A cellular process involving delivery of a portion of the cytoplasm to lysosomes or to the plant or fungal vacuole that does not involve direct transport through the endocytic or vacuolar protein sorting (Vps) pathways. This process typically leads to degradation of the cargo; however, it can also be used to deliver resident proteins, such as in the cytoplasm-to-vacuole targeting (Cvt) pathway. [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22966490 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21997368 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28596378 ]