BleachBit 5.1.0 beta

We invite you to test BleachBit 5.1.0 beta, our biggest release in years. This release stands out for the scale and importance of recent changes. Users can selectively choose cookies to keep using the new cookie manager feature. This relases fixes an important bug for Windows Recycle Bin handling, along with adding broader safety improvements and stronger guardrails. Your testing and feedback will help us confirm these changes are solid before the final release.

Changes

Since version 5.0.2:

All Platforms

• Fix: --shred is exclusive
  Run bleachbit with --shred and verify that other options cannot be used together with it. Example: bleachbit --shred -l
• Warn if user adds custom path that is protected
  Add a protected path (e.g., c:\windows\system32 or /bin) to the custom paths list in preferences. If expert mode is disabled, verify the warning is shown. If expert mode is disabled, it will refuse with a message in an infobar. Known issue: adding large directory may cause a temporary freeze.
• Use visual cues to distinguish custom vs keep list.
  In the preferences, look at the custom and keep list. Verify that they use icons, text, and color to distinguish the purpose of each list.
• Allow user to remember warning confirmation choices, so the warning is not shown again.
  In the left pane, enable an option that prompts for confirmation. When expert mode is disabled, the dialog will offer to remember the user's choice. By default, it will prompt again. Also, in the preferences dialog, click the reset button.
• Allow negation on CLI. See the CLI documentation for details.
  Run the CLI with a negation option, and verify that it works as expected.
• Make major improvements to cleaning of the Opera browser
  Clean the Opera browser.
• Help users to delete wipe files orphaned when the process to wipe empty space is forcefully interrupted.
  Start to wipe empty space. After a short while. force kill the process. On Linux, run pkill -9 bleachbit. On Windows, run taskkill /F /IM bleachbit.exe. Then, start BleachBit. Verify it offers to delete the orphaned files.
• Rename "overwrite free space" to "wipe empty space" for clarity. Elaborate in the warning message.
  In several parts of the application, verify the term free space was replaced by empty space. Locations include: option under system cleaner, item in application menu, tab in preferences, CLI --help, label of progress bar while wiping free space in GUI. Preview wiping empty space, and there will be a much longer warning. Run bleachbit -p system.free_disk_space to verify it functions as a synonym for system.empty_space. Run bleachbit --wipe-free-space /some/directory to verify it functions as a synonym for --wipe-empty-space
• Replace modal dialogs with info bars for better user experience
  On the main screen, uncheck all options. Then, select preview or clean: there will be an infobar instead of a modal dialog. In the application menu, open the chaff dialog. Clean chaff without selecting a folder: there will be an infobar instead of a modal dialog. In the preferences for either allow list or custom tabs, add a path that already exists in the same or other list: there will be an infobar instead of a modal dialog.
• Add opt-out option directly to confirmation dialog
  When a confirmation dialog appears, verify there is an option to opt-out of future confirmations.
• Fix excess whitespace in dialog
  Resize the preferences dialog, and verify there is not excessive empty space.
• Avoid an error sometimes when cleaning Firefox URL history
  There will be no error when cleaning Firefox URL history
• Use the term allowlist intead of whitelist
