Where is the file manager on a Redmi phone?

Last reviewed: October 7, 2026 · Markdown version

It is an app called File Manager, and it is already on the phone. Xiaomi's support pages describe it as pre-installed with a folder icon, organise it around categories rather than folders, and document one feature people often confuse with hidden files: Private. They also say, plainly, that it has no Trash. That last fact matters before you delete anything.

Finding the app

Xiaomi's instructions for a REDMI Note 12 Pro+ 5G running HyperOS start the same way every time: "Go to the home screen of your device. Open the File Manager app. It usually has a folder icon and is pre-installed on your smartphone". The same page shows two ways in once it is open — a search icon "in the upper right of the interface", and a Storage tab "at the bottom of the interface" (How to check local APKs on the REDMI Note 12 Pro+ 5G?, Xiaomi Global, read 7 October 2026). If the icon is not on a home screen, swipe to the app drawer or search for "File Manager".

Categories, and how it decides what goes where

Xiaomi's introduction to the app (written for MIUI, the software before HyperOS, and undated) lists the categories as "videos, docts, image s, music, and more", with "More" covering downloads, Bluetooth, installation packages and compressed files among others. It is unusually open about how files are classified: "the mobile phone uses the file suffix to identify whether the file is a music/video/picture/document/compressed file." A file that fits two categories shows under both, the article says, without being stored twice (File manager classification browsing function introduction, Xiaomi UK, read 7 October 2026). In other words, Images or Music is a filtered view across all of storage, not a folder you can open on a computer.

Where the common files actually are

A companion article gives locations in the app's own notation. Downloads from the browser and email attachments: "file manager/Download". Bluetooth transfers moved there too: after MIUI 12, Xiaomi writes, they go to Download as well. It also warns that some app folders became unreachable on Android 11 — voice recordings, for one, moved to an Android/data path, and File Manager's policy, the article says, "requires that access to this directory is turned off" (Common storage paths for mobile phone system cache files, Xiaomi UK, read 7 October 2026). For those, Xiaomi suggests connecting to a computer to copy the files off.

Hiding files: Private, not hidden

Xiaomi's way to hide a file is to make it private, which the REDMI 13C page describes as encrypting it behind a privacy pattern. First set the pattern: Settings › Fingerprints, face data, and screen lock › Privacy protection password, turn on "Use Privacy protection password", then tap Files. Then, in File Manager, press and hold a file, tap More and Make private. To see them again: "go back to the start page of the File Manager APP and pull down. Release to open the private folder" (How to make and check the private files on the REDMI 13C?, Xiaomi Global, read 7 October 2026).

Xiaomi's own troubleshooting page lists ways private files get lost — third-party security apps "may delete the private files when cleaning the garbage of the phone", and a factory reset that formats storage — and says a forgotten pattern "can be retrieved through the Mi account password" (Phone's private files loss, Xiaomi UK, read 7 October 2026). That is a different thing from the dot-files other file managers call hidden, which this page covers.

Delete with care: there is no Trash

Xiaomi answers the question directly: "If you are using the Xiaomi File Manager APP, there is no trash bin." It contrasts this with Google's Files app, where the menu has a Trash option, and with the Gallery's "Deleted items" album (Where to find the trash for the deleted files on the REDMI 13C?, Xiaomi Global, read 7 October 2026). If you want a safety net, Files by Google is on the Play Store and "works on Android version 8.0 and up" (How to use Files by Google, read 7 October 2026) — how that app is laid out.