BleachBit

Active · Website · Source repository

Free, GPL-3.0 system cleaner for Windows and Linux, with macOS support maturing (runs from source, no installer yet): wipes caches, cookies, logs, and temporary files across hundreds of applications, plus secure file shredding, free-space wiping, and SQLite database vacuuming. GTK GUI and CLI; experimental TUI and wxPython front-ends live in branches. First released in 2008, it is one of the longest-lived dedicated cleaners still maintained.

Platforms

Interface

Tech stack

Python 3 + GTK 3 (PyGObject); experimental wxPython GUI and TUI in branches; NSIS installer on Windows

Features

Dev-junk cleaning

Not a focus

Development

Lead developer + community · original author still leads

Created in 2008 and still led by its original author; community contributors supply CleanerML cleaner definitions, translations, and platform fixes.

License

GPL

GPL-3.0-or-later

Price

Donation-supported

Free and open source; donations accepted; no paid tier

Launched

Dec 2008

first_release_at

Repo created

Mar 10, 2014

First release

Dec 2008

Domain registered

2015 (bleachbit.org)

Last seen alive

Oct 19, 2026

Checks

Mechanical checks derived from the fields above. Each row is one fact; "not yet checked" means exactly that, not a failure. There is no composite score; read them together.

Track record	about 17 years
Source published	Yes
Release signing	Signed
Security contact	Yes
Reproducible builds	No
Telemetry	None
Runs elevated	Only when needed
Auto-update channel	None
Recent activity	Last seen 12 days ago

All stable Windows installers are digitally signed; CI builds are unsigned
rpm/deb downloads on bleachbit.org carry embedded signatures, and all stable releases publish GPG-signed checksums; distro-repo packages are signed by the distro
macOS ships no DMG yet, so there is nothing to sign
No self-updater: version check only notifies
Security reports via bleachbit.org/security.txt (redirects to the contact form) or private GitHub advisories

Research notes

Cleaners are defined in CleanerML, an XML format a community file (winapp2.ini, originally written for CCleaner) can also be imported from.
Mainstream fame: in March 2015 a Platte River Networks engineer used BleachBit to delete Hillary Clinton's private email server archives and .PST files, disclosed in FBI investigation documents released in 2016.
Among the earliest dedicated open-source system cleaners (December 2008) and the longest-maintained of the genre; on Linux only niche predecessors such as KDE's Sweeper predate it.
Pioneered conventions now standard across the genre: SQLite vacuuming to shrink browser databases in place, and early adoption of the community winapp2.ini definitions file now used by many third-party cleaners.
Experimental TUI and wxPython GUI each live in their own branch; stable releases ship the GTK 3 GUI and CLI.
macOS support is maturing quickly (CI covers Linux, macOS, and Windows, and it runs from source) but there is no DMG yet; Windows and Linux remain the packaged platforms.
Git history starts 2008-12-21 with the 'initial import' of the SourceForge SVN tree; the GitHub repo object itself was created 2014-03-10.

Sources

URL	Role	Status	Checked	Archive
www.bleachbit.org	homepage	200	2026-10-20
github.com/bleachbit/bleachbit	repo	200	2026-10-20

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