  In the preferences dialog, the term whitelist was replaced by allowlist.
• Add a cookie manager with support for all Chromium and Firefox based browsers. Select the cookies you want to keep. Only HTTP/HTTPS cookies are supported. Keeping specific localStorage files, which functionally work like cookies, is not yet supported. To keep certain localStorage files, add them to the keeplist tab in the BleachBit preferences.
  Open the new cookie manager dialog either by right clicking on the cookie option under a supported browser or through the preferences dialog. Select the cookies to keep. Clean the cookies. Verify that only the selected cookies are kept.
• Add support for the Zen browser
  Clean the Zen browser
• Clarify that when cleaning Sync in Chromium-based browsers that web apps will be deleted. (By the way, if the browser syncs to the cloud, it can restore the web app data. If not, the web app will be broken or lost.)
  Verify that web apps is mentioned in the description for the Sync option
• Add context menu to easily manage custom paths
  Under the System cleaner, right-click on the Custom Paths option, and there will be a new context menu item that opens the preferences with the correct tab.
• Add expert mode option to restrict dangerous operations for novice users
  In preferences, toggle expert mode. Cleaning options with warnings can be previewed but not enabled or cleaned. Click a checkbox for an option with a warning: it will show an alert icon and infobar. Right click on the option to verify the context menu will not clean it. User cannot remember choice to skip the deletion confirmation. User cannot reset warning confirmations. Protected paths cannot be added to custom deletion list. Disable expert mode, and verify these guardrails work as before.
• On Chromium clean more cache, form history, history, session; vacuum two more files
  Under Cache, you may see: Network Persistant State, GrShaderCache, GraphiteDawnCache, DawnCache, and Code Cache. Under Form History, you may see Web Data-journal. Under History, you may see QuotaManager. Under Passwords, you maysee Login Data for Account.
• Skip preview when deletion confirmation is disabled
  Disable deletion confirmation in preferences. Then, in the application menu choose: Shred File, Shred Folder, or Shred Settings. There should be no Preview. Then, re-enable deletion confirmation and verify the Preview is back.
• Fix: do not report file deleted when access denied
  Without root or administrator privileves, try to delete a file owned by another user. Verify the deleted file count is 0. Verify it reports Acess Denied.
• Fix: do not shred hard links
  Create a test file with anon-empty contents. Create a hard link to the test file. In BleachBit, click the application menu, choose Shred Files, and choose thef file. Verify the hard link is missing and the contents are not missing in the original file.
• Lock options in the preferences that were set by the CLI
  Run bleachbit with --no-delete-confirmation --overwrite --debug and verify checkboxes are disabled (locked) in the preferences.
• Fix --debug CLI option
  Run bleachbit with --debug option and verify debug output is shown. Examples: bleachbit --debug --gui, bleachbit -l --debug
• Improve speed of parsing XML
  There may not be a noticable performance improvement. Instead, verify the cleaners loaded correctly.
• Fix hyperlink from GUI to help/support page
  Click the Help button in the GUI and verify it opens the correct URL.
• Prevent opening the preferences dialog when using command line --gui --shred
  Delete the configuration bleachbit.ini and run a command such as bleachbit --gui --shred /a/real/file

