliable way to store important data. For critical information, use the Favorites function or cloud storage.
There are third-party data recovery applications, but their effectiveness is extremely low, especially on modern versions of Android with data encryption. You shouldn't rely on them. The best strategy is to regularly export important correspondence through the Export Chat feature in the desktop version of Telegram.