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Cleanr overview

Cleanr is an AI-friendly, cross-platform disk cleanup tool for application and browser caches, logs, temporary files, downloads, and development artifacts. It runs in your terminal, explains why each item matched, and lets you decide what moves to system Trash. Its structured, read-only analysis gives AI agents candidate sizes, matching reasons, confidence, and risk notes, so they can help you review and prepare a plan. The final cleanup decision stays with you.

Safety checks are part of that workflow: analysis is read-only, confirmation is on by default, and selected targets are revalidated before each move. Agent execution verifies the reviewed plan against a fresh scan. Cleanup uses system Trash and local records for best-effort recovery.

Typical candidates include:

  • browser and application caches from known user-level cleanup locations;
  • logs, diagnostic reports, and temporary files;
  • downloads and installers that need your judgment before removal;
  • project dependencies such as node_modules;
  • build output such as Rust target directories and Xcode DerivedData;
  • package-manager caches for Cargo, npm, pnpm, pip, Gradle, and other tools.

Choose directories or known cleanup locations by category. Coverage depends on your platform and selected scope; see scanning options.

The basic workflow​

Cleanr separates discovery from deletion:

  1. Scan one or more directories.
  2. Review the matched candidates and their risk notes.
  3. Select only the items you want to remove.
  4. Confirm the cleanup.
  5. Restore a previous cleanup run if needed.

Nothing is cleaned just because it was found. High-confidence, rebuildable items may be preselected, but the plan remains editable before execution.

Safety at a glance​

  • Cleanup moves items to the operating system trash; it does not permanently delete them.
  • Cleanr removes overlapping parent and child candidates before calculating candidate and selected-byte totals. Moving items to Trash usually does not immediately increase free disk space.
  • Targets are checked again immediately before cleanup. Changed files, symbolic links, paths outside the scan roots, and protected Cleanr data are rejected.
  • Each cleanup and restore writes a local manifest so the result is auditable.
  • Plugins are declarative data files by default; dynamic hooks require explicit trust.

See Safety and recovery for the exact guarantees and restore limitations.

Is Cleanr a good fit?​

Cleanr suits people who want to review disk cleanup from a keyboard-driven interface, whether they are inspecting application caches, old downloads, or project build output. It is not a general-purpose system optimizer, registry cleaner, or unattended deletion service.

Start here​

  • Quick start: install Cleanr and complete a read-only first review.
  • Using Cleanr: learn the workflow, shortcuts, and commands.
  • Evidence and privacy: use the local, read-only analysis contract with an agent, including the cloud-provider data boundary.
  • Configuration: change scan, cleanup, language, and theme.
  • Troubleshooting: resolve common startup, scan, and restore problems.

See Release readiness for version and platform verification limits.