pclean.py

From time to time your hard drive gets stuffed with back-up and temporary files which some programs leave behind after being used. I wasn't quite satisfied by the cleaning software I tried because the applications I found were either sluggish or awkward or even ugly. Instead I wrote in Python my own pclean.py which is very fast, runs on many platforms and is invisible. My program doesn't do any backups or moving files into trash or to any special location, it immediately deletes any file containing the pattern in the name the user specified.

pclean.py runs on Windows and Linux, and supposedly on other platforms but was not tested. In order to use pclean.py you will need a Python interpreter. On some OSs Python is already preinstalled, but if you are a Windows user, you will have to download and install it separately.

How to Use pclean.py

pclean.py is a command line tool. Open your terminal and enter the path to the pclean.py executable. If you are a Windows user, Go Start --> Run --> enter CMD in the box --> and press OK. When the DOS prompt pops up, change the directory to the one where pclean.py file is located and hit Enter. Or simply double click on the file. You will be asked what directory to enter. This directory or folder will be the start for the recursive search. That's it. The files containing the matches in their names will be found and deleted, and the output will be printed on the screen.

Try my backup tool bk.py.

But first, open pclean.py in a text editor like Notepad and put extensions or any other patterns for the files you'd like to have deleted into the list and save. Example:

The patterns should be surrounded with single quotes and separated from each other with commas. You can put as many patterns as you want. If you have no clue what exactly to put, you might want to consult a guide for junk files extensions like this one: http://www.fileinfo.net/filetypes/backup. You can use my psearch.py to make sure that those files really exist on your disk.

pclean.py is not freeware, it is a fully functional shareware. It costs $1. If you tried pclean.py and found it useful and want to keep it, click on the PayPal button to express your appreciation to the author who created such a wonderful piece of software. You are free to modify the code to adjust it to your personal tastes, but I mind if your modification will be used for commercial purposes later on.