Windows

• Fix icon path
  Verify the splash screen has an icon. To show the splash screen, you may need to make a fontcache directory
• Fix Access Denied error when getting the size of certain files
  Run BleachBit without administrator privileges. Run a preview of all options in Windows Defender. Verify there are no errors.
• Improve deleting Windows updates: stop services in fewer cases.
  Delete Windows updates.
• Prevent unneeded error message when cleaning Windows updates
  Clean Windows updates, and there should not be an error message 1052. (It is not common for it to be there, anyway.)
• The Windows installer can be localized (translated). If your language is not available, consider translating it.
  Run the Windows installer in a language other than English, and verify that it is translated.
• Clean more cookies for Chromium on Windows
  Clean cookies for the Chromium browser on Windows. You may see Network/Cookies.
• Clean more cookies for Brave on Windows
  Clean cookies for the Brave browser on Windows. Network/Cookies
• Add new cookie location for Microsoft Edge
  Clean cookies for the Microsoft Edge browser on Windows. You may see Network/Cookies.
• Add winreg search type to CleanerML variable, allow cleaning apps installed in a path defined by a registry key
  Install the Steam cleaner found at https://github.com/bleachbit/bleachbit/pull/1968 . Run a preview to verify it finds the files.
• Update Python 3.11.10 to 3.12.9 and GTK 3.24.43 to 3.24.51
  Check that the application starts and runs correctly.
• Add friendly message about switching profiles
  Log in to Windows with a standard user account. Run BleachBit. In the UAC dialog, enter username and password of user with admin privileges. (If it does not prompt you for a username, it is not a standard account.) This will switch to a another user. BleachBit should show a message about switching profiles.
• Add warning for Update Uninstaller option in the System cleaner
  Under the System cleaner, toggle the Update Uninstaller option. It should show a warning.
• Improve speed of overwriting files on Windows with administrator privileges
  On Windows, enable overwriting in the preferences. Delete some files, and verify there are no errors.
• Fix: do not follow directory junctions/symlinks in recycle bin
  Create a test folder with one or more test files. Create a symlink and directory junction pointing to the test folder. Create a directory junction or symlink and send them to the recycle bin. Preview the recycle bin. Verify the junction and symlink are listed, but the contents of the target directory are omitted.
• Clean LibreOffice version 4
  Clean LibreOffice 4 on Windows and verify it cleans registrymodifications.xcu.
• Speed up loading the application from the context menu in Windows Explorer
  Right-click on a file in Windows Explorer and use the context menu to shred it. Verify the application starts faster.
• Do not treat access denied error like locked by another process
  On Windows without admin privileges, try to delete a file owned by another user. Verify the error message states access denied.
• Fix deletion of read-only files on Windows
  Create a read-only file on Windows and verify it can be deleted.
• Fix themes on Windows
  On Windows, open the preferences and toggle the dark theme and Windows 10 theme checkboxes. Try different combinations. The requested theme should load immedietly. Restart the application with different combinations.

Linux/POSIX

• All .deb packages are now signed with the maintainer's GPG key.
  Verify with debsigs --verify filename.deb. Look for key ID A9E582E4054A159315EDC943D6D447B02B4D4C9D
• All .rpm packages are now signed with the maintainter's GPG key.
  Verify with rpm -qip --nosignature filename.rpm |grep Signature. Look key ID d6d447b02b4d4c9d
• Added .deb package for Ubuntu 25.10 and .rpm for Fedora 43
• Remove outdated code from memory cleaner
  Clean memory in Linux
• Fix: prevent exception when reading cleaner files with broken character encoding
• Improve error message for missing requests library
• Fix regex in pacman_cache()
  Clean pacman cache on a system with pacman package manager.
• Improve exception handling for yum/dnf
  Clean yum or dnf cache on a system with these package managers.
• Do not crash when xhost is not installed
  There will be no crash when xhost is not installed
• When wiping a partition, call fstrim if available
  Enable debug logging and wipe empty space. It will call fstrim, and there should be no error about fstrim. It happens at the beginning, so you can abort a moment after wiping starts.
• Fix .ini cleaning for KDE6 staterc file
  See 1902.
• Fix auto-hide for snap, pacman
  Check that the cleaners are hidden when the package managers are not installed.
• Support cleaning ungoogled Chromium installed by Flatpak
  Clean ungoogled Chromium (io.github.ungoogled_software.ungoogled_chromium) installed by Flatpak and verify it works correctly.
• Support cleaning Chromium (org.chromium.Chromium) installed by Flatpak
  Clean Chromium (org.chromium.Chromium) installed by Flatpak and verify it works correctly.
• Warn user about dark mode support
  Toggle dark mode on Linux and verify a warning is shown.
• Fix estimated completion time for non-root users
  As a non-root user, wipe free space and verify the completion time is reasonable.
• Clean recent documents on LibreOffice on Linux

Developers

• Improve compatibility with pytest
• Add hidden --no-delete-confirmation CLI argument
  Create a test file to delete. Run bleachbit --no-delete-confirmation --gui --shred /a/real/test/file and verify it does not ask for confirmation.

For more info, see also commit log, list of closed issues.

Downloads

See the downloads folder. Linux users can download .deb or .rpm packages, while Windows users can download a digitally signed installer or a portable package.

After testing

If something is broken, please file a bug report.