BleachBit Text User Interface

Introducing the BleachBit TUI (text user interface) built on the BleachBit 6.0 backend. It's geared at users who:

• Don't need or want the GUI
• Prefer using the keyboard
• Manage remote servers using SSH
• Want to clean embedded or headless systems
• Automate cleaning tasks in scripts
• Use systems with limited resources where a GUI is impractical
• Prefer lightweight tools with minimal dependencies

The TUI includes the most basic features: selecting cleaning options, running preview,
and deleting files. You can toggle the preferences for overwriting for more privacy,
or disable it for faster deletion.

Because the TUI shares the backend with the GUI, it honors the same settings
including: selected cleaning options, keep list (whitelist), custom cleaning list,
and cookie keep list (cookie manager). To manage preferences, use the GUI.

The TUI supports changing display themes and both keyboard and some
mouse interaction, such as the scroll wheel.

Demo video

This video is a complete demo starting with download and installation on Windows. To skip the installation and jump to the "fun part," skip to time code 4 minutes 28 seconds. The embedded video starts there, so rewind to see how to download and install it.

UNIX/POSIX systems

Linux, BSD, and Mac users can run from source using the tui branch on GitHub. Just install the Python textual package.

Here's a quick start for Ubuntu:

sudo apt install git python3-{chardet,textual,psutil}
git clone https://github.com/bleachbit/bleachbit.git
cd bleachbit
git fetch origin
git switch --track origin/tui
python3 bleachbit_tui.py

The TUI branch includes the TUI (of course), the CLI, and the traditional GUI (GTK).

Windows

On Microsoft Windows, the TUI is available as both an installer and a portable package. The TUI package includes the CLI and TUI but does not include the GUI. The TUI installs in parallel with the GUI, allowing you to switch back and forth if desired. The TUI installer creates a shortcut to start the TUI like any GUI application.

To download a binary, visit the CI Build page and download the latest TUI build. The current version is 6.0.0.3548.

System administrators responsible for cleaning fleets of Windows machines may find the TUI build particularly useful. Even without using the TUI interface directly, it offers a smaller footprint while still providing the CLI for automation purposes.

Unlike the GUI and CLI versions of BleachBit 6.0.0 stable, which are 32-bit, the TUI is compiled as a native 64-bit process.

Like the CLI, the TUI supports thousands of extra cleaners defined in Winapp2.ini. For now, download the Winapp2.ini file manually or using the BleachBit GUI.

What is not included

This is alpha-level software, and it's missing many features including these below. (Please do not file bug reports that these are missing.)

• Localization (translations)
• Management of preferences (except overwriting files)
• Chaff generation
• Protected paths
• Expert Mode
• Language selection
• Online check for updates
• .rpm and .deb packages
• Digital signed files on Windows

Some features are available in the same package but not the TUI. On Windows, they are available in the CLI through the same binary. These include:

• Shredding individual files or folders
• Wiping empty space on a path
• Show system information