Win Cleaner

A small Windows disk cleaner written in Java. It empties the temporary and cache folders Windows fills up over time, and can empty the Recycle Bin. It always shows you how much space it will free and asks before deleting anything.

@Omarbedah I have a personal message for you at the bottom of the file.

Download and run the .exe

1. Go to the Releases page of this repository and download WinCleaner-1.0.0-windows.zip.
2. Right-click the zip → Properties → tick Unblock → OK. (Optional, but it stops Windows nagging about every file inside.)
3. Right-click the zip → Extract All.... Do this before running anything.
4. Open the extracted WinCleaner folder.
5. Double-click WinCleaner.exe.
6. Windows asks for administrator rights. Choose Yes — a new window opens and does the work. Choosing No is fine too, it just skips the two Windows folders.

You do not need Java installed. A Java runtime is bundled inside the folder.

Do not run the exe on its own

WinCleaner.exe needs the app\ and runtime\ folders that sit next to it. It reads app\WinCleaner.cfg to find its code and its bundled Java. Without those folders it prints one error line and exits, which looks like a window opening and closing instantly. That means:

• Do not double-click the exe while it is still inside the zip. Windows only unpacks that one file to a temp folder, so the rest is missing.
• Do not drag just the exe to your Desktop.

Move or copy the whole WinCleaner folder. For a Desktop icon, right-click the exe and choose Send to → Desktop (create shortcut).

Using it

Starting the exe with no arguments gives you a menu:

  (1) Scan - show what can be freed, delete nothing
  (2) Clean temporary files
  (3) Empty Recycle Bin
  (4) Exit

• Scan measures every folder and prints a report. Nothing is deleted, so this is the safe way to see what you would get back.
• Clean shows the same report, then asks Delete these files permanently? [y/N]. Only y or yes proceeds; anything else, including just pressing Enter, cancels.
• Empty Recycle Bin tells you how much the bin holds and asks before emptying it. This is permanent, the files cannot be restored afterwards.

The window waits for Enter before closing, so the results stay on screen.

Files that are open in another program cannot be deleted on Windows. Win Cleaner skips them, keeps going, and reports how many it left alone. Closing any running installers before cleaning gets you a bit more space.

Command line

Useful for a shortcut or a scheduled task:

WinCleaner.exe [options]

  -s, --scan          Report what can be freed, delete nothing
  -c, --clean         Clean the temporary folders
  -r, --recycle-bin   Empty the Recycle Bin
  -a, --all           Same as --clean --recycle-bin
  -y, --yes           Do not ask for confirmation
  -n, --no-elevate    Do not ask for administrator rights
  -h, --help          Show this help
  -v, --version       Show the version

For example, a silent full clean:

WinCleaner.exe --all --yes

What gets cleaned

Folder	Location	Why it is safe to delete
User temp folder	%TEMP%	Scratch files and installer leftovers. Usually the biggest win.
Windows temp folder	C:\Windows\Temp	System-wide scratch space. Administrator only.
Windows prefetch	C:\Windows\Prefetch	App launch cache. Windows rebuilds it. Administrator only.
Internet cache	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache	Cached web content for Edge, IE and other WinINet apps.
Thumbnail and icon cache	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer	Explorer thumbnails, regenerated when you next browse a folder.
DirectX shader cache	%LOCALAPPDATA%\D3DSCache	Compiled shaders, recompiled by games on next launch.
Windows error reports	%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\WER	Queued crash reports.
Crash dumps	%LOCALAPPDATA%\CrashDumps	Application crash dump files.

Folders that do not exist on your machine, and the administrator-only ones when you are not elevated, are skipped and never appear in the list.

Emptying these caches is harmless but not free: the first launch of a game may recompile shaders, and folder thumbnails are regenerated the first time you open a folder again. Everything comes back on its own.

What it never touches

Deleting files is the whole job of this tool, so the code is careful about where it is allowed to do it. Before a single file is removed:

• The folder is matched against a fixed allow-list in Guard.java. Anything that is not one of the cache folders in the table above is refused outright, so a broken environment variable cannot redirect the cleaner somewhere else.
• The path is resolved to its real location first, then checked. Drive roots, C:\Windows, System32, SysWOW64, WinSxS, Program Files, ProgramData, AppData itself, and your user profile and its Documents and Desktop folders are all rejected.
• Symbolic links and directory junctions are deleted as links but never followed, so cleaning a temp folder cannot reach through a junction into the folder it points at.
• The target folders themselves are kept, only their contents are removed, because Windows and many applications expect folders like %TEMP% to exist.

Deleted files do not go to the Recycle Bin. They are gone. Run a scan first if you want to know what will happen.

Build from source

Requires a JDK 17 or newer on your PATH, for example from Adoptium. jpackage, which builds the exe, ships with the JDK, so no other tooling is needed.

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build.ps1

That produces:

Output	What it is
dist\WinCleaner\WinCleaner.exe	The executable, with a bundled Java runtime
dist\WinCleaner-1.0.0-windows.zip	The same folder zipped, about 15 MB, ready to share
dist\WinCleaner-1.0.0.jar	Portable jar, needs Java 17+ installed

To run the jar instead of the exe:

java -jar WinCleaner-1.0.0.jar --scan

If the build fails with "Could not clear 'dist'", close any window or terminal sitting inside that folder and run it again.

Source layout

File	Role
src/WinCleaner.java	Entry point, menu, command line arguments, output
src/Elevation.java	Restarting as administrator through the UAC prompt
src/Targets.java	Which folders to clean, and the administrator check
src/Guard.java	The allow-list and protected-path rules
src/FileHelper.java	Recursive delete and measure, link handling
src/CleanTarget.java	One cleanable folder
src/CleanResult.java	Running totals for a clean or scan
src/RecycleBin.java	Recycle Bin size and emptying

Build output goes to build\ and dist\. Neither belongs in git — if they were committed before the ignore rules existed, git restore --staged dist unstages them, because .gitignore has no effect on paths git already tracks.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11
• Nothing else for the exe. Java 17+ only if you use the jar or build from source.

License

MIT, see LICENSE.

Message for Omar

I know you're starting your journey learning software development and you're going extremely fast. I just want to say good luck and I can truly see your potential right from the get-go. Keep the motivation alive. Don't try to achieve things extremely fast. Take your time. Learn stuff. Practice on them. And I'm sure you'll be even better than me. Good luck bro.