The Smart Cleanup Tool Your Dev Projects Deserve
Reclaim Your Hard Drive Space • Keep Your Projects Lean • Delete with Confidence
FileCleaner is a powerful, intelligent, and safe Windows desktop application that helps developers reclaim disk space. Projects grow bloated over time: a single node_modules folder consumes 500MB-2GB, build artifacts pile up, cache files accumulate. FileCleaner automatically identifies and safely removes the junk—so you don't have to.
🧠 Smart Detection – AI-powered scoring identifies safe files
⚡ Developer-Focused – Purpose-built for the development workflow
📊 Visual Analytics – Charts showing disk usage breakdown
🌍 Multi-language – Available in your preferred language
🛡️ Safety First – Color-coded risk levels with verification
Scans your project and presents findings in an intuitive tree view:
- Filename & Path: Full file path with icons
- Size: Human-readable format (B, KB, MB, GB)
- Last Modified: Timestamp of modifications
- Safety Score: Risk assessment (🟢 Safe / 🟡 Review / 🔴 Blocked)
- ⚡ Real-time search/filter with sortable columns
- ☑️ Selective or bulk deletion modes
Take a snapshot, clean, and verify exactly what changed:
- Take Baseline: Save current directory state
- Show Delta: Compare snapshots with visual breakdown
- File Analysis: See added, modified, and removed files
- Verification: Confirm cleanup success at a glance
Logged diagnostics for full transparency:
- Error logging: Detailed issue tracking
- Severity filtering: Sort by error level
- Audit trail: Timestamp for every event
- Troubleshooting: Diagnose permission issues
Each file gets a risk assessment score based on:
Category Detection:
- Build artifacts (
.o,.obj,.exe, etc.) - Cache files (
.cache,__pycache__,.tmp) - Version control (
.git,.svn) - Dependencies (
node_modules) - Temporary files (
.bak,.log)
Score Factors: Extension analysis, path patterns, file size, age, directory context
3. Safety Ratings – Your visual safety net:
| Rating | Score | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 🟢 Safe | > 30 | Confidently unnecessary |
| 🟡 Review | 10-30 | Probably unnecessary |
| 🔴 Blocked | < 10 | Might be important |
1️⃣ Select Directory ──→ 2️⃣ Start Scan ──→ 3️⃣ Review Results
(Browse) (Analyze) (Filter)
↓
6️⃣ Verify Changes ←── 5️⃣ Delete Files ←── 4️⃣ Take Baseline
(Use Delta) (Confirm) (Optional Snapshot)
| Component | Details |
|---|---|
| Framework | Qt 6 (Cross-platform UI) |
| Language | C++17 (Modern, performant) |
| Build System | CMake |
| Visualization | Qt Charts |
| Platform | Windows 10+ |
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
| FileScanner | Intelligent recursive directory traversal + ML-based detection |
| SnapshotManager | JSON-based before/after state tracking |
| ErrorManager | Comprehensive audit logging & error tracking |
| MainWindow | Tab-based UI orchestration & user interaction |
- ✅ Multi-threaded scanning keeps UI responsive
- ✅ Memory efficient batch processing prevents bloat
- ✅ Real-time progress with instant cancellation
- ✅ Scalable handles projects with millions of files
- OS: Windows 10 or later
- Runtime: Qt 6.10+ (included in installer)
- Space: ~100MB for installation
Precompiled binaries available in Releases
Simply download, extract, and run FileCleaner.exe
mkdir build_mingw && cd build_mingw
cmake .. -DQt6_DIR="C:\Qt\6.10.1\mingw_64\lib\cmake\Qt6" -G "MinGW Makefiles"
mingw32-make -j4FileCleaner.exe- 📁 Click Browse → Select your project directory
- 🔍 Click Start Scan → Analyze all files
- 👀 Review results → Filter if needed
- ☑️ Select files → Click Delete Selected or Delete All Safe
- ✅ Confirm deletion → Watch progress bar
| Tip | Benefit |
|---|---|
| 🔍 Use search box | Find files instantly |
| 📸 Take baseline first | Verify changes after cleanup |
| Diagnose permission problems | |
| 💚 Trust positive scores | Super-safe files to delete |
| 🟢 Start with "Safe" | Build confidence progressively |
✅ System directories excluded by default
✅ Score-based validation prevents reckless deletion
✅ Dual-confirmation dialogs for all deletions
✅ Baseline/Delta verification shows exact changes
✅ Audit logging tracks every action
| Use Case | Typical Savings |
|---|---|
📦 Cleaning node_modules |
500MB - 2GB per project |
🐍 Python __pycache__ cleanup |
100MB - 500MB |
| 🔨 Build artifacts (C++/Java) | 250MB - 1.5GB |
| 💾 Cache file purging | 100MB - 1GB |
| 📚 Git/SVN directories | 50MB - 500MB |
💰 Typical reclaimed space: 1GB - 5GB per project
Building powerful tools takes time and coffee. If FileCleaner helped you reclaim space, consider supporting:
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Solana (SOL)
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MIT License – Free to use, modify, and distribute
See LICENSE for full details
We ❤️ contributions! Here's how you can help:
- 🐛 Report bugs with details
- 💡 Suggest features you'd love
- 🔧 Submit pull requests with improvements
- 🌍 Add translations for more languages
- 📝 Improve documentation
Every contribution makes FileCleaner better for everyone!